But I don't think any of those is the answer. Not saying I have the answer, and what anybody else might say is wrong, but this is what seems right to me. The thing that is responsible for all that we have done, all we have created, all that we have discovered. Some of it good, some of it bad. Still, all came about because we strive.
That is our nature: to strive.
All of the things I listed above are things we subject to our strivings. We strive to know. We strive to understand. We strive to express ourselves. We strive to better ourselves. We strive to do what has not been done, because it has not been done.
Striving for a specific thing gives us purpose for the moment; and striving in general is what we do. We test ourselves, then look for the next test.
I've quoted these things before, except for the last one, from West Wing. But I've never offered them in this way; to ask for answers from the rest of you.
Jung:
Chris, from Northern Exposure:The meaning and purpose of a problem seem to lie not in its solution but in our working at it incessantly.
Trek quote #1 - Data and his daughter (he made a daughter in one episode):I've been out here now for some days, groping my way along, trying to realize my vision here. I started concentrating so hard on my vision that I lost sight. I've come to find out that it's not the vision. It's not the vision at all. It's the groping. It's the groping, it's the yearning, it's the moving forward. I was so fixated on that flying cow that, when Ed told me Monty Python already painted that picture, thought I was through. I had to let go of that cow so that I could see all the other possibilities....... I think Kierkegard said it oh so well: “The self is only that which it’s in the process of becoming.” Art? Same thing. James Joyce had something to say about it too: “Welcome oh life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience, and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscious of my race.” We’re here today to fling something that bubbled up from the collective unconsciousness of our community......... The thing I learned folks, this is absolutely key: It’s not the thing you fling, it’s the fling itself.
Trek quote #2 - Data and Dr. Crusher:Lal: I watch them, and I can do the things they do. But I will never feel the emotions. I’ll never know love.
Data: It is a limitation we must learn to accept, Lal.
Lal: Then why do you still try to emulate humans. What purpose does it serve, except to remind you that you are incomplete?
Data: I have asked myself that, many times, as I have struggled to be more human. Until I realized it is the struggle itself that is most important. We must strive to be more than we are, Lal. It does not matter that we will never reach our ultimate goal. The effort yields its own rewards.
West Wing:Data: What is the definition of life?
Crusher: That is a BIG question. Why do you ask?
Data: I am searching for a definition that will allow me to test an hypotheses.
Crusher: Well, the broadest scientific definition might be that life is what enables plants and animals to consume food, derive energy from it, grow, adapt themselves to their surrounding, and reproduce.
Data: And you suggest that anything that exhibits these characteristics is considered alive.
Crusher: In general, yes.
Data: What about fire?
Crusher: Fire?
Data: Yes. It consumes fuel to produce energy. It grows. It creates offspring. By your definition, is it alive?
Crusher: Fire is a chemical reaction. You could use the same argument for growing crystals. But, obviously, we don't consider them alive.
Data: And what about me? I do not grow. I do not reprodue. Yet I am considered to be alive.
Crusher: That's true. But you are unique.
Data: Hm. I wonder if that is so.
Crusher: Data, if I may ask, what exactly are you getting at?
Data: I am curious as to what transpired between the moment when I was nothing more than an assemblage of parts in Dr. Sung's laboratory and the next moment, when I became alive. What is it that endowed me with life?
Crusher: I remember Wesley asking me a similar question when he was little. And I tried desperately to give him an answer. But everything I said sounded inadequate. Then I realized that scientists and philosophers have been grappling with that question for centuries without coming to any conclusion.
Data: Are you saying the question cannot be answered?
Crusher: No. I think I'm saying that we struggle all our lives to answer it. That it's the struggle that is important. That's what helps us to define our place in the universe.
Sam: There are a lot of hungry people in the world, Mal, and none of them are hungry 'cause we went to the moon. None of them are colder and certainly none of them are dumber 'cause we went to the moon.
Mallory: And we went to the moon. Do we really have to go to Mars?
Sam: Yes.
Mallory: Why?
Sam: 'Cause it's next. 'Cause we came out of the cave, and we looked over the hill and we saw fire. And we crossed the ocean, and we pioneered the west, and we took to the sky. The history of man is hung on a timeline of exploration and this is what's next.
But the striving that wouldn't be diagnosed as some mental or emotional problem is what has driven all human activity. Exploration; advances in knowledge and technologies; creation of masterpiece of art, music, literature; etc.
