Why Am I Here?

Why am I here? It's the kind of question any reasonably intelligent, reasonably introspective, sentient being asks. What is my purpose? How did I come to be here? If you think, you pretty quickly come to realize that there are no good answers for these questions. That's why we invented religion, the faith in things unknown, things unseen. We desperately needed a reason to be here, so we invented one. As to purpose, I truly believe that we create our own purpose once we arrive in this life, simply so we can have an answer to these troubling questions.

For me, the questions are slightly different. It is a constant question in my mind. Why am I still here? Why am I not dead already? Why is my progression like this? It's an ironic twist of words, when progression really means regression. Why am I progressing to death at this pace? Why do others go faster, or slower? With ALS, even the mighty powers of science are stumped by these questions.

The whole purpose thing for me is highly problematic as well. I am simply here consuming resources, resources which could be much more helpful for others, resources which could make a real difference in the life of someone less well off. I am compelled to consider what I return to my society in return for these resources. What can I give back? Why is it worth investing in this clearly lost cause, when there are so many others who need so much? I have no purpose that I can see.

In an older world, a crueler world, a more facist world, I would no longer be here. I would have died either through lack of care, or direct intervention by the world around me. I might have been part of the Hitlerian solution to rid society of those who are simply a burden. I might have been in a social construct where I simply crawled off into the wilderness, or slid aboard an ice floe drifting out to sea, there to die without ceremony, without infringement on a fragile society.

I don't know why I am still here. Nobody knows. I don't know why other pALS who have gotten sick after me have died already. Nobody knows. I don't know what is keeping me here, what pulls out a longer thread of life from the weave of humanity. I think about it, a lot. I just don't know. I don't have any good answers. I'm just waiting to see how it all turns out. That's enough purpose for now.