Philosophy                       Why Be                    29 March 2024


   During my lunch break today, I visited McDonald's and on my way home,
   I heard the intriguing melodies composed by the wind as it conducted
   an orchestra of tree branches and leaves.  It was then that a thought
   struck me: here exists a tree, allowing the wind to flow through its
   crown, rustling away.  Just living, simply existing, untempted by the
   search for its own meaning of life.

   The little bugs crawling on the ground are equally unburdened by the
   quest for life's meaning.  Whether birds might eat them tomorrow
   seems a matter of profound indifference to them.  So what if they do,
   really?  If the birds feast, they feast.  Even the cat, poking its
   head through the fence bars and cautiously observing passersby, is
   blissfully unaware of the need to seek out life's purpose.

   Humans, however, believe they are distinctly different, and indeed,
   they are different in a curious way: while the meaning of any other
   creature's life has been merely to live and, if possible, reproduce,
   humans have craved something more, something much greater.
   Regardless of the magnitude of this artificially constructed
   "meaning," it seldom left them satisfied.

   Humans are haunted by loneliness and dissatisfaction with their
   lives.  It seems as if the answer to "why am I here" could magically
   tune all the discordant strings of the soul and restore a sense of
   inner balance, as well as the once-lost tranquility, serenity, and
   ataraxia.

   Nature is more definitive in these matters: unlike humans, it doesn't
   hypothesize, it knows that there is no special meaning to life
   intended for us; as with animals, the purpose of human existence is
   merely to be alive and try to reproduce, so that all previous
   iterations of existence were not in vain.

   So what to do in the absence of meaning?  Let the wind flow through
   the crown of your hair and rustle.  Peek your head through the fence
   bars and cautiously watch the world go by.  Will you die tomorrow?
   To hell with death, truly.  If it comes, it comes.

   A person will stop searching for the meaning of life, and for the
   first time, with wonder, see this world through the eyes of their
   inner child, once cornered by their own doing.  They'll start to live
   and, having taken a hundred steps across the endless fields the color
   of the sun, they'll pause.  They'll pause and, spreading their arms,
   will run with all their might...  simply because they can run.
   Because they are alive and they exist.  They'll run not with a
   predetermined and meticulously calculated purpose, but just because.

   And they shall make merry and laugh.  And they shall be happy.

   In that instant, a part of their former "self" that demanded meaning
   on this senseless planet will die.  In that instant, they may finally
   understand all the living beings that surrounded them before.
   Perhaps they'll even begin to treat nature more gently, feeling once
   again a part of it.  Perhaps.  Who knows.  Yet there will be no more
   searching for meaning, nor the desire to embark on that quest again.

   And thus, life begins.





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