Evolution Is The Only Goal

Chase Ponti
Sep 3, 2018 · 2 min read

If singular goals are not the 🔑…
if having 💰 is not the 🔑…
if reaching a certain milestone is not the 🔑…
then the 🔑 to life must be evolution.

Whenever we attain something, we set our eyes on something else that is better than what we have just attained. If you won an Oscar, you’d want two Oscars. If you earn a million dollars a year, you want two million dollars a year. On and on the treadmill goes. We are motivated to get more than what we have, to achieve more. This is what gives us purpose. How many people’s purpose in life is to have less and to achieve less? Even if there are the rare few amongst us with such goals, it is because they are attempting to achieve more something else such as some form of spiritual growth.

Either way, the finish line is not the goal. It feels like the goals because we love the idea of having a goodie at the end of the road. We grew up doing hard things because we were promised goodies after the hard things were done. The issue with that line of thinking is that once you enter adulthood, there aren’t many goodies. The road goes from short bursts (junior high, high school, college, etc) to long hauls (years at a job, being in a long-term relationship, raising children). You will not get some sort of prize if you are able to keep your child alive until the age of 18.

The goal, therefore, is the race. We must model our thinking to match that of nature. In nature, the only goal is evolution. Evolution itself has no purpose besides “getting better at handling current problems”. The problems never stop. Climates change. New predators are always popping up while others fade away. But nature finds a way in that some species adapt and some do not. Those that adapt are more likely to survive while those that don’t are more likely to die. There are those amongst us that are adamant in our views, our beliefs, our likes, our dislikes, our tastes, our identities and so on. Those people will die. There are those amongst us that are constantly changing, that seem to contradict themselves constantly as they feel their way through life and situations. They will thrive.

Nature has no goal in mind, but it never stays still and it never only gets better. Many times nature gets worse, but you can guarantee that it will rebind and create something new, better, stronger.

Perfection itself is not real. Neither is nirvana or utopia. The only nirvana, the only utopia, the only perfection, is to keep on keeping on making changes, pushing harder, moving faster, testing out new ideas because reality will not conform to your wishes. You can have to tackle it as it bobs and weaves down the field of life, slipping through your fingers every time.

Chase Ponti

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Was born. Am living. Will die.