Death

Most of the meaningful things in life revolve around death; as though there is some mysterious unknown, some world beyond the veil that we cannot touch. It is in that search that we find religion. We find science, progression, the search for knowledge and improvement which is really the search for immortality. What is this holy grail of mankind, passed down from our oldest forefathers, that drives men and women alike to the brink of madness? Seeking to change the world, seeking to open hearts and open minds, to persuade opinions and prove theorems... for what reason? To be remembered? To somehow find a meaning in the empty existence that we call life?

Mayhap it is in death that we find value. We realize the importance of trivial things. Yet everything that we know about life leads us to seek a greater meaning - all our scientific answers confuse us, our religious ideologies are limited and empty of understanding. We seek answers in our friends, our family, the trusted officials of our society and the people that live within it. We even seek answers within ourselves. Some are so desperate that they travel the world in hope of an answer to the riddle; as though an explanation for an entire universe would exist in one lonely, outcast planet.

What is it about humanity that makes us search for meaning? Is it because there is pain, and a deep seated mental structure has taught us that all pain must be for a reason? What if a person was devoid of emotions - would they continue to seek a meaning in life? Would they even find it in themselves to wonder, vaguely, why are we here? Perhaps it is the wrong question - perhaps it is more simple. As simple as 'why am I'? It's that word again, "I", and what happens to the "I" when the body disappears. Have we seen any evidence that something happens at all? Have we felt it within ourselves?

And then I suppose one is to realize that the world is only real from the inside out. We experience the world first and foremost within ourselves - which can then perceive the outside environment. But if it was not for our own perceptions, who knows what the outside environment would truly be.

There is a greater pain than loneliness. It is in not knowing the answer to the only question in this world that has meaning, to every individual soul, to every nation of past, present and future, in every cycle of human life. And yet it cannot be answered; not directly. It is the question of death; of what happens after, and what happens to the "I."

Which, in turn, is our individual need for immortality.

If not the immortality of ourselves, then we wish for the immortality of our loved ones, for those we hold dear and those we selfishly bond to throughout the struggle of life. For there is no greater pain than death - the not knowing, the soul searching, this giant game of hide and seek. And so science carries on, filled with its ranks upon ranks of brilliant minds, seeking to answer the unanswerable question, both for themselves and for the whole world. And so religion carries on, comforting the hearts of the broken, structuring the societies of yesterday and the generations of tomorrow.

And here, the lonely traveler walks on... seeking answers to questions until he loses the question in and of itself.

Perhaps we are living the answer?

Perhaps we are not.