Why You Need To Figure Life Out For Yourself

I grew up a good little Catholic boy (at least in my demeanor), I attended church (somewhat forced by my parents), played altar boy a few times, helped out with Sunday school, and participated in CCD class. In all that time, I listened for answers that it seemed, I was never really given. Your expected to believe blindly in your faith, but they don't ever tell you why. Religions frighten us with eternal damnation, and horrors unspeakable. They tell us to follow these suggested guidelines without question, but they can't even agree on which guidelines to follow.

Attending college changed all those questions, and although it presented new ones, I at least felt I possessed the power to find my own answers. At school, I decided I'd minor in Art History, afterall, why be ignorant of the past, if it is what we use to figure out our future. My professors were very strict about our perception of the works we looked at, they believed (as I do now), that in order to understand the artwork, you must understand and respect the people that created it. In order to understand those people, you must understand their cultures, their traditions and their beliefs. I therefore found myself studying as much theology and philosophy as I did actual artwork.

I was fortunate enough to have an academic advisor who honestly cared for my success, and fought very hard to supply me with the knowledge I needed to understand what it is I was looking for. She guided me into electives that could help bring enlightenment to my core studies, and gave me access to resources that the average student tends to overlook in their research.

During this time, I found an incredible amount of information pertaining to early Catholicism, Islam, Judaism, Daoism, Hinduism, Buddhism (as well as countless other religions) and the roots of those belief systems. I found myself uncovering the answers some people would rather have unknown. The details of acts done in the name of faith, but can only be described as unspeakable evils, inflicted onto humanity simply because of people's blind faith in their masters. From those days forward, I sought my own answers.

my ideas:

Why would we exist on a planet, alone it seems, in a universe so large (seems like an awfully big waste of space), unless whoever put us here, had a reason for keeping us isolated. Maybe this place is more then just the third rock from our sun. Maybe the reason we a forced to witness the abominations of evil, is so that we can truly understand the good in this world. Why would we always have to face so much terrible tragedy in our lives, unless it was there to help us to appreciate all the wonderful things we hold so dear in our hearts.

Would it help to explain why we all seem to consider life so difficult, a challenge each and every day. How we struggle to exist, to make do, and possibly make our single presence known in a sea of unique individuals. Are we here, in this place, filled with such incredible experiences such as love, compassion and fellowship, and yet also more then filled with the horrors of hate, greed and loss, to learn and understand some intangible lesson.

Perhaps if life is but a single lesson, a lesson we learn through our many experiences (good and bad), then when we finally understand, wouldn't it be time to move on. Could death, in all it's randomness, be explained by simply understanding that maybe, when one person finally figures out why they are here to learn, they die, only to be reborn anew, ready to take on the challenge of learning the next of these universal lessons.

Maybe there are different lessons, understood at different times, in separate lives. Could that explain why we are all so very unique from one another. Perhaps that might explain why in the span of our delicate lives, we get the opportunity to meet so many others, unique in their own ways, yet invaluable in the relationships (good or bad) you share with them. Would this explain why our friends, our family and our neighbors interweave their lives with our own, so that we may help to teach what it is, that we need to understand in this life.

I can't help but look in retrospect to the life I have lived thus far, and think about the people that have come and gone through my life, and how those people, no matter how much or how little we interacted, have impacted my own understanding of who I am and where I am going.

I believe I can be proud of my efforts, and I can appreciate everything I have been fortunate to see and do, although it seems, there is still so much that still needs to be done in this life. I'm not content with simple existence, I've sacrificed some of the material desires of our society, so that I can focus my efforts on my experiences. I believe you can never stop yourself from learning, and that's why the Master's degree looms on the horizon. I give thanks for the opportunity to meet so many people in my job, and my travels, so that I can continue to broaden my understanding of humanity and what my role is in the grand scheme of some infallible power.