I find it interesting that, when we ask the question, "Why are we here?" we are really asking something so much more personal. It is something that has been asked through the ages: what is our purpose, and what brought us here? But I think that, underlying the generality, the heart of the question asks, "Why am I here?"
In my study of religion, I have been struck with the idea that, in the tradition of the western monotheist religions which have influenced our understanding of western society, there appears to be a promise that we are part of some great plot. We are allowed to take part in the vast adventure of the cosmos, which has a definite beginning and end. It seems that we inherently want to be a part of something greater than ourselves: humanity, the world, the universe, creation as it were. We also seem to suffer a loss of hope and faith in our own reality when we are unable to plug ourselves into the story and follow its path.
This realization suddenly became clear while I was sitting in a movie theater, watching with passive contentment as the protagonist fought his way through the muck and mire of the plot toward the goal set before him. He didn't ask to be in his position, he didn't wish it, and yet, there he was, with his cohorts at his right and left, struggling to the finish in the world that the film had created. As I watched, detached from the reality of the buses, people, and responsibilities that awaited me on the outside of the theater door, I came to understand the purpose story and myth. It gives us meaning.
I'm not referring to "meaning" in the general sense that an anthropologist offers it: the belief in God, creation by the Creator out of love; rather, that which validates that we need to be here. In Judaic, Christian, and Islamic beliefs, it appears as though a character role and the plot are set before us, made by the Creator. We have been raised to understand that because of the beginning and because of the inevitable end, there must be a rising action, a climax and a resolution. By merely living, we are characters in the grand scheme promised, and it is that lack of purpose in the whole that brings about the depression and loss of importance, the apathy that drains the meaning of, and form from our existence.
For most of us, we wake up, crack our eyes at the light beamed through the split window blinds, and sigh as cyclical time continues. There is no linear progression, just a cyclical recurrence as we understand time, in and out, over and over again until we die. It is really only the small distractions that seem to make life bearable: the forgettable drunk night, when, for a moment, a chemical reaction heightens our passions to engage with another human being in hopes that this climax will result in a satisfactory end. Perhaps even a marathon of our favorite TV show that once again shuts the door of the world briefly so we can live in another.
If Aristotle's and Aquinas' cosmological arguments are true, then an outside cause which effected the creation of this universe put into play something of significance. In the Hebrew Bible, the roles were given to play parts in an eternal story greater than themselves: Abraham leaving Ur was promised that the story would continue with his progeny; Moses, that his people needed to be freed from the antagonist; Gideon, the unlikely hero, pressed by a theophany to push the enemy from his land; David, to unite a nation. In the New Testament, Paul was to prepare for the end, and in the Qur'an, Muhammad, was to correct the corruption and save the world from damnation.
And in this plot there are also the code heroes, the martyrs who die by their own choice for the greater good of the plot, the hero archetypes who, by classical Greek method, leave their homes to venture forth to the underworld and do battle with the enemy at the gate. There are the oracles that give insight into the future and what must be done to preserve it, and, of course, the great evil, the Babylonians and Crusaders at the door to destroy a sacred way of life.
Yet I feel that as we read these, as these ideas in western thought become a part of our consciousness, we begin to feel disillusioned with the reality we have come to know: the bills, the morning traffic, job security in our cubicle, the normality of apathy toward anything more than what is outside of the sphere of the freeway stretch we drive every morning and night. The same stores we shop at for food, the same coffee shops where we get our coffee, the same side of the bed we sleep on offer only tedium, not meaning.
Certainly this has all been considered within the understanding of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. One certainly does not care about one's role while sitting cold in the rain, or clenching one's stomach from hunger. But it is something to wonder about: when all physical need is met, when we are warm, when we are no longer hungry, what next? I think there is a plot, and that it calls to us. I don't mean to say that it must adhere to religious norms. At the mention of certain world traditions, a bias may arise, so that one feels, "This no longer applies to me." I mean it in the universal sense. Though the question of why humanity is here is a global one, I believe it always alludes to what our own personal microverse means in relation to the rest of the cosmos. I believe there is an answer, and, although it is sometimes hard to find, the essential search must be to discover one's own story, one's own role, one's own purpose.
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