Wednesday, August 18, 2010

I Just Don't Know

Age is just a number. Yes, but human minds latch onto symbols, metaphors, markers and shiny things, and then work with those to try and make meaning in our existences. In just under six months I will have marked off fifty years of existence on this earth. My life to this point hasn't been a big failure, but it hasn't been an unalloyed success either. (Of course there are no unalloyed successes, but my alloys have partook pretty heavily of base metals up to now, it seems.)

I want the next few years of my life to involve a lot of conscious meaning-making. I have come to see that I cannot expect meaning to fall from the sky into my lap. It will not hit me over the head like a holy pillow. I must grow up and make my own meaning for my own life.

I do not know whether or not there is a deity or a plane of existence beyond this one. I have no proof nor incontrovertible evidence. I also have no proof or incontrovertible evidence these things do not exist either. I could spend the rest of my days speculating one way or the other, but it would only be speculation, and nothing more. The truth is I do not know. I admit I am agnostic.

Therefore meaning making falls on my shoulders (as I believe it falls on each individual human beings shoulders, whether he or she admits it or not, and whether he or she embraces it or not). I have to choose the ethics I want to live by, and the meaning I want to make in my life.

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