To endeavor to look everywhere, at all possibility, is to look nowhere. Therefore I cannot pick a direction, I must first imagine or learn or be set upon a direction then personally define said direction and then convince myself that I chose it from limitless possibilities. This is Purpose as argued from the false premise that my choices are limitless or (at least) vast.
After six-plus decades, I have found that the truth is - I am wandering, at the mercy of everywhere and nowhere, and everything and nothing. Course adjustments are once again my imagination redefining and justifying a new no-direction after the fact. So essentially either I have no purpose or (at the very least) my purpose (as purpose) is so watered down by reality it is virtually meaningless.
Does this, (should this), invoke despair? And if so, a quiet despair? Or one that is loud and defiant? Or one that is submissive? In me, it does - I don't know if it should, but it definitely does; a despair that is mostly quietly defiant. My despair is my own. I work to share my defiance, (sometimes anger), by occasionally flinging it at those who are blissfully ignorant of their own despair; those who are drowning in their own certainty and comfort. I've not figured out how to break through their fortifications but unless I am able to get through to all of them at once, my defiance and anger is irrelevant - to everyone but me. As time goes by, I find I am leaning more and more heavily on my own quiet despair - and my imagination. To realize that wherewithal (i.e. capacity, competence, intelligence, skill, strength, talent, understanding), is in actuality imagination (I am finding) does not necessarily discourage my effort but has instead added a degree of whimsical curiosity and thus meaning to how and where I might go on this ebb and flow of everywhere / nowhere / everything / nothing.
Even if wherewithal is imagination and purpose is delusion, I believe by accepting these realities I can still find a path on which my capacity, competence, intelligence, skill, strength, talent, and understanding might make a difference and perhaps on occasion actually do some Good. Furthermore, on this path, in my given direction, knowing that accomplishments and failures are largely interpreted and defined by delusion and imagination frees me to move on more quickly, expending less effort on glory and/or regret; my unencumbered effort has become my purpose, not as the reason for my existence - merely as personally inspirational meaning.
