WHY AM I HERE?

12 January 2011

Toyin Adepoju

In the midst of the dust raised by the various activities of existence, I pause and ask myself
this question.

In the midst of the battle for the spoils of life on earth, I wonder “why”?

I wonder occassionally about the outcome of elections that will soon take place in my
country, Nigeria. I participate occassionally in the debates about these elections.

I work daily on my academic and professional career. I pursue daily,little by little, my vision
for my family. I think of my health, not helped by an overly sedentary existence, and how to
improve it by regular exercise.I am concerned about my friends and would like to do more
for them.

I think occasionally about my concern over gender relations among African-Americans.I

reflect on implications of the recent shootings of a politician and her constituents in
Tucson,Arizona in the US. I wonder about the ultimate outcome of the referendum on
regional unity in the Sudan and the recent crisis over elections in Cote d’Ivoire.

I pause from all this.

All these issues and situations exist beceause others and I exist. Those possiblities related
directly to my social existence exist beceause I exist.Those possiblities not directly related to
my social context exist beceause they are created by others who are intimately related to
the spatio-temporal context realised through those situations.

The issues and situations that define the chracter of my life exist beceause I exist in terms
of a particular spatio-temporal context that defines my individual and social existence, from
my physical constiotution and gender, to family and the country of my birth and
nationality, biological and social contexts I did not choose, to people I relate with,whom I
had some choice in having as members of the circle created by my life.

I am aware of the global developments not directly related to me becaeuse I happen to

exist in a spatio-temporal context in which these events are taking place.
 I exist in relation to all these aspects of existence, beceause, through no desire of my own
known to me,I suddenly found myself in this world and have been trying to make my way in
it. I am like a person who finds himself in a line of people and must move along with them
under the momentum of their march even though he does not know why they are there,
why they are marching,what happens after the march ends as it must eventually,as persons
drop off and stop marching,each having come to the end of the march for him or her; and
where the march started from, except for accounts judged true by many, that the march
started in the seas of primeval oceans, and even before then,in the constituents of life
formed by stellar activity ages ago.

The opinions about the purpose and significance of the march are not consistent and so
there is no agreement about the purpose of this march.

Recognising myself as between two unknown immsensities, birth and the final sleep, I
wonder what is the logic, if there is any, to the entire exercise.

Is the significance of my existence derivable from its contents, from what takes place within
it?

Or is determined by a superordinate meaning that prevails whatever I might do within the

context of my existence?

Or is it constructed through a dialectical relationship between a superordinate meaning and

the meaning I create by myself?