Why The Best Works Are Left Unfinished
A Reflection About Life's Purpose and the Key to Fulfillment
This essay is grounded in one recent epiphany: all works are left unfinished. This has led me to believe that I have moved one step closer to understanding the key to fulfillment.
Here is my hypothesis: the pursuit of understanding is necessary for fulfillment.
Objective: Very basically communicate the purpose of humanity.
The realization came during a session of reasoning about the ultimate cause of human suffering. In this deliberation, I stumbled upon this insightful article: The Great Paradox of Our Time: Everything is Both Better and Worse Than Ever Before. It identifies the Industrial Revolution (1760-1840) as a point in time where the quality of life simultaneously began rapidly improving and degrading. Because this observation of history serves as necessary knowledge on the path to understanding the ultimate cause of human suffering, I asked myself, Is Knowing History a Prerequisite to Understanding Anything? As far as I can tell, it is.
Upon deep diving the rabbit hole of history, I was led all the way back to the creation of existence. Without a theory of creation, nothing downstream seems to make complete sense. We run into the seemingly infinite sequence of Why? Therefore, I believe an understanding of creation is necessary for all understanding downstream from creation. What does this mean for humanity? The dichotomy of understanding leaves us with two options: You either get it or you don’t.
Whether we get it or not, our work is left unfinished—one for better, the other for worse. In this essay I aim to uncover what the implications of the preceding epiphany are for fulfillment.
I. The Detrimental Effects of Knowing vs Understanding
A. An Example of Unfinished Work
The completion and value of work is at the mercy of understanding. In this essay, I’m reflecting on two reasons why work is left unfinished. The first culprit is a lack of understanding. The second is understanding. How is this possible? It makes sense in my mind, hopefully I can make it make sense to you.
My work thus far has fallen victim to the first culprit. None of my essays have been written to completion because I lack understanding. Drawing from Plato’s Ladder of Intelligibility, by completion I mean an expression of Understanding. Instead, all that I’ve written exhibits Knowing disguised as Understanding. Take the following excerpt for example:
At the other end of the spectrum lies imagination and belief. Here, the world shapes us. At this level, reality is as subjective as it gets. To break free from this lower realm, we must climb the ladder of intelligibility and understanding.
For those of you that don’t know, the excerpt is from my essay on Plato’s The Republic. I’d go as far as to say, I really understand Plato’s message now. However, that isn’t reflected in my essay. Much of the content is opinionated and lacking evidence. I use words like is and must without any support. As far as the reader knows, I only know Plato’s message and am regurgitating information. Using the Ladder of Intelligibility again, my work is incomplete because my expression of understanding has stopped at knowing.
B. The Expression of Understanding
Clearly, if I know what something is, what we must do, and why, I understand Plato’s message. But what good is that to the reader if not expressed? I haven’t helped you in your journey of understanding. I have merely shared my opinion and failed to express an understanding. As a result, you are still left to deliberate on your own. And if you don’t, and take my work at face-value, you’ll be left with more information and no reason to use it.
Unfortunately, I’m under the impression that this is likely the case with most of the information out there.
There is no undeniable reason to read Atomic Habits (an objectively great book) unless I understand why I’m reading it—or why it was written.
I mention Atomic Habits because it’s laying half finished on my desk where I left it after wondering, why am I reading this?
Upon completion, I would understand how habits work, and how to improve them, but I would still be left wondering why. In this regard, is it really worth the read? If I don’t understand why what’s the point of anything?
As far as I’m concerned, Atomic Habits has expressed knowledge about the what and the how, but not why. Therefore, the expression of understanding has stopped at knowing and is incomplete.
C. The Void of Knowing
I’m going to base this section on an assumption: most of the work today is an incomplete expression of understanding. This goes for work in all of the arts—music, literature, paintings, etc. Is it any wonder beauty seems to be a relic of the past?
I would even consider it very likely that we’ve ventured so far into the world of knowing, that the majority of everything around us is an incomplete expression of understanding. Our world is a product of only knowing.
Because of this, we are left unfulfilled. We know a lot of things. Because we know a lot of things—like that we exist, we need to work a job, and that consuming information makes us smarter—but we don’t understand why, we value all of the wrong things.
This isn’t our fault. Humanity has become the blind leading the blind. And if the generations before us aren’t blind, then they’re evil—that’s how terribly I think we’ve been misguided. I imagine it’s probably a combination of the two—the blind and the evil.
A prime example is the Industrial Revolution. We valued productivity, technological advancements, and wealth—to name a few. We believed all of these things would lead us to happier lives. Many of us still do. I’m guilty of it. Money, alcohol, experiences, social media, fitness goals—all of these things seem so valuable on the surface.
However, that’s because we’ve been told they are, so we imagine that they are. Or on the other hand, we’re told that they aren’t, so we imagine that they aren’t. After reading a few books from the experts, what we imagine to be true is adopted by belief.
Great, now what? Well, we still don’t really know why. We might know that money is good or bad because… Or that mindfulness is good or bad because… But we don’t actually understand why. Even if we do understand that mindfulness is good because it relieves stress, and stress is bad, and stress is bad because it takes a toll on the body, why do we care if it takes a toll on the body, because its unhealthy and unhealthy habits lead to premature death and we want to stay alive because well we want to live because we’re afraid of dying but why… Well, why do we exist? That answer is the only thing that closes the loop.
Therefore, any works that are an expression of understanding that stop at knowing is an incomplete work that is consumed for the worse. For the worse meaning, time spent in a suboptimal manner. We should want to spend each moment optimally, right? Since we only have so much? This is a thought that needs to be fleshed out. But I believe we should really consider the ways we spend our time.
II. A Complete Expression Of Understanding
A. Why A Creation Theory is Necessary
We now have reason to believe that every expression of understanding that stops at knowing is not the best use of our time. But should a complete expression of understanding be considered a completed work? I don’t think so. If we remember back to the dichotomy of understanding, you either get it or you don’t. That was regarding the theory of creation.
A complete expression of understanding satisfies the why-sequence which can only be done with a creation theory. The reason for this hypothesis is that by understanding creation, we can understand the purpose of everything downstream.
Of course, not every work needs to blatantly mention the creation theory, this would be redundant. But every truly useful work should inherit knowledge from an understanding of a creation theory to ensure the why-sequence is satisfied.
But not so fast, does that mean that the work is complete? Given the definition of purpose—the reason something was created—I don’t think so. We can’t stop at the creation theory. We need to understand why creation occurred in the first place—where existence is heading, not just where it started.
B. Why a Complete Expression Isn’t Enough
Because we cannot truly understand the intention for existence in one lifetime, all work created in a lifetime is inevitably incomplete. Therefore, the best works are left incomplete. However, they are the best because they clearly progress towards an understanding of why. Look at all of the greatest artists, authors, and musicians—their work was profound. It was so deep it could be explored or pondered for lifetimes. This is because their work was an expression of the deepest understanding. Because this task is impossible, they were fulfilled for their entire lives. Insofar as we’re concerned with value, I believe this type of work is the only type of work truly worth our time. At least, if we want to be fulfilled.
III. Understanding, Expression, and Fulfillment
Closing Remarks About The Creation of the Universe, The Expression of Understanding, and Its Role in Fulfillment
So what does this mean for fulfillment? Beware, this is all only supported by thought. However, it’s an attempt at understanding why.
Well, if creation is an expression of the creator, and understanding is inherent to expression, then…
The created universe is an expression of the creator that is meant to be understood.
Why is there intelligent life? To understand.
Why does life tend toward self preservation? It takes lifetimes to understand.
Are we an extension of the universe as much as we are observers of it?
Then understanding and expression are the innate to human nature.
On our journey of understanding, we are naturally guided towards expression — creation in various forms. This is how we make sense of understanding. It’s also how we help each other.
Your expression of understanding is infinitely valuable to my understanding and vice versa. Everyone’s pursuit of understanding becomes inevitably invaluable to each other.
Complete and utter fulfillment for humanity would be understanding, and so individual fulfillment is moving towards understanding in our lifetime. That would be fulfilling our role in humanity.
The product of expression could be art, literature, music, etc. any expression of our understanding through created works—because the universe was created.
Our role in society, our job, allows us to sustain this journey of understanding by providing us with our basic needs, but is not our source of fulfillment— until our ability to express becomes so valuable in each others journey of understanding, where it can finally sustain itself.
The arbitrary jobs of today is the price we pay for our ancestors. Unfortunately, they are necessary.
So, fulfillment is accomplished by meeting natural survival necessities, societal necessities, and the finally the pursuit of understanding, followed by expression, true love and the embodiment of roles, and the culmination of love as the transfer of one’s life work to the next generation.
Over time, this would lead to the fulfillment of the creator’s intention.
Now we wonder, has confusion about our purpose led humanity astray? Is that why we have all this tech, arbitrary jobs, indulgences, and everything else that leaves us feeling empty, no matter how much we consume?
Stay curious.