"A Different Way Forward"
The Why
Teleology
Orientation of our life & the ultimate end
"Those who have a why can endure almost any how" - Friedrich Nietzsche
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Probably the truest words that Nietzsche ever said. Teleology, or rather the Telos of something is what that thing is oriented towards, what is it's final goal or purpose? Often, it is simplified this as one’s purpose, e.g. a hammer was made to hammer things. As a result our why informs our what, and how we act and behave. Often this is why people don't believe their company's misison/vision statement, because the business may say it's mission is x,y, and z, but in all its actions and behaviours it is actually shareholder value and employees and customers can and do see that (yes businesses are supposed to make money, but that can be a secondary benefit of a greater why). It is best that we too have a why beyond our own comforts and gratification, especially if we find ourselves in leadership positions.
Our telos is what we have oriented our lives towards, it is that thing which is of highest value, and the ultimate end of all our actions. We all worship something as we all place something at the top of our value hierarchy, that which we orient our lives toward; “worthship” is the root word where we get “worship” from i.e. that which we give the most "worth" i.e. value. Values, concepts, and virtues are all part of the invisible world, these are things which we participate in, experience, and often are the driving force of many of our decisions, but they are not things you can empirically measure or point to. There are many examples of these things, i.e. someone being kind being an act of love, but you would not say that is love in and of itself, rather it is a reflection of that invisible reality. For Christians their telos would be God revealed by His incarnation through Jesus Christ, from which all our values, virtues, and concepts are subjected to and oriented towards. Even for those with no religious deity, they too have something which all of these things in their life are oriented towards, this becomes their dominant value and their telos, and ultimately that which they worship.
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​It is important to note, that just because a person makes a claim that a certain diety is their god does not make it so. For example a person who claims to be a Christian but all their time, energy, attention, and focus is oriented towards wealth and power, their god is not Christ, but is the spirit of avarice. You can often understand what or who your god is because the whole of reality will be seen through the lens of it, for example it would look like the image below here if you have a nihilistic framework in which the will to power is your dominant value or telos.​
The Grand Narrative
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You did not choose where or when you were born, who your parents are, what culture (or mix of cultures) you were born into, you did not choose your diet for the first several years of your life, for many of us, well into our teens. We do not choose our bodies (including our brain), our genetics; in our early years we do not choose our education, nor the opportunities that come our way, and when these opportunities come, nor the people who we are surrounded by, though we may choose which of those people we become friends with, from that limited group, but we don’t choose who that group of people is in the first place. Even as we age, many of these things we still do not get a say in. This is what is traditionally a part of what is called "Providence", and this is the grand narrative, the backdrop which the story of our lives plays out upon. However, many of us ignore this reality and we live our lives oriented towards something else, or inward towards ourselves ("the self-made man"), while ignoring providence all-together. To have a proper why, to be able to fully live into the grand narrative and embrace the storied life, one has to accept providence and that there is an author, and that they are not it; Only from this point can one live a life of purpose, truly have a why, and ultimately have a telos. So too, I believe in providence, and that none of these things outside of our control are coincidental and that they come with purpose.*
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In our modern culture when we often talk about vocation we speak of it as though this is something we have a choice in (highly reflective of the modern algorithmic mind), which is both true and not true at the same time. We do not have a choice in who we were called to be in that we are born at a specific place, at a specific time with a specific body, with opportunities we do not control, we do however, have a choice in how we live that life out which is explored in the next section virtue.
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* That does not mean I believe they were inevitable i.e. there are many bad things that happen to us which I would not say were “supposed to happen”, but that doesn’t mean they cannot/will not serve some purpose.