Purpose and principles
2026-08-25 14:28
Chris from uncountable thoughts is hosting this month's IndieWeb Carnival topic on purpose. This is my first participation in such a carnival, and its been fun, if a little challenging on my noggin.
Purpose: A single word that evokes many different interpretations.
Indeed!
No matter how much I read on purpose, principles, values, goals, etc., my brainicles get tied in a knot as soon as I sit down and try to flesh them out for myself. I've been spending a little more time on this lately though, and since it's the topic for this month's IndieWeb Carnival, it feels apt that I nut this out.
One of the core purposes I write here on this wee site is, afterall, to unbundle and make sense of things.
I'd like to try and define firstly what is purpose, and then what is my purpose (or purposes). I'll be steering away from the definition of purpose related to tools and services (ie the purpose of sunglasses are to protect the eyes, or maybe make one feel like a rockstar, and the purpose of APPL, MSFT, GOOG is to inflict as much pain and suffering... I digress). I want to focus more towards an individual's purpose. You, me, conscious beings.
I will start first with principles. Principles, yet another concept I'm trying to understand more deeply, are patterns or rules based on natural laws and underlying truths that we live with. "Growth and decay" come to mind. Growth and decay is unavoidable. Physically and mentally, in self, nature and human made. But that concept alone doesn't help me. So what? I need to turn this into a principle I live by.
I'm thinking about growth and decay in personal knowledge and learning (something I value), so a principle that I live by may be "to discover new interests by keeping an open mind while interacting in the world, and build and maintain knowledge through deep focused observation, skills acquisition and experimentation".
We might choose to give attention to the principle or pattern of "positive thinking produces positive results". (The value here may be forward growth). A principle for myself to live by may therefore be "trust my instincts, stay positive, working within my circle of influence, avoiding the outer circle of concern and unnecessary rationa-lies-ing".
And so on.
With a collection of my own principles I can now take actions based on these. If I do this, I know I will be taking the right action, no matter how big or small, knowing that they've come from a set of principles and values that I have given some thought.
What is purpose then? I struggle here, because purpose is not a plural. We as people are complex beings, yet we cannot multi-task, and we are forever taking in new information. Maybe if you value narrow-expertise (master of one, jack of nothing else), and dedicate your life to one thing, then you could say "My purpose is to do or be x". I want to live bigger than that. In this short write-up I've only just started scraping the surface of who I want and can be. A "purpose" might therefore be my "mission statement", and I'll attempt to draft one up now. I'm writing this as though I've never had purpose previously, and part of that is painfully true, but I think for the most part I have lived by some solid principles without having put them to paper.
My purpose is therefore to live by a dynamic list of principles that reflect who I am and where I'm at at any given time. My purpose is to live by principles I've developed from deep observation of self and world. They connect my values to my environment. They tackle such things as "adaptability" so as to not become self-centered or ignore changing circumstances, "recipocracy" so I can give as well as take, and, bare with me - I'm figuring this out as I type, something to do with "transformation" in both mind and beliefs, but also how it relates to interconnectiveness and relationships - the transfer of knowledge shapes our communities and wider species, and the learning of knowledge transforms perspectives and opens doors to new ways of thinking and exciting creativity. These are all somewhat connected, but the more I give time to this space the clearer it becomes. Here's how I've summed it up:
My purpose is to participate positively in the world, making use of the gift of human consciousness, by living through my evolving set of principles that help me and my community grow, adapt, reciprocate, and transform with health, vitality, integrity and respect.
Me, 2026
Alongside that I'll have my list of principles I've fleshed out, expand and contract back into this statement. It might sound like a bit of waffle, but each word there in the latter bit triggers an underlying meaning for me (my fleshed out principles).
I've based a lot of this on recent reads of the following books. They can seem a bit "old school" and businessy, but I find the language easy to understand, and less wishy-washy than other popular similar books. I've probably butchered the defintions the authors have given, so I highly recommend you read for yourself. I have these on a regular rotation and every time I read them I understand the concepts differently.
- First Things First by Stephen Covey, specifically around "inner compass" and living through principles.
- Getting Things Done by David Allen, specifically on "horizons of focus" and how "purpose and principles" relates to goals, projects etc.
- Mastery by Robert Greene, specifically part II on "The Ideal Apprenticeship", only because that is all I have read up to so far! Currently favourite book of the year.
Thanks Chris from uncountable thoughts for hosting this IndieWeb Carnival topic. It's worth a read of other folks' submitted entries, listed at the bottom of the introductory post, which are all amazingly different takes.
Please, if you'd like to comment on anything I've written, if it resonates, or if you think I'm completely off my rocker, let me know via email or the comment terminal below.