First post, and what to say…
The most burning issue on my mind is what is the point of being here, on the Earth, alive? Everything seems such a struggle, there are so many hurdles and obstacles, problems and issues. We’re surrounded by hate and violence and disrespect and seemingly endless desire to rape the planet of its resources and poison the environment we live in, or the environments of those far away who we’ll never know. We’re each judged by how big/small/fat/thin we are, what we have or don’t have, what we do or don’t do, by the colour of our skin/hair/clothing, by our abilities/disabilities by our beliefs, by where we live. Children, animals, old people, young people, middle-aged people are abused in all senses of the word for all kinds of spurious reasons. Have we progressed at all as humankind? Have we? Or has all the progress that has been made just been to increase the damage done, to do it all more efficiently and on a bigger scale and more creatively?
Why? What is the point of it all? Is there a purpose to life? Do we need a purpose?
There are oases of peace, quiet, tranquillity, harmony, love but they are few and far between. Materialism seems to rule all, and even creeps in even to these oases.
I don’t expect answers, I don’t know if there are any, I doubt there are, perhaps there are as many answers as there are souls incarnate on this hunk of rock orbiting the star called Sol, and perhaps may more for all those souls who have ever experienced this existence, and for those yet to come.
And yes, I’m feeling very low today … I woke in the middle of the night feeling very tearful and upset and questioning all of this…and more…why I struggle to undo the lessons learned from the past, the views I have of myself, the way I value (or don’t value) myself when I just seem to get nowhere from my point of view, though others tell me that I have changed, the same but different, the same but greatly improved. But still I wonder what it is all about, why.
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Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust – we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper. ~Albert Einstein, in The Saturday Evening Post, 26 October 1929
In the book of life, the answers aren’t in the back. ~Charlie Brown
Sometimes questions are more important than answers. ~Nancy Willard, quoted in The Meaning of Life, compiled by Hugh S. Moorhead
When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained. ~Mark Twain
You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life. ~Albert Camus
The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature. ~Joseph Campbell
There is no wealth but life. ~John Ruskin
The philosophy of mine earth can be summed up as this: Sunshine creates happiness, and I create myself. Nights are long and life is predominantly good. Wind is refreshing. Tea is wisdom. Do the best you can, and be good to yourself so that you can above all be good to others. ~Jessi Lane Adams
All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on. ~Havelock Ellis
But now I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth. ~Umberto Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum
The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched. ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden
It is while you are patiently toiling at the little tasks of life that the meaning and shape of the great whole of life dawn on you. ~Phillips Brook
When we are alone on a starlit night, when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children, when we know love in our own hearts; or when, like the Japanese poet, Basho, we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash – at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the “newness,” the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident, all these provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance. ~Thomas Merton
Art is the Adventure 