Friday, May 12, 2017

Our Human Dilemma

We humans are either a byproduct of nothingness or our lives are about something else.  This is the human dilemma that is beyond empirical proof.  Those of us who have accepted the nothingness of this present life form are either very courageous or very stupid.  The nothingness life is simple, get all you can while you can and at the same time console your moral sensibilities with a few good deeds.  The nothingness life may be enough for some of us but what if life is ultimately about the something else?  Are we not looking over our shoulders, wondering and hoping that there just may be something more to it all?  Though we hope, most times the something or someone else seems to be a foggy vapor, our future vision clouded by a multitude of conflicting interests.
When our earthly aspirations come up short, when our expectations are crushed, when we prove to be our own worst enemy, even when we stubble onto a sweet spot in life, changing circumstances will return us to the dilemma of meaninglessness. Despite the progress of modern man to pull back the celestial curtain, we humans stuff our dilemma into a comfort coping cubbyhole, a cubbyhole with a prescribed group think, be it money, success, relationships, religion, politics, good works, the many varieties of excess or an approved ancient text.  Through history we have devised almost as many cubbyholes as there are those of us willing to think on these things.  Philosophers, theologians, writers, scholars and the scientific communities have debated and written a plethora of volumes, each claiming to have a semblance of understanding. 
Each of these thinkers may have something to say to us but none has a verifiable solution for our dilemma of meaning.  To the atheist we could ask, how does it feel to be a byproduct of nothingness?  To the agnostic, we could ask, where did your remote creative force go?  To those of us with a religious definition of the someone else, we could ask, where is your evidence except ultimate faith?  To those of us who champion an inherent human spiritual goodness, we could ask, why is this dynamic a vestigial appendage in so much of humankind?  There is no widely accepted fix for the dilemma of meaning and most of the world lives without the hope for a meaningful hereafter.  When it is our turn to die, what will each of us discover to be the eternal fix, if anything?
This is not an exclusively religious question but a universal human question we all confront, either directly or passively.  As young people, we take our chances but sooner or later the dilemma of meaning looms larger and larger.  The nothingness dilemma is ours to take to the grave while we search for answers in this life.  All we humans have this searching imperative, we want to know, all of us, regardless of age, sex, race, religion or national origin.  Will we experience illumination or black nothingness?  Will we experience a Utopian bliss or eternal hell fire?  Do we get to choose?  What are the qualifications for eternity?  Are there qualifications? 

The cubbyhole voices are out there advocating for their own understanding of what life is about but who shall we trust into the grave?  Where is the truth?  Who knows the truth?  Are we merely to be satisfied with making a small contribution to the flow of humanity?  These are just a few of the questions that bug some of us and to those of us who are profoundly sure of the future, cubbyholes and all, we envy you.

G.Goslaw