big deep questions

Here are the questions keeping me up tonight (I mean that literally - I have insomnia again):

- Are we born with a Purpose for our lives, which we must then discover and fulfill? Or is Desire the only real point to this story? Or are they one and the same? Why it matters: if we do have a single (or even dual) goal for being here, then we have some sort of benchmark by which we can test our life choices - their efficacy in propelling us down our unique path. This is not the same as Destiny or Fate, in which whatever happens was going to happen / was meant to happen all along. I do believe we are at choice in every moment. The question for me is what guides that choice - Purpose or Desire?

- If you can, with a snap of your fingers, completely change your attitude / mood / emotional state, should you? Is this honest? Is it natural? Authentic? A prostitute, an actor, and a meditator all have one thing in common - they generate a new state of mind at will which is often vasty different from the previous state of mind. If I'm feeling depressed, I can meditate myself to happiness. But is that honest? Have I addressed the root cause of the original depression? Does it make me genuinely happy? If I see someone less fortunate, then I can, at will, generate a feeling of compassion, no matter how pissy I'm feeling at the moment. Does that make me genuinely compassionate?
   Why it matters: there's a group of people whom, when I'm not around them, I view with distrust and disconnection. Yet when I'm with them, I'm part of the gang, connected, enjoying myself, wondering why the heck I don't spend more time with them. Which is the truth? Is kinship authentic when I don't feel it in solitude?

And now back to our regularly scheduled political diatribes.