What does it all mean? Why are we here?
I know we have all asked this at some point. It is the curse of human self-conscious. The question that motivates the pursuit of knowledge. A question that both haunts us and thrills us. It's the question that we tend to ignore when we look to the stars, trying not to be dwarfed in the infinitesimal expanse of the space beyond our atmosphere. At the same time, it is the question we beg when faced with the powerful notion of death. In times of hopelessness, it's the blank despair of being blind, asking the impossible questions.
I have to admit, when I considered myself a Christian, these questions were easy so long as I asked no other questions. But after giving up my beliefs, I was left with a blank page at the end of my story. Or so I thought. My discarding of beliefs was partly thanks to my thirst for knowledge. I wasn't ready mentally to handle the challenge of being without an afterlife. That is, however, until I came across some of the most poignant words I had ever read. http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.
That may not answer any questions for you. It may not bring you any form of peace. But for me, it brought it all together. It all made sense. We are the lucky ones, and why can't that be the best damn thing to happen in our beautiful reality?
Tomorrow we find out, hopefully, the sex of our child. Our lucky one.
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