Why Are We Here?

Because I winter at a senior park, I find more friends there that have sickened over the summer months and can't leave home or else they've passed away. I know this is just a natural process because all of us are in our so called twilight years and closer to the ends of our lives but it still disturbs me to lose them.

My view on life is that we're here for a purpose and not by accident. It's as though we've been given a chance to do something right or to learn something important. I have a hard time making sense of those who die too young but I also wonder why we who reach our senior years have survived. I know for certain that I've become a better person as I've aged but there must be more to it than that.

There is good and bad and indifferent in all ages. People don't become saints just because they've lived a lot of years and it often seems that people are at their best when they're children.

It seems that one of the reasons we are here is to procreate. The maternal and paternal urge is very strong and seems to direct our lives in one way or another. Infertile couples go through hoops in order to become pregnant or else to adopt a child. It's the rare person who doesn't want to produce children.

Another basic drive is to be social and draw as many people as possible into your social circle. Again there are the few loners who buck that theory but they really are a small minority. Only a slight few will even turn away from their own family.

The older I get, the more I wonder what earthly purpose I have to still be here. I don't save lives and I'm not much of a volunteer in anything. Yes, there is still a lot of inferiority in my psyche and I'm often haunted by seeing more productive people pass on. Why them and not me?

When I travel down to Florida this winter, I'll find that a few more didn't make the trip either from illness or death. The ones that do make it will commiserate for a short while and then go on with our lives, drawing as much enjoyment as we can from the time we have left. I try not to dwell on how fleeting our time is.

I'm 70 and when I look back on my life it seems that a million years was packed into the 70. So much happened that it couldn't possibly have taken only 70 years, could it? Would I want to do it all again? No, I'm almost looking forward to the unknown at the end of life because I believe it will only be the end of my life on earth and not the end of me.

I hope there's someone waiting to greet me who can tell me why the heck I was here in the first place.