Human Purpose Is Inextricably Tied to Modernity
The modern world can seem antagonistic to forming a strong sense of purpose. In addition to traditional stressors, such as poverty and loneliness, the modern world plagues us with entirely new sources of anxiety: perpetual connectivity, social media addiction, the need to multitask, the threat of identity theft, etc. Given this new anxiety-ridden world, it’s no wonder finding a sense of purpose can seem like a lost cause.
It’s easy to imagine a simpler time, when life wasn’t so antithetical to purpose-making. Can’t we go back to the good old days when we could work more with our hands, spend more time with family, and for God’s sake never have to stare for hours on end at screens? Couldn’t we then more easily achieve a strong sense of purpose?
In reality, a great many of us have the ability — technically speaking — to return to a simple life. If you have a middle-class life right now in America, you can always purchase a plot of land in the middle of nowhere for dirt cheap, build a cabin, start a garden, fish and hunt, wake up with the sunrise, and go to bed with the sunset. So, if meaning and purpose are found in that life, why don’t more of us go for it?
The obvious answer to this question is perhaps hard to admit: our sense of purpose is fundamentally entangled with the modern way of life. So long as you live…
