Smiling

 OK, so I recently finished a piece on Life’s ending—how when Life is over, it simply stops, with nothing following. That of course eliminated any floating around on clouds, or chatting it up with the Dude upstairs—you know the God Dude. Yeah, I concluded there likely is no God Dude, so really nothing follows life’s termination.

But then, it made me wonder. OK, so if nothing follows something, then why are we here? I mean, do we arrive here with some mission? But it seems obvious that if there is no God, who directed us to be here, then it is likely that we have no serious purpose.  Now, to be fair, even if you assume there is a God, then what are we to make of the fact that none of us has a clue to why God placed us here on Earth.  Now again, to be fair, even if there is a God Dude, it could well be that she did not “Place” us here on Earth. Maybe the Goddess simply set up the conditions for Life and then let it all happen naturally, without any serious purpose.

So then, the butterflies, the cockroaches, the tigers, the bumblebees, and we humans are just here cuz the conditions are right for us all to emerge and then survive. That some critters survive and prosper better than others (multiply in greater numbers) could just be an accident of random creation forces.

OK, so suppose that’s true—that no one placed us here “on purpose”. So what? Especially “so what” if we now assume that nothing follows something, which was the central point in my previous article on Life and Death. So what then?

Well maybe, even if there is no “then what”, we human dudes could interject something, whether God so intended or not. See, just because we exist at all, that simple fact causes me to ask whether it matters how we perform during this pointless stage we call life.  And I would say, Yes, it does matter how we carry out this thing we call Life.  I think it matters, because we can make life on Earth more pleasant, or less pleasant for both ourselves, and for the other critters who occupy this thing we call Life.

I think, for example, of Hitler. During his approximately 56 years on this planet, he managed to make life quite miserable for several million people.  Some he killed outright, but many others he managed to change their lives such that they suffered greatly. And then we might look at a doctor, or a nurse and see that, through their actions, many people’s lives are rendered happier. Or think of a teacher in a public school. Hundreds, thousands even, of children pass by those souls and are made somehow smarter, or at least more informed, better able to get through their own lives more successfully. Or think of a farmer who works daily so that we other humans can obtain life-sustaining substances (food) that allows us to lead happier lives.

And then think of the thousands of humans who live their lives by decrying others, or by making others feel less valued.  They exist by making believe they are more valuable than others. And we have whole human professions that seem to exist such that one group of humans can feel superior to another group of humans.

And yet, so far as we know, bumblebees, or butterflies do not exist so as to make other similar critters feel less valuable.

So, maybe our life lesson is that, while we are here, we should try to live our lives in such a way that we either enhance others’ lives in some way, or at the least act so as not to diminish others’ lives. Try to make others smile rather than cry.  Perhaps that should be our life purpose.  And act every day so as to increase the smiles of other humans. Our Daily Mission – Make Someone Smile Today.  Try it folks. You might even like it.

Oh, and then go out to vote when it’s your turn. And try to vote for humans likely to make the world a happier place in which to live.  Yeah, try for smiles folks.