Sooner or later, a pattern emerges. Sometimes we never see it emerging, and it ends in mystery – such as when people die before their illness can be diagnosed, or when a relationship ends before it can be understood, or when a species dies out before anyone even knew about it. Sooner or later, a pattern emerges.

So it is with man's search for meaning. Is it possible that man's search for meaning results in the search for meaning itself? Is it possible that simply by trying to understand why one is here one is answering the question? Patterns do not lie. Religions and philosophies orbit humanity, held together with the gravity of a search for meaning. Some claim to find meaning in religion and philosophy, be it in a deity or lack of a deity. Either way, there is faith involved – be it the casual faith of an atheist in a lack of a deity or the more rigorous faith of believing in a deity. The search for meaning is not found in religion or a lack of religion – it is only punctuated by it. In every philosophy and religion, we idolize those that we believe obtained meaning.

Meaning is not found in tradition. Tradition only gives a context, and religion inherits this. Any religious text only prescribes a methodology for finding meaning – or not finding meaning but accepting a certain level of meaning, perhaps to keep one from poking too many holes in one's own mind in the late night. { Read more }

When I posted about my upcoming retreat over at Your2ndPlace.com, I included the following quotation:

It's rather like a puddle waking up one morning. I know they don't normally do this, but allow me, I'm a science fiction writer. A puddle wakes up one morning and thinks: "This is a very interesting world I find myself in. It fits me very neatly. In fact it fits me so neatly... I mean really precise isn't it?... It must have been made to have me in it." And the sun rises, and it's continuing to narrate this story about how this hole must have been made to have him in it. And as the sun rises, and gradually the puddle is shrinking and shrinking and shrinking - and by the time the puddle ceases to exist, it's still thinking - it's still trapped in this idea that - that the hole was there for it. And if we think that the world is here for us we will continue to destroy it in the way that we have been destroying it, because we think that we can do no harm.

— Douglas Adams, a talk at UC Santa Barbara (RealMedia Webcast)

Since I haven't watched that video of Douglas Adams speaking at UC Santa Barbara (RealMedia Webcast) in a long time, I ended up watching it again - all 1 hour and 27 minutes of it - and was struck by his observations that could be explained away as pieces of evolution. And yet, I thought last night that it had more to do with simply being - not simply existence, but being a part of a greater whole. { Read more }

At that moment, when the world around him melted away, when he stood alone like a star in the heavens, he was overwhelmed by a feeling of icy despair, but he was more firmly himself than ever. That was the last shudder of his awakening, the last pains of birth. Immediately he moved on again and began to walk, quickly and impatiently, no longer homewards, no longer to his father, no longer looking backwards. -- Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

Over the last years, I have spent a lot of time with myself - getting to know myself better and understanding myself better. It was, at first, a matter of necessity after my father's death. It wasn't a particularly difficult time because he died, but what was difficult was coming to terms with the relationship he and I had. The ups and downs, the trials and tribulations of a tempestuous relationship dashed onto a pyre. One half of that relationship gone, there was not much left. I do not let many people close, and to that end my father was not close when he passed away - partly of his own choosing, partly of my own. It felt right at the time, and yet it still hurt. It still was right, but identifying that hurt required staring into the well. And that well, you see, is quite deep. Mortality is a troublesome thing, but it has its uses. { Read more }