Some of you reading this probably know the Hindu parable about several blind men who had never encountered an elephant. They were brought into a place where there was an elephant and were asked to describe it. One came up to the elephant’s side, felt it, and said, “The elephant is just like a wall.” The next came to the trunk and said, “No, the elephant is like a very large snake.” The third blind man approached the tusk and, upon running his hands up and down the tusk, said, “You’re both wrong; the elephant is exactly like a spear.” The fourth approached the elephant and happened to reach out to its ear and said, “The elephant is like a palm leaf. I know that for certain because I’ve felt palm leaves, and this is the same.” Finally, the last blind man approached the elephant and wrapped his arms around one of the elephant’s legs. He turned around and said, “You are all completely wrong. There is no doubt that an elephant is like a tree trunk.”

Then the fun begins. Each started shouting at the others, calling out that they were all fools or worse than fools. Then they commenced to beat each other with their canes. Afterwards, they never forgot how absurd the fantasies of the others were, as they continued to believe they were certainly right for as long as they lived.

Just so, when asked what people are for, a Christian will say they are created to love and serve God, to live in accordance with His will, and to seek eternal salvation. A Muslim will answer by saying that a person is here to worship Allah and lead a life that leads to Paradise. A Native American might say that our purpose is to live in harmony with nature and to live guided by the wisdom of our ancestors. An evolutionist would say we are born to participate in the continuation of our species through survival and reproduction, while a humanist might respond by saying we are here to seek fulfillment and meaning while contributing to the well-being of others.

And then the fun begins. The Christians and Muslims begin to fight and murder each other, the Native Americans are nearly exterminated by everyone else, and the scientists, possessing only brains, willfully create technologies to assist in the destruction of the Earth and its inhabitants. What a mess we’ve made.

Perhaps these views are all only partial truths, and just like the blind men and the elephant, we are blind to the complete truth of why we exist. One might say, “Yes, of course, isn’t the right answer all of the above?” But that’s not quite correct, is it? If you define an elephant as a wall, a tree trunk, a snake, a spear, and a leaf, that is not an elephant; that’s a hodgepodge.

What we can know is that the hubris of claiming we have the answer to the question of why humans exist has dogged our existence for thousands of years. And yet, one wishes to know. It is an unanswerable question, at least at our level, but I am a better person for continuing to ask it. I am more aware, more thoughtful of my roles and responsibilities.

How to proceed? There is a place inside oneself, quite still. It is a place within that is free of thought but so very lucid and aware. I can hold the question of why I exist when I am there. To learn to love the question, to care about the question, and to accept that I will never have all the answers to the question. And perhaps a new kind of knowledge about who I am and why I’m here might slowly emerge. But the question still remains. How wonderful.

NOTE: The title of this piece, What Are People For, is also the title of a book by one of the wisest men of our time, Wendell Berry. Now ninety years old, Berry is a modern-day Jeremiah, his writing calling out our many failings from the point of view of an agrarian philosopher. He is a good man to get to know—sometimes exasperating—but his words always inspire a second look at all we take for granted.

Comments are welcome