Vraith's teen self wrote:"Still
try I will and
die yet
it is always the journey that
matters
the asking[not]the
answers."
(So you wrote in your [wacky] style even then, eh?
)
This got me to thinking of some of my favorite quotes. Once again:
Jung wrote:The meaning and purpose of a problem seem to lie not in its solution but in our working at it incessantly.
Chris, from
Northern Exposure:
I've been out here now for some days, groping my way along, trying to realize my vision here. I started concentrating so hard on my vision that I lost sight. I've come to find out that it's not the vision. It's not the vision at all. It's the groping. It's the groping, it's the yearning, it's the moving forward. I was so fixated on that flying cow that, when Ed told me Monty Python already painted that picture, thought I was through. I had to let go of that cow so that I could see all the other possibilities....... I think Kierkegard said it oh so well: “The self is only that which it’s in the process of becoming.” Art? Same thing. James Joyce had something to say about it too: “Welcome oh life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience, and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscious of my race.” We’re here today to fling something that bubbled up from the collective unconsciousness of our community......... The thing I learned folks, this is absolutely key: It’s not the thing you fling, it’s the fling itself.
Trek quote #1 - Data and his daughter (he made a daughter in one episode):
Lal: I watch them, and I can do the things they do. But I will never feel the emotions. I’ll never know love.
Data: It is a limitation we must learn to accept, Lal.
Lal: Then why do you still try to emulate humans. What purpose does it serve, except to remind you that you are incomplete?
Data: I have asked myself that, many times, as I have struggled to be more human. Until I realized it is the struggle itself that is most important. We must strive to be more than we are, Lal. It does not matter that we will never reach our ultimate goal. The effort yields its own rewards.
Trek quote #2 - Data and Dr. Crusher:
Data: What is the definition of life?
Crusher: That is a BIG question. Why do you ask?
Data: I am searching for a definition that will allow me to test an hypotheses.
Crusher: Well, the broadest scientific definition might be that life is what enables plants and animals to consume food, derive energy from it, grow, adapt themselves to their surrounding, and reproduce.
Data: And you suggest that anything that exhibits these characteristics is considered alive.
Crusher: In general, yes.
Data: What about fire?
Crusher: Fire?
Data: Yes. It consumes fuel to produce energy. It grows. It creates offspring. By your definition, is it alive?
Crusher: Fire is a chemical reaction. You could use the same argument for growing crystals. But, obviously, we don't consider them alive.
Data: And what about me? I do not grow. I do not reprodue. Yet I am considered to be alive.
Crusher: That's true. But you are unique.
Data: Hm. I wonder if that is so.
Crusher: Data, if I may ask, what exactly are you getting at?
Data: I am curious as to what transpired between the moment when I was nothing more than an assemblage of parts in Dr. Sung's laboratory and the next moment, when I became alive. What is it that endowed me with life?
Crusher: I remember Wesley asking me a similar question when he was little. And I tried desperately to give him an answer. But everything I said sounded inadequate. Then I realized that scientists and philosophers have been grappling with that question for centuries without coming to any conclusion.
Data: Are you saying the question cannot be answered?
Crusher: No. I think I'm saying that we struggle all our lives to answer it. That it's the struggle that is important. That's what helps us to define our place in the universe.
Here's my view of it all.
Greater intelligence comes with greater emotions. Animals don't jump and scream for joy when their children are born. And they aren't devastated when their children are brutally murdered in front of them. Our intelligence takes us beyond instinctive drives and needs. We judge; giving us preferences, loves and hates. We remember the past much better, and we project into the future.
And with those judgements and preferences, loves and hates, come some tough questions. "Why does my child have to die? My intelligence doesn't allow me to forget, and I wouldn't want to if I could. But how do I live with this?" "I am aware. I don't want that awareness to end. I don't want to cease to be. Must I? Will nothing continue when my body is gone, perhaps eaten by lions or crocodiles?" "Why isn't the dog, or even the chimpanzee, as smart and aware as I am? What is it about me that makes me more?"
Our intelligence allows us to explore some of this. We know quite a bit about our brains, both the physical structure and the role of hormones/chemicals. We still have a long way to go before we even halfway understand it, but we understand a lot about the rise of the mind and many specific aspects.
Other questions are different. "How do I live with the pain of losing a child, and seeing horrors committed by others? Is oblivion what awaits me? I need a better answer!" These are not truly questions. They're fears. Life, the universe, and everything isn't necessarily what we would want it to be. From
Neverness:
Why should man seek justice in a universe which is manifestly unjust? Are we so insignificant and vain that we cannot look upon the raw, naked face of randomness without praying it will smile upon us merely because we have been righteous and good?
All of this is what this thread is about. Spirituality is the acceptance of what is, and the continuing on. The asking, the groping, the yearning, the moving forward. It's the human spirit. The ability to see that life comes with evil, but it also comes with beauty and joy. There are powerful thunderstorms; Beethoven's string quartets; hiking in the mountains; my children; my wife; the intricacies of the universe to be explored; chocolate; and on and on. It's the understanding that the journey
is the reward; it's not the road
to the reward.
A guy might work for the Land, Sea, Sky books. The Pipe Woman Chronicles are all in first person, so I'd need a woman for those.
Now that was good!