Why are we on earth?

Can purpose driven by human progress help us answer this question?

Jan 31, 2022

Hey,

I hope you’re okay. January has gone by in a flash and 2022 is well underway. I hope things are going on good for you. Each new day is an opportunity to reset and constantly work towards the life we envision.

Also an opportunity to fully experience life regardless of where you are on your journey. Stay Jiggy always.

PS - I’ve got some news for you at the end of this letter.

In case you can’t read the full letter, here’s a short summary:

Purpose is often thought of in ideological terms and from an individual perspective. A lot of people I know struggle to figure out their purpose the way it’s defined today.
All of the things we use and rely on as individuals and societies today were created by people who lived before us. All new things we create is based off knowledge of those who have come before us. Hence, one thing is constant: The progress of the human race.
There are over a thousand areas of life. By natural, cultural and societal selection, people will always be in all these different areas of life.
An alternative approach to purpose is to think about how we will contribute to different areas of life, in advancement of the human race.
No one person changes the world. Millions of people across thousands of years improve different areas of human life. Creating a better world for those who come after us might help shape ‘purpose’ differently.

What is your purpose?

An age-old question that has puzzled billions of humans that have lived and many more still breathing.

Most answers to this question are usually complicated and sometimes impractical. They say we should find our passion. Something we enjoy doing so that we can enjoy life doing it. Then we find a way to get paid for that or make money from it.

Nice idea but visualizing it is hard. There are many things that we enjoy doing and many of them can't give us a sustained livelihood.

In my early teenage years, I remember very vividly that I’ll spend some evenings, while sitting in my mother’s kitchen & parboiling fish, thinking about why humans were on earth. I would ask myself what our reason for existing is. Success? Family? Religion? Fulfilment? And to what end?

Everyone who has come has gone and those of us here today will be gone someday soon (except we discover the path to immortality).

So let’s assume that you find your purpose. Your purpose is to be an engineer. You enjoy calculations, designing plans, bringing project ideas to life, working with people etc. As an added benefit, you can potentially get paid well and live a good life.

At the end of that life, what’s the impact of all the things you did? How do you make sense of it? What role do you play in the grand scheme of things?

Let’s go down history lane.

About 125,000 years ago, early humans learnt how to control fire. They could bump rocks against each other to light small fires and use those small fires to create larger fires when needed. I can imagine this was inconvenient. Imagine living in this time as a forager. After your clan has lit fire and settled for tales by the moonlight, rain strikes and you have to spend the rest of the night in darkness till the grass gets dry.

Well, about 50,000 years later in 70,000 BC, humans discovered that a hollow rock, shell, or other natural found object when filled with moss or a similar material & soaked in animal fat could be ignited. Progress.

65,000 years later, the oil lamp was invented in 4,500 BC and in 3,000 BC, candles were invented. It wasn’t until ~ 4,800 years later that light was first created using electricity by Humphry Davy in the early 1800’s.

Thomas Edison and his engineers improved on the work of Humphry and all the scientists before him by creating the first stable lighting bulb that could last up to 40 hours in 1879. Many more people than would ever be remembered have played a role since then in advancing light bulbs to the LED lights we have today.

I’m sure that forager family in 125,000 BC wouldn’t have minded an electric light bulb if they could get one that rainy night.

What I’ll like to point out though is that the light bulb that you walk into a store to buy today is the product of the life work of millions of people who have lived on this earth for the past 125,000 years. They have come and gone but their contribution impacts human life in ways they could never have imagined.

This is true of all things that affect human life. Nothing is created anew. It leverages on what has been documented and created in previous times.

A lot of things distinguish humans from other species. Two of my favourite ones are:

Our ability to communicate and capacity to organize ourselves in groups of more than 150 individuals (we’re the only ones who can do this)
Ability to document and make progress based on what has been done in the past.

As mighty as the lion is in the jungle, it has no GPS to know where the antelopes are in real-time. It has no data about the best places in the jungle where the soil is best to run at prey.

Our ability to document and build on the progress of the people who have come before us is what makes our world better. Parents no longer have to lose 6 or 10 children because people figured out how to reduce infant mortality. We no longer have to rot and die of infections and wounds because people figured it out. We no longer have to trek to the stream to get water (most of us at least) because people figured it out.

One of the few things that is constant on this earth is human progress. Humans will continue to create solutions to the problems that plague us. New & Old.

It is easy to romanticise about the old times before social media and complain that social media has brought on mental issues and other problems. Or to complain about canned foods and how they’ve increased cancer. And so on.

The alternatives decades ago were not better. It’s easy to lose sight of that.

One thing is constant. Humans will figure out ways to solve the problems. New solutions for treating the increased mental issues will arise. We will figure out cancer (we’re doing so already). We would solve the problems that we face today and make life better for other humans living today or those to come in decades after us. Yes, new problems will arise but they’ll figure it out.

It sounds like an unending cycle and a lot of vanity but it’s the reality of the human race. While we have our religion to help us process our lives on earth mentally, none of us truly knows what will happen in the afterlife. We have diverse beliefs and opinions of this of course.

What we can comprehend however is the earth/our universe and the fact that as far as we can tell, humans have always been advancing the progress of our species.

My Theory: Purpose Driven by Human Progress

There are thousands of areas of life. Hundreds of industries, big and small. With billions of people spread across different cultures and geographies, there are always different people in different areas of life.

While some are more popular than others, all areas of life play an important life in the progress of the human race.

The person manufacturing construction nails. The diver who explores the ocean. The spoon & fork manufacturer and the people who work there. Everyone matters.

The universe works such that diversity is the nature of the day. People would always be interested in different areas of life. Some people like medicine. Others like entertainment. Others like manufacturing. Others like art. etc.

I believe that we’ll find a lot more meaning in life if we’re able to contribute to the advancement of human progress in the areas of life that we are attracted to.

Personally, I like the concept of enterprises and the way a group of people can come together to create value. I derive a lot of joy from helping entrepreneurs to grow their enterprises and create value.

Let's explore the difference between the normal ‘Traditional Purpose Mindset’ & “Purpose Driven by Human Progress"

In Scenario 1 (Traditional Purpose Mindset): My goal will be to do something that I like. Which in my case will be to support as many entrepreneurs as possible to build impactful enterprises. So the focus is to achieve the best I can in service of my individual purpose.
In Scenario 2 "Purpose Driven by Human Progress): I think about something I like/I’m attracted to and feel fulfilled doing. But my mindset changes. I’m not thinking about my individual self and ‘achieving my purpose’.
I think about the advancement of human progress in the field I’m in. What has been done in the past? What is the state of things today? In what ways can I improve this field for the present generation and future generations?

I believe that this perspective allows us to think about things differently and can help people make a better sense of their purpose. We are doing things to improve lives for the collective. The beauty when we select things we are attracted to and find fulfilment in is that we enjoy life in the process as well.

Another challenge I have with the current description of purpose is that it connotes that we can only find one purpose or achieve purpose in only one area of life. So like people search for their soulmates, we search for the elusive PURPOSE.

When viewed through the lens of human based progress, we can contribute in more than one area. I like philosophy and psychology. While my day job allows me to achieve my entrepreneurship advancement purpose, my writings allow me to advance philosophy & psychology.

I very much hope I can contribute as much as possible to the areas of life that I get attracted to.

A potential challenge/question that people will pose to this world view is that “How do we gauge our contribution” “Doesn’t this put unnecessary pressure on people to make drastic advancements” and more.

Whether we like it or not, we would all contribute in different measures to the progress of the human race and that is fine.

Yes, Bill Gates created Microsoft and changed personal computing. But trust me, he didn’t do it alone. The engineers, marketers, operations experts, human resources folks and many more experts that worked with Gates when he was at Microsoft and beyond played their own part. In fact, Gates built on work of thousands of people who had lived years before he knew what a computer was.

We would all not have the impact Elon Musk is making with electric vehicles & space technology. But the same thing applies. Millions of people contribute to that advancement today. And all of them are building on the work of those who have come before them.

We would all contribute to this advancement on a different scale. Whatever extent to which you contribute is okay. Your action matters no matter how inconsequential it might seem.

I would only say to strive to go as far as you can while living a balanced life.

Are you working in an area of life you’re attracted to? Can you visualize how the work you’re doing is building on the work of those who came before you? In what ways can you continue that work and keep the wheel of human progress running?

If you figure this out. Across as many areas of life as you can manage at different points in time of your life (while making a decent living). If you figure it out, you’ll be achieving your human progress based purpose.

It took us 65,000 years to go from creating fire in a rock filled with moss to creating the oil lamp. It took us almost another 5,000 years to get the electric bulb.

I can only imagine if those timelines would have been shorter had more people focused on advancing the progress of the human race. How many more children would have lived? How many more people would have had more time to do productive things? How many more people would have been able to watch Spiderman?

Perhaps thinking about purpose differently can help.

In the spirit of advancing human progress. I’ve observed that we Africans don’t travel and explore enough beyond tourist visits. We know so little about the world we live in and the people that live in it.

I start my digital nomad journey today. I gave out all my stuff and packed one suitcase and a duffel bag with all my remaining belongings.

I’ll try to spend at least the next year visiting different African cities starting with Ghana. I hope to explore the universe. Learn more about the beauty of the world. Immerse myself in different cultures. Meet the humans of the world. Experience life.

I’ll try to document this journey as much as my shy self can. Maybe this’ll be one of my own ways of contributing to the advancement of human progress. Life is meant to be lived. Let’s live it.

Musings in My Head [MIMH]

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