Existence (वुजूद)

Today the sun must have risen at its own time, but the clock gave one hour more. That is the bright (!!) brains of Northern Americans (not the natives, the occupiers from across Atlantic) who have conceived the concept of "day light saving".

But that is just a passing thought. The mind was grappling with the concept of "वुजूद"  in Hindi & Urdu and "વજૂદ" in Gujarati. The Gujarati lexicon gave the meaning (truth, reality, substance) which did not fit in my chain of thoughts and so looked for translation from Hindi to Gujarati (સિદ્ધિ; સફળતા, અસ્તિત્વ; હયાતી) and that made the connection.

I have heard many people (more ladies than gents) talking about "existence (वुजूद)". Their queries are normally generated out of feeling of deprivation and desire to be counted or valued. Such views are promoted by some social thinkers (like that lady, respected as a thinker and writer, I have listened to number of times) as well.

This led to the search about what is the correct (or appropriate) way of looking at my "existence" or " वुजूद"? Should I look at "existence" as related to my rights or should I look at it as related to the larger purpose of the same including my responsibilities?

I came across this blog post, "The meaning of life - a psychologist's view" on the subject. Check this out https://theconversation.com/the-meaning-of-life-a-psychologists-view-129274. 

The psychlogist introduces the subject by saying "The search for meaning in life is a familiar challenge to many of us" (we may not be consciously thinking on those lines at times). "Some materialist scientists and philosophers consider it a futile search. Prominent atheist Richard Dawkins, for example, claims that human beings are just “throwaway survival machines” whose only purpose is to survive and replicate genes.

Otherwise, the theory goes, there is very little point to our lives. We may attempt to create other kinds of meaning, through religion or attempts at altruism for example, but all we’re really doing is following our genetic and neurological programming."

He further says "But I take the rather unfashionable view that there is meaning to life. It is absurd to reduce human life and behaviour to purely genetic factors.

We are not just ghostly entities living inside machine-like bodies in an indifferent world. Human life is not a meaningless space between birth and death, spent trying to enjoy ourselves and forget about our predicament."

My understanding is existence has more to do with the fulfillment of the purpose of existence than my rights and enjoyment.

Introspect and evaluate extent of fulfillment of the purpose of existence.