Thursday, August 28, 2014

A Transitory Yes

"By the side of the everlasting Why there is a Yes--

a transitory Yes if you like, but a Yes.”

This quote from A Room With A View by E.M.Forster - which, thanks to the exquisitely beautiful film version, is often misquoted as, "At the side of the everlasting Why there is a Yes! and a Yes! and a Yes!" - speaks to the great questions of the world: Why are we here? What is our purpose? Is there meaning to life? The "transitory Yes" feels like hope - yes, we are here for an important reason, yes we have a greater purpose, yes, in the face of all the pain and injustice that exists, there is meaning to life. 

This blog is a place for me to ask those big questions, and maybe even answer some of them; though I submit that questions are far more important than answers. 

6 comments:

  1. I am REALLY looking forward to reading your posts. Way to think big! I think I'll subscribe!

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    1. You haven't added the gadget that allows people to subscribe..."subscribe link" on Layout tab

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    2. Thanks, Stacey - I think I fixed it, let me know if the "follow" button doesn't do the trick.

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  2. Stacey, I'm very interested in the BIG questions of life. I'll be so interested to read what you have to say.

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  3. I am so excited to meet someone who isn't afraid to tackle these questions. It is, after all, what life is all about! I can't wait to read more!

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  4. Ah Gwyneth, don’t I just love the big, abstract, philosophical stuff. Why are we here? On the one hand, it is all chance. Just the right elements came together in space to form a planet with water at just the right temperature just the right distance from the right-sized sun, and along came the right soup of chemicals to form life. Give it a few billion years and voila, here we are. But now what? We continue to evolve socially and culturally and always will until the sun and planet are no more, and one day in another few billion years they will be. We’re here for a very short time. What can we do with our time here? Leave it better than we found it. Love. Cherish. Enjoy. Do good. We don’t like to think about it, but we read stories every day about people who woke up and never made it to the end of the day, or got the news their days were numbered. Could be any of us. Any day could be our last. To quote a good film, “Make it count!”

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