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What is the meaning of it all? – Nowadays, during my more lucid moments when I am not visiting with Mr. Al Zheimers, I have often found myself thinking about some things I have often thought about (did I just repeat myself?). Questions I have often asked myself and in my old age find myself asking every now and then while talking to myself.
Right there you’ll find at least two no-brainers: thinking (or analyzing) and talking to myself. Seriously, I would ask myself simple questions I would tend just as often to brush aside or take for granted in the hustle and bustle of daily living.
Now that I seem to have more time to engage in this Aristotelian luxury, I would confront and confound myself with questions like –
What is the meaning of life?
What is the meaning of my life?
What is the meaning of the fact that I exist but will cease to exist sooner
rather than later? Or,
Why did I exist at all? What’s it all about, Kuya?
Indeed, what is the meaning of it all?
Now, let’s get one thing straight right from the very beginning. This little blog, as you might expect, is not meant to suggest, much less provide, any answers. You are much too smart for that. The meaning of life, whatever it’s supposed to be, cannot be that cheap. What, you didn’t even have to buy a newspaper or magazine to find the answer? In Tondo, they would say “ano ka, sinuswerte?”
Let’s face it. Every man, at some point in his life, if he is to be true to himself, must find the time and be willing to ask himself the same questions and to try to come up with some answers.
As with most of my blogs, the purpose is not so much to suggest as to reflect, an exercise in discernment and not a political or religious propaganda. What is fortunate is that I’m not trying to sell you anything. Neither am I founding a new religion and trying to convince you to join me.
It’s also the stuff of retreats, recollections, or what xvdsnowadays like to call “metanoia.” Somehow, when it’s couched in Greek or Latin, it sounds more impressive, or worse, more credible.
I may have blogged or touched on this subject at least once before, but that’s for you to try to remember or discover. After all, there’s hardly anything anymore that’s not been said or written about already.
Someone has suggested that the greatest use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it (William James?). That’s sounds rather reasonable if a bit too philosophical. The operative word there, it would seem is “outlast.” Immortality, now there’s something to be preoccupied or obsessed about. The pharaohs went to mind-boggling misadventures trying to assure their place here and in the hereafter. So did quite a few Chinese emperors who wanted desperately to perpetuate not only their dynasties but their power in the beyond.
On a more manageable scale, some people will settle for planting trees, writing a book, spreading their genes all over the islands, and/or making sure a monument or mausoleum is built in their honor.
Another writer has said it’s significance that counts. Our life is only as meaningful as we have shared it with others. In other words, the suggestion is that it’s not so much what you are, or what you have but how much you have shared. That too sounds rather reasonable. But the fact is that not too many people seem to buy that proposition either. It’s really more like – it’s every man for himself. Or, on a baser level, it’s a dog-eat-dog world after all.
If this world has been in existence for billions of years and we are good for no more than a hundred years, does that mean we’re just a little more than the flies of summer in the whole scheme of things?
Speaking of billions, we know now that there are not only billions of stars but billions of galaxies, a galaxy it would seem, consisting of billions of stars. So, who are we to say that the earth is the center of the universe, that we are the only children of the Being we call God? Isn’t that a bit like a presumptuous ant finding itself on top of a molehill and thinking that he now owns Metro Manila?
Only recently, the U.S.A. tried to make a big celebration out of the 40th anniversary of NASA’s landing on the moon. Big deal. So when do we get to visit a few million planets? Speaking of millions, how many hundreds of billions were spent for that moon landing? We can’t even find a cure for cancer, or aids or eradicate malaria and all those neglected tropical diseases that kill millions of Africans every year. The Pentagon spends hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons systems, what about all the millions of starving children all over the world? Do we even care about trying to feed them? Does God care?
What am I supposed to do with all the billions of people on earth? How am I supposed to relate with them when I can’t count on a few dozen friends?
How does one explain the concept of “randomness?” Or pure luck. Or bad luck. Or destiny, fate?
Why have so many great men been assassinated at their prime? Lincoln, Gandhi, JFK, Ninoy Aquino, MLK, just to name a few? Jesus died at 33. Would you say these men have not lived a lifetime? Incidentally, why are some people said to be assassinated while other poor mortals simply get “killed?”
Why have so many great philosophers throughout history either committed suicide or seriously contemplated committing suicide?
How does one explain why an innocent bystander gets killed by a stray bullet or by some “friendly fire?” Why do they call it “senseless killing?” Is there such a thing as “sensible killing?” A“jihad,” maybe? Why do some infants suddenly die while others live for another hundred years? Why did Willy die at 51? Who gets to live and die in a war or pandemic?
Why don’t I ever win in lotto? Why wasn’t I born a child of a concubine or a caregiver of some rich Sultan?
Will some prophet please explain to me what is meant by “will of God?”
In the innocence of my youth, I thought I could get by and settle for with what I learned in catechism class, that “God made me to love him, to obey him, to serve him and be happy with him forever in the hereafter.” As wise and biblical as that may sound, it is also rather childish and simplistic. With a doctrine like that, who needs intelligence and free will?
Did Christ come only to and for planet earth? Does it mean that of all the billions upon billions of stars, planets and galaxies, only this tiny little earth was blessed with a visit from the Son of God? What are we to make of those who do not believe in Christ, who have never heard of him or were born thousands of years before him? Are we not being rather presumptuous or blithely ignorant?
Are we the only intelligent beings in the cosmos? If we are so damn smart and intelligent, why can’t we manage to visit a few billion other stars? If only to spread the word, you know, Christianize and proselytize ET and his kind?
If there are other intelligent beings out there in the cosmos, don’t they need any saving? Or, have they already been saved? Is it possible that all those who died ahead of us have taken residence in some of those billions of distant planets?
Why am I a Christian, or why do I remain a Christian? Is Christianity the only one true religion? If so, why are there so many so-called Christian churches or sects?
What are we to make of other religions and peoples who do not subscribe to any particular religion but still believe in God?
How can we have peace in a world where people will kill one another trying to convince the other that his is the one true religion, and that his God, and his God alone, is the almighty and powerful one?
Why can’t we all just come together and pray together, each in his own way, to a higher, supreme being we all acknowledge as our God?
Do I sound like some pagan unbeliever? Am I beginning to sound like some atheist?
Where am I coming from and where am I going?
What is the meaning of it all? Just wondering. Just wandering. –James D. Lansang,
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Whew! It will take forever to answer the questions you raised! And how!
Kuya, di ka nagiisa sa mga tanong mo. Ang tanong: How serious are we in trying to find answers to the questions you asked? Philosophers, theologians, experts in all disciplines, as you stated, had/have given their respective attempts to answer their respective questions. Nothing totally sufficeth... Para bagang, tulad ng Trinity, many of the items, issues, questions you propounded, will remain a mystery... Pero, ang mahalaga, you and i are doing our bit to seek and find an/the answer, to the question/s we ask, in our personal life. Marami sa tanong mo, nasagot mo na rin, in a sense, to some extent..pero, walang lubos na katugunan sa mga tinatanong mo... We are all in search and we will always be in search for answers, and that's the beauty, and the fun of, living, of being here, of being with kindred souls like you, Kuya James... It's the journey, more than the arrival, that matters. And, you are almost there... Gratias. Gratias. Gratias. Deo gratias. |
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butchcelestial wrote on Aug 11, '09
By the time you get all the answers to your questions . . . . . . . |
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This is one of the best 'reflections' from a blogger that I've ever read. All valid questions these are. I especially like that part about why we can't just pray to our own concept of God in our own way for that speaks to me of respect and appreciation, without judgments. I guess the questions can be divided into two -- those that cannot be answered using our 'logical' minds as the answers are more likely to belong to the 'divine' or could be answered on another level, of the more spiritual level, meaning we need to shed our physical limitations (body, mind or brain or whatever you may want to call it) before we are able to find a 'deep' knowing [and once we do cross over, perhaps this search for answers won't be important anymore]. And the other one is that these questions arose and will probably be answered by us looking into manmade situations. I mean, some of these questions are brought about by decisions, rules, dogmas, protocols, perceptions, actions made by men, este, human beings and their limited knowledge of how things really operate in this world. Hmmm, I probably didn't make much sense but just to say that a lot of the mess [and the questions plus confusion] we're in now is brought about perhaps by our own limited, partial and prejudiced thinking and experience.
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julesrey2009 wrote on Sep 22, '09
Kuya, your piece as always started me thinking. The time probably has come to re-think our way of looking at the universe as an ordered one to that of a universe that constantly changes, one that evolves. What is the meaning of life, why is there pain, why is there death. Recently a former classmate in CKS and Tagaytay who is battling the Big C remarked that God is fair. He did not predestined us to suffer or to enjoy life. He just placed some randomness in existence starting when the Big Bang happened billions of years ago. And after that initial bang, the rest is history. Our Christian faith assures us of a hope that never dies. I bank on that faith and that hope.
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Thank you, julesrey, for re-introducing Kuya jeemsdee. His blogs are sorely missed. His prose is fluid; his depth is intriguing. With him around, it is easy to see the humor that it becomes easy, too, to miss his passion. It is like feeling the punch long after receiving the punchline. And then you begin to appreciate the intensity, the desire to keep things simple, and the playfulness that summons his readers to scale platforms of inadvertence from which to view pathways of opportununities.
Laughter, for one,is a pursuit that is not without its share of sublimity and significance. Woody Allen used to say that "comedy is tragedy plus time". Truly. Laughter opens doors and windows. Walls and ceilings, too. It breaks barriers; it is liberating. It is a prayer for time; it is sustaining, it is healing. It is non-elitist; it is cholesterol-free. It is a defense; for when people are laughing, they’re generally not killing each other (ewan ko kung sino ang nagsabi nitong huli). Besides, cannibals don't eat clowns because they taste funny (ah, ito, si George Carlin po ang nagsabi nito). Had the case been that animals are equipped with a sense of humor, why, with all those powerful incisors and venom as already a given, the humor would be an added edge that would make the beasts far far superior than man. Yes, man would be reduced to blogging about the bliss of caged idleness and domesticity. What is the meaning of it all? Life is meant to be enjoyed and laughter is a pursuit, too. Period. Life stinks only when we fart. Mabuhay ka, Kuya James! |
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