Friday, July 11, 2008

behoovedness, cloven

People do the stuff they have to do. If the stuff they have to do does not occupy all of their time, they do stuff they want to do. If either the stuff they have to do or the stuff they want to do produces a result that turns out to be especially popular with or helpful to other people, then--one could argue--that they have found purposes in life.

The problem with assuming that people have purposes though, is that there is a much larger subset of humans whose activities prove neither particularly popular nor useful in any notable way.

So, you have to posit that either only a small subset of humans have a purpose (and the others do not,) or that no one does, but the smaller subset have just happened upon fortuitous occupations.

Actually, I suppose you could contend that many among those whom I’ve deemed “purposeless,” do indeed have one--it’s just smaller and quieter. Not notably popular, but possibly helpful.

I don’t know which of those is the case, if either. No purposes at all, in particular, or merely unflashy, under-the-radar purposes for most. I lean toward the former, but in case the latter is true, and one is to be assigned a purpose later in life, it would behoove one to exercise the mind and body so as to be fit to take it on. It would behoove one to exercise the mind and body even if no purpose will be assigned, also.

And that will have to do for a philosophy.

(The amazing thing is that there is a noun, singular, form of behoove that looks like this: behoof...meaning benefit or use. That's a pretty good word which appears to have nothing to do with feet.)

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