Our lives mostly consist of a list of desires. These desires in themselves are neutral; it's the narratives and meanings we attach to them that give them significance. The stories we construct around our desires shape how we pursue and interpret them.
The view from the top of the mountain is spectacular, but more than that, the feeling of getting there and the meaning it brings is what excites us.
The more narratives we form, the more pursuits we have, and the more our desires are ignited by our narratives. The narratives help because they soothe the harsh reality of existence.
You don't really want to become the next big thing if we're all here just to die. So what makes that a little bearable? Your stories. You need to become somebody because of this, that, nothing, whatever, or just because.
Whatever you think, you're right. If there's no reason for your toil, you're also right. Whatever you tell yourself is what fuels your desires and direction. We're all just storytellers. If we lose our stories, we lose our essence, and we become empty beings.
When we actualize one of our narratives, we write another and go on to the next hunt.
We will try to give our lives the most of our wants. But the truth is, as long as we live, our desires remain insatiable. The desire to arrive will keep growing. It won't be all jolly and roses, because with insatiable desires come misery, especially when the means to satisfy them are limited.
We begin to compare ourselves with those whom we believe have it all covered—the ones who have arrived—and we're met with more misery. Comparison isn't the thief of joy. I'll say it's the killer of joy.
If we lose our stories, we lose our essence, and we become empty beings.
There comes a time, too, in the middle of our pursuits, when it strikes us. That halting reality of the futility of our existence resurfaces in our consciousness, and we ask this one existential question, “What’s the point, really?”
This is when the realization that we will never arrive hits us. It's been a journey; there's no end, and death is that arrival in the ironic sense of it.
It dawns on us, “This is it. This is my life, and I'm living it as it's happening. There's no destination until it ends. It is a journey. It's a play of stories. It's a dance of desires. We're here to dance and go. This is it.”
It's terrifying the first time this realization hits, because you think, “Well, if this is it, then I'm doomed.” It brings another kind of misery. How you handle that misery depends on how deeply attached you are to your stories. Some people get further motivated. They find strength in their stories and would rather strive harder to see them come true. While others would see no point whatsoever and indeed feel doomed by the futility of every pursuit.
It isn't that they have lost hope or on the verge of giving up. No. It is only that the truth of life is all too glaring; it has blurred their narratives. Such situations are quite common in times of distress.
However, as terrifying as that realization is, it is somewhat freeing because you can also think, “Well, if this is it, then let's make the best of it.” You begin to create stories to answer that existential question for you.
That story gives you a meaning.
There's little that is particularly special about our desires; we give them life through the narratives we form around them. The moment it strikes us that we may never be or get everything we desire, that there's no arrival or destination but death, and that our lives are indeed happening whether we are ready or not, two things occur: we feel doomed or we feel free.
If we're here to pass, then there's no point.
The point, then, is the journey. The point is in our stories (reasons) for our toils, relationships, beliefs, and everything. Your story simply tells you the point of your being.
Because. This. Is. It.
It's a play of stories. It's a dance of desires. We're here to dance and go. This is it.