Life's Purpose

“I just don't know if I want to know it, you know?”

I say this to my best friend, Mike, as we sit in this coffee shop.  We met a J.J.'s Cafe once a week, every week for years now.  We didn't always have time to hang out otherwise, but we always made a point to meet up for a cup of Joe for an hour.  With school consuming most of our lives, we both didn't seem to get out much anymore, so this was a sure way to get out of our (parent's) houses on a regular basis.

“Why wouldn't you want to know what your life's purpose is?”

Mike takes the lid off his tea to pour in some sugar.  He always preferred that over honey, rationalizing it by saying sugar enhanced the flavour of the tea itself.  I never argued this point, mostly because I don't really care too much.  He stirs it and takes a deep breath in, pausing with a look of satisfaction on his face.  I take a sip of my black coffee, holding it in my mouth for a brief moment, allowing the flavour to stay on my tongue, the bitterness snapping me out of my daze.

“Isn't the point of it all that we don't know what our purpose is?”

“Yea, but wouldn't life be exponentially easier if we knew what we were supposed to do?  As individuals, or as a species?”

This was the talk of the town in the last few weeks.  In fact, it was all anyone was talking about in the entire world.  People were always trying to find their purpose in life.  Why wouldn't they?  Finding it and completing it meant that you could move on to better things.

But isn't life all about accidentally stumbling into your purpose?

That was the case until Why came out.

Why was an app that appeared in every app store close to a month ago.  If you didn't frequently check your chosen OS's store, then the wave of adds got you.  They were everywhere.  Plastered in posts on social media and in between levels in games.  Everyone knew about it, whether they wanted to or not.

I have to admit, the aggressiveness was successful.

“But that's cheating, isn't it?  It's like looking up how to beat the final boss of a game or reading the last chapter of a book.  I don't know Mike, it doesn't sound appealing to me.”

“Come on Steve, you sound like my parents.”

I can't help but to laugh at this.

“Dude, your parents are doctors!  I am honoured to be compared to them.”

He shakes his head  and sticks his pinky into his tea.  He quickly removes it with a slight grunt of pain.  Too hot to drink it seems.  I take a gulp of my coffee, mulling over the ultimate question.

Why?

The app was simple enough.  It asks you to put in all of your information, and I mean all.  Sure, it asks for the standard stuff; name, email, phone number, and address.  But it also goes into personal detail.  Favourite subject in school, favourite food, what genres of music you like, etc.

“Just admit it man, you would be all over this if people weren't shoving it down your throat.”

Mike might have been on to something there.  That was the case at first.  Any one who knows me knows that the more people talked up a new app or fad, the less likely I was to join in.  Hell, it took me till 2010 to join Facebook.

But that wasn't the only thing.  The app seemed intrusive to me, and that scared me more than anything.  It asked for your blood type, eye colour, and number of bones broken.  Hell, it even asked what your sexual orientation was and when the last time you got laid.

“Normally, you would be right, but it just seems.... eerie to me.  It doesn't seem right.”

“But what if you are destined to do something great?  Remember Carlos from Programming class?  I heard that he found out his purpose was to save a child from drowning.  He has been hanging out by the Main Street Bridge for the last two weeks fishing people out of the water.  He hasn't saves the kid, but he has pulled over a dozen people out of the water.  He is literally a hero.”

I think back to the funny guy from that class.  He always was 'smart talking' the teacher, but he was one of the best coders in that class.  He helped me out more times than I can count.  I heard about his purpose, but I also knew that he basically dropped out of University to save all of those people.

He was a hero, I wouldn't dispute that, but it seemed like his future was thrown away to be an unofficial lifeguard.

“That is great that he is saving lives.  It's a great purpose for him.. But what about Donna Jones, remember her?”

“Yea, as much as I could.  We never really hung out.”

“She found out her purpose was to find where the Fireplace video loops.  The one that goes for ten or twelve hours.  She locked herself in her room for days and watched the video on repeat, just to find where the loop was.  And you know what, she did it.  That was her purpose and that is what she will be forever remembered for.  Now how does that sound?”

Mike just stared at me with a blank expression on his face.  I could tell he was looking for a way to insist that it was a 'cool' purpose, but I knew it would fall flat.  After a couple moments of silence, he stared down at his tea, watching the steam rise from it.

“I signed up.”

My mouth dropped open and I felt my stomach drop.  I couldn't believe my ears.  We both promised that we wouldn't get it and we sure as hell wouldn't sign up for it.

“Why.... Why would you do that?”

Mike continued to stare down at his tea.  His expression looked shameful, and filled with sorrow.

“Everyone was talking about it Steve.  I wanted to know.  I needed to.  I... I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself.  I've had it for a bit, but I finally filled it out two days ago.”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone.  He places it on the table and unlocks it.  Immediately I see the icon, the white box with the yellow question mark in the middle.  It was simple enough, not really remarkable.  But somehow it was all I could focus on.  It almost glowed.  He taps on it and the screen turns bright yellow with a white question mark expanding on the screen.

I quickly reach out and flip his phone so its facing down.

“I don't want to see that.  I can't see it.”

His hand starts to reach out to turn the phone over, but he looks at my face and puts his hand on his cup.  My face feels hot, and I imagine that my face is red.

“You know that it's true, right?  That once I completed my purpose, I'll move on to better things.  Why wouldn't I do that?”

“Do you really believe that?  How can we know that things are better after?  How can all of these 'purposes' be that important?”

He picks his tea up and gently blows on it, sending the steam in my direction.  He again sticks his pinky into it, and keeps it there.  I know this man, and I know that it means that it is finally drinkable.

“Mike, please don't do this, whatever it is.  If you know it, that means you can avoid it, right?”

He looks me in my eyes.  His are glossy.

“I can't that's the thing.  I've been unconsciously doing it for years.”

He blows on the tea again, and takes a long sip of it.  He holds it in his mouth for a couple moments, savouring the flavour.  He finally swallows it, and looks at me with a content, almost serene expression on his face.

“That is beyond good.  I can't believe that we have been coming here for all these years, and I have never tried J.J.'s cherry herbal tea.”

“Yea.....  I guess.  It is your favourite after all.”

I shake my head slightly.  Good try on trying to change the subject, but it wont work that easily.

I'm surprised when he stands up, and pulls me out of my seat.  He gives me a big, strong hug.  The type of hug that a friend gives another friend when they are drunk, or when something big happens.  After the embrace, he looks at me with tears in his eyes.

“I'm sorry Steve.  I never meant to betray your trust.”

I stare at him with an expression of wild confusion on my face.  He picks up his tea again, and looks at it with a faint smile on his teary face.

“I hope that you see the light and we can experience better things together.”

He takes a long swig of the tea, seemingly gulping down half of it in a single motion.  He swallows it, and the cardboard cup falls to the ground.  As it hits, the remaining crimson liquid inside splashes out of the cup and onto the floor, with a little getting on my shoes.

Mike is gone.

I stare at the empty face where my best friend used to be and I feel my eyes start to leak.  Tears are streaming down my face as my pocket begins aggressively vibrating.

As if on autopilot, my hand snakes into my pocket and pulls out my phone.  I use my other hand to wipe my eyes and my cheeks.  I look at the notification, already having an idea on what it will say.  It 's a Facebook notification that reads:

Mike Griswald has found the perfect cup of Cherry Tea.

I fall back into my seat, still holding my phone.  I can't believe he did that.  I cant believe that he is gone.  My heart aches as the person I was closest to in life disappeared before my eyes.

I'm so lost in thought that I don't hear the waitress come up behind me and put a hand on my shoulder.

“He's going onto better times.”

I jump a little at her voice and touch.  I turn around to face her.  I recognize her from school and from her working here for so long.  Viola Desmond.  I shrug off her hand as I stand to look her in the eye.

“Do you have Why?  Does your best friend?”

“Yea, we do.  My sister has it too.”

“Well how about you talk to me about better times when one of them has left your life like this.”

I can't help but say it with venom in my voice.  This wasn't supposed to happen.  We were going to stick together through this.  I leave the shop, upset and angry, taking note that the once full cafe was barely full.  As I pass by the window, I see Viola staring at me from the other side of the glass.  She looks like I slapped her.  Maybe I just opened her eyes to the inevitable truth.

I can't help but not care at this point.

As I walk back to my parent's house, I take note of how little people were on the street.  Not just walking, but driving.  The road J.J.'s was on was a major road that used to be flooded with traffic.  Now it saw as many cars as a road in a subdivision in the middle of the week.

We didn't know, we had no way of knowing.  People through history thought that they had fulfilled their life's purpose, but they didn't.  By my (uneducated) guess, less than half a percent of people actually found their life's purpose in the past, and even less actually completed it.

So how would we really know that people that fulfilled their destiny disappeared when they did so?  To where, we had no idea.  Why told us that it was to better times, but we really didn't know.  It had to be done on faith.  I understand the irony that the faith for this is comparable to religion, but at least with religion, it was something passed on through countless generations.  This was a stupid app that wasn't even a month old yet.

How could we possibly know that the place they went was better than where they came from?

How could we know that they didn't just cease to exist?

I was so lost in my thoughts that I almost passed by my house as I was walking.  I backtrack slightly and enter.  The house is just as I left it, empty.  I lock the door behind me and sit on the couch, not bothering to take my shoes off.  I place my face in my hands and I start to cry.

Maybe I am being selfish, but how could Mike do this to me?  He was the only one I had left.  He was the one who promised me that he wouldn't get the app.  He knew what that meant to me.

He knew that my parents downloaded it as soon as it came out.

He knew that they were gone.

The people that I loved were gone.  What can I possibly do now?  Could I continue on with my life, as if they didn't exist?  Sing their praise and hope that they were onto something better, or hope that where they ended up wasn't too dark?

I take my phone out of my pocket and open up the app store.  There it is, right front and center.

Why.

I tap on the icon and I am asked the question if I want to download and install it.

At this point, Why not?

- Cody S