Broken threads

Have you ever had one of those moments where you knew, just knew that you were seeing the world clearly for the first time? It’s a slightly off-balance feeling, like standing on solid ground after being bounced around by the waves, that horrible disorientation as the world finally goes level and true in front of you, if only for a moment. It’s during moments like that, when the puzzle pieces that compose the universe seem to slide together to reveal their true whole, when the dark places are flooded by the light, that I’m probably farthest from the truth. I’ve come to believe that those moments are frauds: fools dreams and mindless wishes. Because the mysteries of the universe are ineffable, and those moments claim to capture them in words.

It was during one of those moments that I thought, just for a fraction of a second, that I had it all figured out. I saw in front of me the meaning of life, the purpose behind all our seemingly pointless toil, and it was beautiful. Fortunately for me, I can’t remember what it was, can’t remember the complicated lines of logic that wove it into being. I do remember the feeling as it all came crashing down. I can’t really describe the feeling as feelings are meant to be described, can’t do it with words solely meant for verbalizing emotion, but I’ll see if I can’t paint you a picture.

Imagine a picture of paradise. It doesn’t have to be my paradise; it can be whatever you want it to be. Regardless of what it is, you’re standing on the edge of it. As you’re standing there, you notice something odd, something artificial in that perfect natural wonder. There are thousands of almost invisibly thin lines criss-crossing the scene. These monofilaments, these fishing line thin wires, are the arguments that hold your paradise together. They are the superstructure on which paradise hangs. Then it begins to unravel. An airtight argument gives way to logical flaws – a filament snaps. Slowly at first, then growing faster and faster, they begin to break. Paradise sags like a deflated balloon, wobbles and crashes down on itself with less grace than a destroyed house of cards.

That’s how it felt to watch what I imaged was the meaning of life vanish before my eyes.

I bring this up to say that should I ever be able to start writing about what I want to write about (what the meaning of life isn’t), should I start down that path, it’s not a journey lightly undertaken. We hold many misconceptions about what this life is all about. The farther they are from true, the closer we hold them to our hearts. We live by them. They shape our lives in ways subtle and dramatic. They provide motive, meaning, help us drive away the mental demons that keep us up at night. But are they right? Is the reason behind why we do what we do valuable enough to warrant examination? Or is it better not to know, to blindly carry on?

It’s questions like that that have kept me from writing what I said I’d write in my last post. You see, while I’m not vain enough to think that what I write here will have any lasting impact on the people who read it, I know that writing may force me into finding answers that I didn’t want to find. I think there may be a reason most people don’t give why we do what we do more than a passing thought. I think that some things are better left unchallenged, some questions better left unanswered.

I also think that reading too much makes me melodramatic.