Why do you exist?

     I am totally amazed that very shortly after composing my last blog, I came to this in the book that I am reading:
In 1908, a Harvard philosopher names Josiah Royce wrote a book with the title The Philosophy of Loyalty. Royce was.....concerned with a puzzle that is fundamental to anyone contemplating his or her mortality. Royce wanted to understand why simply existing- why being merely housed and fed and safe and alive- seems empty and meaningless to us. What more is it that we need in order to feel that life is worthwhile?
     The answer, he believed, is that we all seek a cause beyond ourselves. This was, to him, an intrinsic human need. The cause could be large (family, country, principle) or small (a building project, the care of a pet). The important thing was that, in ascribing value to the cause and seeing it as worth making sacrifices for, we give our lives meaning.
     Royce called this dedication to a cause beyond oneself loyalty. He regarded it as the opposite of individualism. The individualist puts self-interest first, seeing his own pain, pleasure, and existence as his greatest concern. For an individualist, loyalty to causes that have nothing to do with self-interest is strange. When such loyalty encourages self-sacrifice, it can even be alarming- a mistaken and irrational tendency that leaves people open to the exploitation of tyrants. Nothing could matter more than self-interest, and because when you die you are gone, self-sacrifice makes no sense.
     Royce had no sympathy for the individualist view. "The selfish we had always with us," he wrote. "But the divine right to selfishness was never more ingeniously defended." In fact, he argues, human beings need loyalty. It does not necessarily produce happiness, and can even be painful, but we all require devotion to something more than ourselves for our lives to be endurable. Without it, we have only our desires to guide us. and they are fleeting, capricious, and insatiable. They provide, ultimately, only torment.....
     The only way death is not meaningless is to see yourself as part of something greater: a family, a community, a society. If you don't, mortality is only a horror.
     This book is Being Mortal written by a doctor, Atul Gawande. The subtitle is "Illness, Medicine, and What Matters in the End". A friend recommended it to me and I would wholeheartedly recommend it to others. It's mostly about considering the end of your life, whenever and however that may occur. But in the process, it also opens up the question of how to spend whatever part of life you are in right now. We have all heard quotes about living life to the fullest living as if you only had 5 minutes/ 5 months/ or whatever short time remaining. The bottom line is, why are you living at all? What is your purpose? Will it matter when you die? To whom will and matter and why?
     There are people who light up a room when they enter and there are people who light up a room by leaving. I hope I cause even just a little joy by my presence and I certainly hope I am never a cause for celebration when I leave.