What is the Big Picture?

If we claim to be big picture people, what are the focal points? What big picture is there? Or might this be several? I think there are several, but they are so large, they might as well be THE big picture item. Some examples:

a.      Purpose of life – yours, mine, ours

b.      Spirituality – role, practice, diversity

c.      Education – how much, when, for whom?

d.      Healthcare – for whom? All?

e.      Common Defense – what is too much?

f.       Governance – consent or conscription?

g.      Commerce – for who’s good?

Books have been written on each of these. Entire careers have focused on them as well. And industries. I suppose it can be argued that nations and nation-states have been formed over these, too.


I think it is important to keep these in mind, each of them. I also think the order is important. Purpose of life, after all is said and done, is the primary issue, the big picture. All other issues are subordinate to this one big picture focus. Do you agree? If not, please share your thoughts.


Why on earth am I alive? For what purpose am I here? I didn’t ask to be born, yet I have to deal with the reality that I exist. What will I do with this life? Why choose what I do or will? Is there a larger force or element that directs my choices? What ought I do? What elements form the ‘should’ as opposed to ‘want’?


This inevitably calls spirituality to the fore. You may call it history of mankind – the what humankind did in the earliest days of the inhabited planet, or perhaps you call it religion, God theories, and whatnot. Mankind’s thirst for understanding itself inevitably led to the exploration of spiritual matters. Answers to age-old questions reside in this realm. How that spirituality was routinized into common practices is a story unto itself. Thus, differing belief systems came into existence.

Mythologies grew. Competing theories and stories happened, too. Judaism is one mindset. Another is Christianity. Yet another is Islam. Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and a host of others populated spiritual discussions over millennia.


Rituals followed. Practices, rules, laws, hierarchies, and authorities accumulated around each belief system. Cultures surrounded some, or systems of spirituality formed the cultures. Either way, identity emerged over centuries. Anthropology is a field that helps us understand these mechanisms of human life in social settings.


In the big picture arena surely is education. Questioning existence, delving into spirituality and getting along (or not) with other people different than ourselves, raises even more questions. A quest for knowledge clamored for understanding our world. Education, teaching, students and methodology soon followed. And research – to accumulate facts of what was and is and likely will be.


After struggling with basic issues surrounding education, the social decision quickly became who was to participate in schooling and research. To what end was education? Why should it be constricted to few, or opened to many? How did the role of education affect and effect mankind’s life on this planet?


The basic hierarchy of needs are woven into all of our discussions – food, shelter, safety, clothing, partnering & procreation, and family. Socialization follows. Health is part of safety. Organizing and building community leads to governance. Safety leads to common defenses of the community. Eventually we grow into the need for towns and cities and nation-states. Then there is the intercommunication between such social entities, and statecraft.


Commerce came later, but exchanging things of value was a natural process that provided needed things in exchange for things produced in abundance. I grow food and consume part of it, but exchange overproduction to others for clothing, building materials or labor. Knowhow becomes an element of exchange as well – shamans, healthcare providers, hunting and gathering of game, and much more. Commerce was basic at the start, then more complex models followed. Always an outward expansion to larger numbers and greater regions.


I don’t think it is odd that all these things begin with wondering about our purpose, each of ours. I suspect spirituality followed very closely. Then all the rest came into being.


During this pandemic, might we benefit greatly from pondering these issues? Might we find that the great problems of mankind are made of simpler scale and can be improved upon more easily than we imagined? Have we overcomplicated our lives? Have we lost our footing, our identity, our humanness?


It is time we went back to basics. That is where lost souls can find themselves.


April 18, 2020