Search Google for the word “life”, the top hit is some show on NBC. Then LIFE magazine. It’s interesting how the most popular results are corporate outlets that are trying to capitalize on a name that we associate everything with. A TV show about life, so that we can instantly connect to the meaning without even knowing what it is about. LIFE compiles pictures spanning time and space so that we can look back at all the events of human existence as we know it. The third result is Wikipedia. What do they have to say? Nothing besides we are organisms trying to exist. A bunch of chemical reactions and biological processes. How simple.

So what does all this mean. Fact #1, we are just bio masses trying to exist. In the process of existing, we try to find purpose. In the search for purpose, we spend our lives doing different things. From learning to read, write, and communicate to washing dishes. Somewhere in that mix we watch TV, to see what an ideal world would be like. Maybe even the NBC show “Life”. Apart from TV we watch other people, our parents, friends, even strangers. Subconsciously we gain an understanding of norms and have a good sense of how to get from point A to B. Or how to complete task X, Y, or Z. To some extent this is learning, “street smarts”. Some people learn through the sciences, to understand the core fundamentals that Wikipedia speaks of. Most people learn a bit of both.

Where does LIFE magazine come in? Pictures, memories. For all these life experiences, lessons learned, accomplishments, and failures we have pictures. Both tangible and mental. The tangible help us access the mental images stored in our minds. Things we haven’t seen yet or experienced, we tend to pay closer attention so that we may gain another morsel of usefulness.

What does all this amount to? I don’t know, except that human life is not that complicated. It is pretty predictable at the surface.

Emotions, passion, and feelings. What of this? All a bi-product of our learning and memories. All memories have biological reactions tied to them. A picture of lost loved one could bring about sadness. That same picture could bring back a feeling of nostalgia and some sort of bittersweet happiness. A picture of a pizza could make us hungry. Similarly, our memories have the same effect. Remember that time you locked your keys in your car. You were upset, frustrated, impatient, angry and then relieved, content, and wiser once AAA came and saved the day. All emotional responses tied to memory and pictures. Guess what? Memories can be forgotten, and pictures can be lost or faded. How?

Time.

After a while, you locked your keys in the car again. Even when all those intense emotions were tied to the experience of being locked out. What happened? Time passed, you had so much going on in between the two events that you just forgot.

So what do people do the second, third, and fourth time.

If it ain’t broke, they don’t fix it. If it is, then fix it, and then leave it alone. People become caught up in repetition.

I like my iPod, so my next music player will be an iPod. That chocolate cake was good at restaurant X, let’s go back there.

Patterns and repetition help stay emotionally stable, alive, and kicking. Change brings risk and uncertainty.

Corporations know this, they know what to feed us, how to market a product, or how to brand something so that we will never forget it.

This is how the world goes round.

Our purpose is to find what we are good at in terms of our contribution to this system.

I can make a really good pancake so I’ll open IHOP. I have this amazing recipe for a fizzy drink, I’ll call it Coke. I can crunch numbers, I’ll be an accountant.

You get the point.

If a person is not doing what they are most inclined to do, they will not be happy. They will search for answers, until all the possibilities are exhausted. Some may become unsettled and act irrationally or stupid. Others will search tirelessly to their graves.

Some might just have a little chemical imbalance that prevents them from figuring it out for themselves. “It” being life.

Some may be very skilled and can understand their calling early. The geniuses, savants, and artists. These people make a large contribution to the experience of the world. So that those searching may also find their answer.

Is that it? Is that life in a nutshell?

I hope not.