Central Purpose - practical advice on choosing one.

[Nerian]

I know there are other threads on this, but I wanted to create my own.

I just listened to Tara Smith's lecture on the value of purpose, and I was convinced that I really need to choose one. I think it's something deep I am missing and a part of the reason for a lot of my discontent.

But I'm having trouble. She didn't give any real practical advice on how to find them. Ayn Rand apparently said to think of the 'most important thing' to you and then it will naturally present itself. This confused me though. I don't have any idea what I think is the most important thing. Even things I do like, I can't justify why I like them.

Does anyone have any practical advice on what to consider and what to relfect on, what to ask myself, and what to look into in order to choose a central purpose.

Can anyone give me examples of 'proper' central purposes. They are suppose to be a doing thing. In other threads, people have misunderstood the meaning. It's central productive purpose that I'm inquiring about, the specifics of what you want to do productively. Not moral purpose. Many things are not 'productive', like learning, reading, watching videos, partying, sex, etc. Even though these are still valuable in life, they are not 'creating' value in the productive sense. At least, this is what Tara Smith explains, and it makes sense to me.

[Brant Gaede]

Read James Altucher. You seem to be addressing a problem that was created by you by reading one perspective.

Pretend you're an axiom--that is you is just you. There is no room for a "central purpose" therein except to build a life. You build yourself. You see, this is just another example of letting a philosophy lead you around by the nose. You won't find this existential central purpose to make your own, you'll just find an authority that isn't you. Or, your life is your central purpose. One might think a Howard Roark is the template for what I've just said. The problem is mixing up architecture with his type of character, a problem with Randian heroes. You'll discover your central purpose in the rear-view mirror. None of them did. Such is the nature of fiction--and the problem. Nathaniel Branden's advice on how to behave on a date--and I guess around the opposite sex generally--was, "Just be friendly." Well, just be friendly with yourself, too.

Watch out for "justify." You can hang yourself with "justify"--like by doing nothing or insisting on the impossibility of perfect knowledge before doing anything. Critical thinking is a sub-category of justification. Critical thinking is what one needs.

--Brant

[Guyau]

Nerian, you may realize this, but just to be sure, the productiveness of a fulfilling central purpose does not need to be commercial productiveness. A pioneer building a cabin and providing for his family from the land, woods, and stream, but with no trade, has a central productive purpose. Another non-commercial case would be were you to become a stay-at-home-dad raising the children and being a homemaker. That could be a central productive purpose, even though not overtly commercial.

Certainly a commercial career (including possible work in a charitable organization) is a big part of many people’s central purpose (before retirement). It is part and parcel of their purpose of providing for their life in the historical social context into which they were born. In the case of the fictional character Howard Roark, we are shown a guy struggling about eighteen years to reach a point in which how he makes a living coincides with what he likes to do, what he likes to make. By the way, he doesn’t worry about justifying the particular, productive like-to-do that is his. Sweep that sort of distracting junk-justification stuff aside, and get with observing what you like to do, what you’re good at doing, what there is a market for, and what is the competition (serious concern if what you’d like to become is a concert pianist). No finding what one likes to produce, without some trials at doing, pretty sure.

For most people I’ve known, their commercial work was an important implementation of their central purpose of providing a living for themselves and family. But it was not all that went into central productive purpose nor all that went into what we call “making a life for oneself.” Other productive projects went into that besides commercial work. Projects such as writing fiction or poetry or philosophy. Projects such as building their own home, making their grounds ever more beautiful, and so forth. I mean sustained, year-after-year producing projects. Central productive purpose in our advanced economy need not consist solely, as for the pioneer-family situation, in the material scrapping a living. (I’m not putting down that sort of life in its historical context; it is every bit as noble as making a scientific discovery or becoming an MD; after my first college degree, in physics, I worked at a fast-food place, as bus boy at a restaurant, in grounds maintenance, as unskilled laborer at a printing firm, and so forth for seven years; not putting down such doings in our modern context either.) Today, usually, a hybrid of commercial work and personal projects form the central organizing purpose implementing the purpose of making for life of oneself (and loved ones) and “making a life for oneself.”

One caveat. You said something Tara Smith said makes sense to you. Yes, your sense is important to you, and that makes sense to me. Although I gather the following is a pretty remote possibility for you, I just want to add: don’t hang on to Ayn Rand’s propositions about need of a central organizing productive purpose for a fulfilling, happy life, if you end up accumulating evidence that it is not necessary after all. I mention that because a lot of my own psychology was like Rand as displayed in her characters. My little circle of friends reading Rand’s fiction for the first time simply recognized ourselves in her characters’ psychology. But I wouldn’t want to be overly sure that everyone’s psychology is like ours, even in these fairly broad ways concerning productive purpose. Philosophic thinking on what is the psychology of Human Being should be open to new information on what obtains in variety of particular persons (and no moral failing presumed).

Stephen

[Jules Troy]

Some one once said there are two important days in your life.

The day you were born, and the day you discover why.

For myself? I just recently discovered a passion for wildlife photography. Can I make a commercial venture? Possibly but it is not my motivation for doing it. It is one of those things that if I never made a dime at AND I no longer had to work I would be doing it from sun up until Sunday every day!

[Brant Gaede]

Some one once said there are two important days in your life.

The day you were born, and the day you discover why.

For myself? I just recently discovered a passion for wildlife photography. Can I make a commercial venture? Possibly but it is not my motivation for doing it. It is one of those things that if I never made a dime at AND I no longer had to work I would be doing it from sun up until Sunday every day!

For birds, SE Arizona beats everything but the Amazon.

--Brant

[Jules Troy]

Some one once said there are two important days in your life.

The day you were born, and the day you discover why.

For myself? I just recently discovered a passion for wildlife photography. Can I make a commercial venture? Possibly but it is not my motivation for doing it. It is one of those things that if I never made a dime at AND I no longer had to work I would be doing it from sun up until Sunday every day!

For birds, SE Arizona beats everything but the Amazon.

--Brant

[Jules Troy]

I knowwwwwwwwwwww!!!!

Well Costa Rica is also a birding hotspot.

Israel for winter migrations.

Finland for winter Snowy Owls, Northern hawk Owls as well as Golden eagles at feeding stations.

Japan- Sea eagles.

Oh ya, were I am, one of the few places in Canada where Gyrfalcons return every winter to eat pigeons. An unlikely spot but it is the Edmonton Grain terminal where 800-1000 rock pigeons are all the time.

[Backlighting]

I see hawks hovering over the mountains & searching for prey across from where I live, daily.

I enjoy their aerial ballet.

But by the time I get my camera up & ready to go they're gone.

-J

[Jules Troy]

I sat in one spot for 11 hours to get my Osprey shots. He came over a few times to tease me but never saw anything in the water so didn't come close. At the end of the day thouggghhh he came back and man did it pay off for me baking in the sun all day.

I am waiting like a kid counting "18 more sleeps until Christmas"!

I ordered this in Dec. it is supposed to arrive first week of Feb.

http://www.mcbaincamera.com/productdetail.php?mcbain_id=0241429

[Brant Gaede]

I sat in one spot for 11 hours to get my Osprey shots. He came over a few times to tease me but never saw anything in the water so didn't come close. At the end of the day thouggghhh he came back and man did it pay off for me baking in the sun all day.

I am waiting like a kid counting "18 more sleeps until Christmas"!

I ordered this in Dec. it is supposed to arrive first week of Feb.

http://www.mcbaincamera.com/productdetail.php?mcbain_id=0241429

Patience is necessary for this kind of work. Ansel Adams would wait all day for his shot. Ironically, one of his best* if not the best took only five minutes. He saw it in his car mirror and slammed on the brakes. The only reason my brother doesn't quite match up with Adams is his inherent lack of patience. He still did a lot of great b and w landscapes, published.

--Brant

*Moonrise Hernandez NM

[Jules Troy]

Irony, I learned patience from my days as a bow hunter. (And rifle but bow hunting is the ultimate in patience and woodcraft)

[Backlighting]

I have the "hurry sickness"...very little, if any, patience. Everything needs to be done yesterday.

-J

[Jules Troy]

I have the "hurry sickness"...very little, if any, patience. Everything needs to be done yesterday.

-J

[Jules Troy]

Yes, I'm like that with every day tasks/work.

[Nerian]

I 'need' to choose one in the same way that I 'need' to eat. It's not an imposed burden.

[dldelancey]

For me it isn't possible to choose just one central purpose beyond "live happily." That's vague enough to be practically meaningless to anyone but me, and it is totally dependent on my own definition of "happy." So that's my first step - to define what that means to me, and honestly, that has changed over the years. A lot. Thus, the second step is to embrace change, or failing that to at least accept it (gracefully or not), and to adjust appropriately as I go. All the rest is goal setting and working towards them. Some of my goals are very concrete, and I have tasks to achieve to accomplish them. Others are more general. Ultimately, though, when I'm at my best, I'm always working towards living happily, even when all I'm doing is trying to figure out what "happy" means.