The Search for Meaning

The Search for Meaning

‘In the beginning…’ so the Bible says.  A linear story, a record of truth?  Many philosophers, religious seers and occasional wonderers have all sought the same thing.  The meaning of it all. 

Am I going to reveal the answer?  In this forgotten corner of nowhere, will I shatter the world with a shattering discovery that changes everything?  No, I cannot and nor can any man or woman do likewise.  Why?  Read on…

I began with a fragment from the Bible.  Some say story, some say fact, but for this moment it does not matter and I will tell you why.

From the first moment of life; that magical moment of conception where a sperm and an egg share secrets and data; blueprints for a new beginning we are tracked by linear time until death.  I used to fear time.  Now I am running out of it, time matters even more.  Squeezing the last drops of meaning from an oft wasted existence, my time will as all do…end. 

Even the scientists tell us there was a beginning.  A ‘big bang’ that heralded the known universe.  Boy! There’s a phrase if ever I heard one ‘the Known Universe’ , but what of the unknown universe.  The boffins sit in their ivory towers and scrawl symbols to tell the story, but will it ever be known and do we really want the answers?  If you are like me then only if it’s good news. I have a suspicion that some hate not knowing, others love the uncertain future of discovery, but all seek the same thing…answers and I ask only this.  If the ‘Big Bang’ was the beginning, what was there before and why did it wait until then to start?

No, we are bound in our thinking by linear time and we will all come to an end within it, but what of that moment? In my darkest moments, my ego takes over.  Surely I will not cease to exist?  My beginning and my end will one day fade and no one will remember it.  So what if me then?  Of late I have been delving into the world of quantum physics and it is one I know my limited thinking will rarely understand.  Yet I find it fascinating.  Scientists are not story tellers.    At least not by my way of thinking.  If they do their job properly they are merely scouts sent to seek the unknown and report it and this is where for me they stumble.

We are so totally bound by a capital letter beginning and a ‘full stop’ at the end that for most of us the truth (were ever it hides) will never be revealed.  If as Professor Cox once said in a tv prog ‘eventually darkness will descend and the universe filled with lifeless, motionless matter’ (paraphrased not quoted…sorry for the quote marks) then why did it ever begin, and why will it end so tamely?  Or are we in an eternal circle, an Ouroborus  that is eternal?