Purpose and machine guns
Terrorism, black markets, slave trade, human trafficking… what? Why why why. I am reading a fictional assassin /CIA type book and it struck me – why are we living in this reality where there are terrorist groups pocketed all over the world, where children are stolen and forced into the sex-industry, where… everything that happens happens.
I think I may know a part of the answer. I think it is called purpose, or lack thereof. The human being is designed to have purpose, without which we stop functioning so well. Unfortunately there is not much more purpose to be had in our current lives.
We do not need to hunt, to find shelter, to develop tools that will enable us to do this better. In fact there is pretty much nothing else for us to strive for… unless we want to but that is a different thing. We have evolved past the base purpose of survival and now we are kind of just going through the motions. But that does not mean that our very beings are not still crying out to be on purpose.
Enter the terrorist, the extremist, the fanatical, the people with an unshakable purpose. The morals or reasoning behind that said purpose does not matter at all, the point is that they have one. They wake up in the morning and do not have to battle western worries or waste time on decision making. They have one purpose, one goal and their entire beings are tuned into acheiving it. Sorry to say it but that is pure human power at its best.
And what are we fighting them with? With a group of people who have no purpose, who spend time purchasing items that drain their spirit, identity and purse. A group of people who have no real purpose except following the tried and tested path of:
Study hard; find partner; get job; work hard; try for raise; start family; have a braai; buy new car; try hard not to focus on the emptiness inside; take a risk and change jobs; retire.
You know what it is like to look forward to an event, you are energised and can’t wait to wake up to get going and do it! Those are fleeting moments in our lives – but terrorists feel this a lot more often, of course they are successful.
If we want to change the world and stop this extreme violence we should not look to taking away their guns or putting them in jail, we should look to ourselves and how our societies can become on purpose again.
