Why Are We Here?

Why Are We Here?

Since this is my first ever blog post I thought I should start with the topic that has persistently occupied my thoughts for as long as I can remember. From the day I was old enough to read it seemed that I was gripped with an insatiable thirst for knowledge. I still remember the day I pulled apart an old broken alarm clock to see how it worked inside. Oh, they use springs, gears and levers. Question answered. I really didn’t see the need to put it back together – it was already broken. Eventually I learned that knowing how to reassemble things was also important. As I got older I started to wonder about the weightier questions, the answers to which seemed beyond the physical.

·         Who am I?

·         Where did I come from?

·         Why am I here?

·         How should I live my life?

What does it all mean? There must be a purpose to this existence because I felt it in my bones, but like a shadow glimpsed from the corner of my eye that disappears when I try to look directly at it, the answers were eluding me. Everyone had an opinion but who was to say which was right, and anyway where does one start this quest?

I began by looking at the world around me. I loved the sciences and dearly wanted to be a paleontologist, geologist and archaeologist all at the same time. As time went on I worked my way through many subjects finally coming back around to religion and philosophy after realising that, somewhat typically for me, I had perhaps begun at the end rather than the beginning and I should have looked at myself first.

Know Thyself

This old Delphic maxim given as Gnothi Seauton in Greek or Nosce te ipsum in Latin, is probably one of the most important instructions we could take on board.

To find the answer we must first ask “Who Am I?”

People the world over struggle through life unhappy in their own skin because they never find the answer to this question. Many don’t even know to ask it yet still subconsciously seek the answer as evidenced by their actions, searching for identity, love and acceptance yet not understanding why it eludes them.

This simple admonishment, “know thyself”, can lead you to ask some very important follow-up questions that were really the questions I started with. Paradoxically, people can be quite selfish in their behaviour and yet we avoid self-examination like the plague. Likewise I struggled through life because I had not developed any techniques for self-analysis and, since my self-identity was a little shaky, introspection and correction was often painful.

To know thyself was the guiding quest for many great thinkers throughout history and I can think of no better way to start.

In the words of the Psalmist:

                “…what is man that You are mindful of him”? (Psalm 8:4)