life, the universe, and everything

everyone has the same question, at some point in their lives, if not for a large part of it. ph.d.'s in philosophy spend their entire lives on it, physicists wonder about it too.

why are we here?

i can answer that question. not because i'm wise but this just what i've learned, through everything that's been good or painful in my life. i'm not that old i know...but i think when i am older, when i've reached the twilight of my life, my perspective on this will only have deepened, not shifted.

so what is it? it's to give of ourselves.

oh, this may sound ridiculous to some, overly naive, overly simplistic perhaps. but i know with absolute conviction that this is truth.
we are here to have a purpose and a meaning. an interconnectedness. to affect each other, cause reactions...in a good way. to live to learn to grow...and give.

if vocabulary were cleaner i'd say it was all about love. but the word "love" is murky. it's hard to always conceptualize love as it should be - pure and unselfish. therefore i say "to give", for that is love in it's purest form. giving of yourself to your world, to your family, to your friends and to that one you love the most. to your creator. to complete strangers.

and by no means does all this giving mean self-sacrifice! hardly. for it's also accepting what the world has to offer. without shame or reservation.

this is a universal principle: active love. i believe all of creation is built on this foundation and our lives have no true meaning until we recognize it.

i cannot say that i've come to live this way fully. certainly not. but now i understand what it means to live, what it means to be a part of this world. and my goal will always be that my life be in harmony with this principle.

john donne once wrote that no man is an island. that when someone dies, not to ask for whom the bell tolls, for it tolls for you. that's not meant in a morbid way, just to mean that we all have value to each other, whether we recognize it or not. but i think we'll never live our lives fully until we do.