“In
three words I can sum up everything
“But Ted,” she said with the gentlest of spirit. “The universe
is so big…”
The comment wasn’t suggesting I am naive, but rather with a
wistful spirit that was one of awe and respect for the magnitude of the cosmos. This thoughtful and gentle Brazilian woman
and her equally matched husband Jose, were chatting during dinner
with my friend Uffe and me in Toulouse, France.
The privilege…
One of the things I have come to appreciate on my journey is
the people with whom I have been privileged to meet and befriend. In fact all three at this quiet dinner in the
hotel restaurant fall into this category.
Yara is a linguist by training and had been sharing with me that
regardless of the language in different countries and cultures, there are common
relationships between nouns (e.g.
person, place or thing) and an verbs (action) describing something the ‘noun’
is doing: “Billy (noun) jumped (verb).”
The conversation then drifted toward life – where
it might have come from and where it might be going. Uffe and I find ourselves in this ‘topical
soup’ often. We have a different perspective of where and how, but a common and respectful
sense of life.
He sees it from the bottom up…whilst I see it from
the top down. I think he means
that life probably does not come from intelligent design, but rather has
emerged from an evolutionary process of lesser building blocks, from which,
over time, we find ourselves, in random evolution, able to think and feel and
communicate in a physical body that carries the current ‘software version’ of
genetic material in our minds…that somehow all of us – whatever culture, gender
or race – as human beings are much more similar than we are different, because
we have developed through the same pathways.
I say, “I think” Uffe means…because as often as we have
touched upon this topic – and there have been many – I am still uncertain I completely
get the rationale. It is possible that I
am not clear because of my bias that life as we know it is the result of
creative intelligence… that life in whatever form and however it evolves and manifests,
came from a deliberate blueprint. It is
more than possible I have reached the edges of my willingness to ‘cross the
line’ of my sense of the human condition.
It is more than possible that I am much less open minded than I imagine
myself to be. That, of course, I find both
reinforcing and troublesome.
Reinforcing because each time I am given the opportunity to challenge
the things I believe and reflect on my life experience, I feel more confident
that the ship in which I sail has fewer and fewer leaks below the
waterline. Troublesome because it is
possible the more I think I exercise this thought process, I am less open and
therefore, may be less able to embrace a different point of view.
Perhaps it doesn’t matter.
Maybe like Don Quixote it is just building fences around windmills,
attempting to capture the breeze.
Seeking truth may be as elusive as trying to define gravity or magnetism
or love or humor…One knows these things when they experience them or see their
results, but defining them is another kettle of fish!
So the story continues.
The only thing I am certain about is that I am driven to want to
know and understand more about life…I am compelled to ask questions of people I
meet and interact with…I feel an obligation to see what others think and what
they experience, and yet the more I acquire, the more I realize how truly
little I know…
“But Ted,” she said with the gentlest of spirit. "The
universe is so big…”
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