Desperately Looking for a Purpose In Life: Difference between revisions

 

This is what happens when those that [[I Just Want to Be Special|Just Wanted To Be Special]] and would have [[Jumped At the Call]] [[Missed the Call|never get the opportunity]]. They just never found their [[Goal in Life]].

 

* Hisashi Mitsui from ''[[Slam Dunk]]'', who was a talented basketball player until a knee injury got him out of the courts. He eventually becomes a delinquent and gang leader out of pure grief; but when circumstances (and the messianic intervention of a certain professor) give him a second chance to came back, he willingly and gleefully abandons the thug lifestyle. Perhaps ''too'' willingly.

* Yusuke Urameshi from ''[[Yu Yu Hakusho]]'' is a bit of darker example in that ultimately only fighting ever seems to bring happiness, but even that feels empty. He finally dies saving a kid and becomes a "Spirit Detective" but even then he still does not know.

** But he doesn't take the kingship because they're offering him power and meaning; the whole deal freaks him out, until he can only influence whether there's war by accepting. It takes him a while after that to adapt, and even then it's largely less him 'growing up' than him forgetting to whne or worry about himself because he [[Chronic Hero Syndrome|MUST SAVE THE WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD AS SOON AS HE NOTICES EVERY PROBLEM IT HAS]]. If he weren't such an unobservant moron, he'd work himself to the bone. As it is, he almost-dies way too often for his [[Mr. Fanservice|retainers']] comfort.

 

* Destruction, the prodigal of The Endless in [[Neil Gaiman]]'s ''[[The Sandman]]'', decides he wants to try ''creation'' for a change, but despite enthusiastic dabbling in painting, poetry, sculpting, flamenco guitar, sidewalk chalk art, gourmet cooking, etc. the results are invariably mediocre: he can't seem to find his calling.

** That's because those comics were written in the 80's, before Destruction shaved his beard and raised explosions to a high art as [[MythBusters|Jamie Hyneman.]]

** The fact he cut off all ties with the other Endless, including Dream - who's in charge of imagination & artistic inspiration - might have been a factor.

* [[Donald Duck]] has "found and mastered his true purpose in life" about a billion times now. No matter if it means facing danger or going against common sense, [[The Determinator|he will keep trying again, and again, and again]], convinced the next time will be it. What if that doesn't work? Next time surely will!

 

* This seems to be part of the plot of ''[[Lost in Translation]]''. Japan's a funny place to look, though, unless your spiritual satisfaction involves [[Katamari Damacy]], [[Hello Kitty]] or hot man-on-man action with Junichiro Koizumi.

* ''[[Hellboy II the Golden Army]]'' by Guillermo del Toro: A sadly overlooked segment claims that all humans were made hollow and this trope is used to fill that hollow unsuccessfully.

* ... And of course, Luke Skywalker in ''[[Star Wars a New Hope]]''! Constantly complaining about being shut in the door of Uncle Owen's house, he wants to seek to do something significant to change the [[Crapsack World|crapsack]] reality of the galaxy produced by the [[Evil Empire]]. Fortunately, the return of Obiwan Kenobi grants him the wish at last [[Tear Jerker|(along with the death of his uncle and aunt)]], and he has consequently been kicking the empire's sorry ass for the rest of the ''[[Star Wars]]'' saga.

 

* Subverted in ''[[Vorkosigan Saga]]''. Mark states that his only purpose in life was to kill Miles and Aral, and now that Ser Galen was dead, he had no purpose in life anymore. Cordelia reassures him that almost no one has any purpose in the first place.

* Mr. Toad of ''[[The Wind in the Willows]]'' has constantly shifting obsessions that always seem to get him in trouble. First it's boating, then a road trip in a gypsy-style caravan, but his most famous (and infamously disastrous) craze is ''motor-cars''.

* In Michael Stackpole's ''Age of Discovery'', Nirati Anturasi spends much of the first book desperately looking for her special talent, which she theoretically could become a mystic at. She later decides that the only thing she ever accomplished was {{spoiler|"dying really well", and fortunately for her, there a vacancy in the [[The Grim Reaper|God of Death]] position.}}

 

* [[Big Bad|Series arch-villain]] Sylar goes through this in his storyline in Volume 4 of ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'', including a road trip to find his biological father and an identity crisis where he starts having conversations with his dead adoptive mother. With some prodding from dead mommy, he ultimately decides to [[Take Over the World]] and attempts to become President of the United States ([[It Makes Sense in Context]]).

* ''[[Lost]]'': John Locke is so blinded by his need to be special and needed that he ends up getting duped both off-island and on by anyone who tells him that he is important, eventually leading to his demise.

* This is a recurring theme for Commander Sinclair on [[Babylon 5]] during the first season. It doesn't get resolved until his third season reappearance {{spoiler|where it turns out his true purpose is to go back in time and become Valen}}.

** Garibaldi points out in an early episode that Sinclair goes about looking for his purpose by putting himself into suicidal situations. Garibaldi's theory is that Sinclair is doing this because "it's easier to find something worth dying for than something worth living for." In another episode, Delenn implies that this trope is the reason she didn't tell Sinclair about her decision to go down to Epsilon 3 to try and get the Great Machine working. She feared that if Sinclair had gone with, he would have plugged himself into the Machine, and she felt his destiny lay elsewhere.

 

== Music ==

* Christian rock artist Michael W. Smith's first hit in the early 1990s was "Place In This World", whose chorus is thus:

* Uruguayan rock band El Cuarteto de Nos satirizes the trend in their song "[http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/e/el_cuarteto_de_nos/ya_no_se_que_hacer_conmigo.html Ya no sé qué hacer conmigo]" ("I don't know what to do with me"). The song carries the trope to the logical extreme: when one tries too many (often contradictory) things, one tends to end as a [[Stepford Smiler]] of the mask-only type.

{{quote|''I hear a voice who says, with good reason''

''I don't know what to do with me'' }}

* [[The Beatles]] once got bored with the void life of a superstar, so they went to India (or somewhere) looking for a spiritual guide to give them the purpose of life. It failed. The result was the song ''Across the Universe'':

 

* The archetypal example here is Willy Loman, the [[Death of a Salesman|salesman who dies]] looking for success and the American Dream in the business world, when his true talent lies in mechanics and carpentry and he's long since turned down the opportunity to go work in the outdoors. Also his son, Biff, who ends up rejecting the dream his father had worked for and decided to make his own way in life, no matter how humble and small it might have been.

* ''[[Avenue Q]]'': Princeton, a 22-year-old English major, spends the entire musical looking for his "purpose". {{spoiler|He finally thinks he's discovered it when another 22-year-old English major turns up on Avenue Q. His purpose? To write a musical to help people like this kid find their purpose and learn about life, except [[Who Would Want to Watch Us?|the idea's shot down by everyone living on Avenue Q]]. As his neighbor Brian asks, "Are you HIGH?"}}.

* Seymour in ''[[Little Shop of Horrors]]''.

 

* Over the course of Telltale Game's ''[[Sam and Max Freelance Police|Sam and Max]]: Season One'', Sybil Pandemik, the pair's neighbor, has a different business in her former tattoo parlor every episode. She's been a psychotherapist, a tabloid publisher, a professional witness, operator of two different dating services (romantic and radiocarbon), a beta tester, and Queen of Canada. In that order.

* ''[[Dreamfall]]'' is basically all about this, with both Zoe and April being obvious examples {{spoiler|though their respective endings differ}}.

** In fact, it's a theme for the main characters too. Yuna having completed her supposed suicide mission is left with a lifetime of summoner training and no ability to use it. Paine is looking for a purpose, any purpose to distract her from what happened on the Crimson Squad, and Rikku (unbelievably, but accurately the most well adjusted of the three) just wants to have fun.

** All of Spira seems to be have fallen into this after Sin's downfall. It's still an improvement since the only "purpose" they had when Sin was around was simple survival.

* The ''[[Persona (video game)|Persona]]'' series:

** Somewhat grimly done with Mitsuo is ''[[Persona 4]]'' who {{spoiler|becomes a copycat serial killer in a vain attempt to feel like he's doing something important or satisfying. When the party enters his section of the [[Mental World|TV world]], it turns out to be a NES style RPG dungeon, aptly titled "Void Quest." Along the way, we get some delightful narration along the lines of "Mitsuo slays Television Anchor (referring to a real murder in the outside world). Mitsuo gains a level. Mitsuo gains 2 Emptiness points." His shadow (the repressed part of himself) tells him that he has no purpose in life and that he'll never feel satisfied with anything. Unlike everyone else thrown in the TV world up to that point, he doesn't conquer his shadow and merely gets arrested while still in denial.}}

* Canderous Ordo of ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]]'' was once a respected Mandalorian soldier. His people's defeat led to him being desperate enough to take a job cracking heads for a petty crime boss. When he finds the [[Player Character]], he teams up with them to find better prospects. At the end of the game, he admits that he needs more in his life than fighting for fighting's sake. And he ''certainly'' finds it by the second game {{spoiler|by becoming Mandalore the Preserver, and rebuilding his people}}.

* In ''[[Xolga and Mr. Toko]]'', part of Xolga's backstory is that his father abandoned his alcoholic wife and his son in order to "pursue [his] dreams", essentially leaving his child at the mercy of [[Abusive Parents|an alternatively abusive and neglectful mother]]. Needless to say, Xolga has issues with both his [[Parental Abandonment]] and people who takes this trope attitude in life. {{spoiler|At the end of the first series, the man returns with his wife after she [[Driven to Suicide|attempted suicide]] due to grief over their son disappearance. Talking with a plushified Xolga, the man confess that he ''still'' hasn't reached his dream, but hopes that rebuilding his marriage will give him some purpose at last.}}

 

* Larry Butz in ''[[Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney]]'' has two reasons for jumping from job to job: one is to chase after women, and the other is because he has no idea what to do with his life. {{spoiler|He seems to finally settle on painting at the end of the third game.}}

** {{spoiler|Or not. He winds up playing the Steel Samurai in ''Investigations'' after giving up on art, apparently. However, his cameo in ''Apollo Justice'' may indicate that he eventually goes back to painting. Hard to tell from a few pixels, but he ''is'' wearing his Laurice Deauxnim colors and standing in front of easel.}}

*** Even if it's not {{spoiler|painting}}, he at least seems to have settled on {{spoiler|some form of artistic lifestyle.}}

* This trope is why ''[[Fate/stay night]]'''s [[The Hero|Shiro Emiya]] and [[Sinister Minister|Kirei Kotomine]] are [[Not So Different]]. {{spoiler|Neither of them has any sense of self-worth and can only find purpose in other people. The difference is that Shirou's is helping people, while Kotomine's (as noted above) is causing people suffering. And even then, Kotomine still isn't happy, because while the suffering of others is the only thing that makes him happy, that in and of itself makes him unhappy because he ''knows'' [[Being Evil Sucks|it's wrong]].}}

 

* ''[[Fetch Quest: Saga of the Twelve Artifacts]]'': {{spoiler|Lionel}} is searching for a purpose in life that eludes him, what with {{spoiler|his half-elf blood making him outlive his friends and [[Love Interest|love interests]]}}.

 

* Mister Bickles in ''[[The Fairly OddParents]]'', who seems to have a new lifelong dream every time we see him.

* In ''[[The Angry Beavers]]'' episode "Fancy Prance," it's revealed Dagget has had several thousand "lifelong dreams," and he adopts a new one ("crusty-but-lovable manager") in the pursuit of helping Norb with ''his'' lifelong dream.

* Audrey in ''Little Shop'' (the ''[[Little Shop of Horrors]]'' cartoon) had a new life's ambition in each episode.

* Betty Staines from ''[[Staines Down Drains]]'', who is shown starting a new job at the beginning of every episode.

* ''[[Rolie Polie Olie]]'': The plot of the episode "What to Be" focuses around Olie thinking about what occupation he should take when he grows up, from a paleontologist to an orchestra conductor.

 

* Nearly every person who has ever lived has gone through this at some point. For some, their purpose comes easy. [[Heroic BSOD|Others]], however look so long and find so little, that [[Despair Event Horizon|they may assume their life is]] [[Nietzsche Wannabe|meaningless]].

 

[[Category:Goals and Objectives Index]]

[[Category:Call to Adventure]]

[[Category:Motivation Index]]

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