What's it all for?

I was standing outside in the wind this autumn morning when I looked down and saw a couple of fuzzy catterpillars scurrying near my feet. One of them was running at top speed, heading "who knows where" until he ran into a roadblock. Upon encountering this obstacle, he quickly turned 90 degrees to the right and resumed his sprint somewhere else...until he hit another roadblock and the experience was repeated. This fuzzy little creature was in a hurry to get somewhere but I'm not sure even he knew where that was. It seemed he was just gonna run until he got "there", wherever there is - probably thinking he would intuitively know when he was at the right place.

Recently I've felt a lot like that little catterpillar. Scurrying around somewhat directionless, running like I've got somewhere to go and no time to get there, but not really sure where it is that I'm going, nor how to know when I've actually arrived. Everything simultaneously seems to be of utmost importance and yet of no significance. I find it almost humorous to see the goals and dreams that each of us set, thinking that when we achieve those goals or dreams that somehow we will have found what we were looking for all along. But for many the dreams are ever elusive and for others who manage to achieve them, they seem to be nothing more than a big missed expectation.

Many have told me that I need to find my "life's purpose" and set about giving my time and energy to such a pursuit as that which fulfills that life purpose. So I find a few things that seem to align with it and pursue them. to some degree, there is life there. But today's life is tomorrow's heartache. Whether it's seeing others trample on and reject your prized "purpose" or whether it's a partial achievement of it with the full knowledge that the fullness of the achievement will never be realized, it all seems rather pointless.

Live life for the moment, I guess is what I come back to. I know there is no life in achievement, accumulation, or status. I know that even the wisest of men are thought fools by most of their contemporaries, so even the high pursuit of knowledge and truth is rather meaningless.

Yet it seems like there should be more of a point to it all. What, indeed, is it all for?

I don't know.

But I'll keep seeking, and try to find the motivation to play the games that other people demand be played. I'll try to respect all those scurrying catterpillars in my path for wherever they are going so quickly. I'll try to find a reason to keep caring even when people seem to reject the care that's offered. And maybe some day I'll find my answers. Or maybe, like the catterpillar, I'll eventually even stumble upon my "there" destination.

Or maybe not.