Ah yes, folks,the Beatles song has now struck home. So long ago it was so far away. And now it is today.
So if you’re looking for an answer, its not mine to give but yours.
But for my reflections, let me say.
Today is where I’m at and it is as mysterious as ever. Whatever answers I have are no more permanent than the moment I am in. I am alive fully aware that the eternal present is ever changing and transitory. As I grow older I reflect on the probability that this eternal present I experience has a greater and greater chance of flashing away at any time. I have no idea why what I experience exists but intellectually and emotionally do not adhere to any random dogma that assigns it some absolute value.
Yet I am a part of something larger and have strived to understand it and feel it and sustain the good things in it and reject those that are negative and life destroying.
I continue to live as if I will not die, because it seems to do otherwise is to start dying. That does not mean I do not reflect on my coming mortality, but I see no reason to hasten the day.
So many others have passed through this plane of being that we experience that to assign my life some special significance would be a form of self delusion. Yet that does not mean my living or your living is not significant. We seem to exist as part of some strange life force or energy field that has not found itself at an endpoint and is still evolving. That is why science fiction which explores the dimensions of reality has always been intriguing to me. It opens the mind to visions of possible futures and realities not yet realized.
Living in a city for so many years blinds one to the starry heavens around us. The flickering lights in the sky are as mysterious and incomprehensible as ever. So much of human history has been oblivious to the dimensions and fragileness of life, including human life, that exists in a thin film around one planet that is a mere speck in the cosmos.
Infinity and our finiteness remain as incomprehensible as ever in astronomical and metaphysical terms. Exploring the mosaic and multitude of the dimensions of physical space getting smaller and smaller also is perplexing as the complexity of subatomic structure still eludes our comprehension.
Life and existence remains a reality and an illusion. What I see and hear and feel is filtered through my past and the constructs imprinted on my brain and the constructs that are my mind and the web of being that connects with it through communication and books and the Internet and the social and personal and physical links to my perception. I am a part of something and yet I am separate.
Then there’s brain plasticity and the unconsciousness that I don’t seemingly perceive and the inconsistencies and brain wiring networks that I don’t control and those that I do that are variable with circumstances like age or smells or emotions or my physical surroundings or state of rest or stress.
We try to shape a construct on who we are to define ourselves and establish routines to function in the world we find ourselves in. Some of it is beyond our ability to control and some of it we daily repeat in patterns imposed upon us by society or our past. Some of it we understand and some of it we are blind to. Some of it we can change and some of it is remains beyond us.
Truly living means to be open to constant re-evaluation to try to determine whether we are acting freely and wisely and with compassion or whether we are responding to factors or forces that are not in our best interests or those of others sharing the field of life we exist in.
Accidents of birth, being in one social setting or society versus another, must be viewed as just that. Those accidents of birth location and religious or social or political upbringing commit many people to a life that is unexamined and unquestioned. True freedom requires one to step outside these constructs and examine the alternatives before choosing. This is the role that real education should assist in but that is so often lacking.
Just a few thoughts percolating around as this day moves on. Society as a whole would be wise to reflect on it’s answers to providing care and compassion to those sharing life on earth, particularly those less fortunate and in need. As populations grow and competition increases for resources and strains increase on the earth’s life support systems; if we can’t answer yes to “Will you still need me, Will you still feed me …?” whether someone is 4 or 64 or 104, then we as a world civilization are in trouble. We’re not there yet.
