AND GOD SENT SUFFERING
Raking the Infinite Sands
'Part I: Why?'
It’s hard to imagine why things are as they have been. Throughout life’s twists and turns, were are continuously confronted with a single question: Why? Intuitively, we grapple for causes of the effects that we have seen. For many, the search is as simple as it is shallow: what is experienced before is the cause. For others, it’s a deeper search: one that’s bound in the tangled web of mathematics, pieced apart by philosophy, or studied in excruciating detail by science.
Regardless, the quest remains the same: that of meaning and purpose. Caught between the chaos of a life with far too many variables to consider, we make due with what will bring us to the next event what ever that may be. For instance, many of us know, shallowly, how cars work and the more knowledgeable become fewer and fewer as the specificity of its construction and machination increase. Yet, knowledge of a car does not need to go beyond the bare necessities in order to be operated.
Until something out of the ordinary occurs.
The brakes lock, the engine locks down, the mileage suddenly increases.
Often, we seek to find causes for these things only when they affect us negatively; yet, when a car is performing better, rarely do we consider the causes behind a cursory glance and, even that, is debatable. Often, the idea of “luck” is used as a substitution for what can either not be explained or does not want to be considered.
However, the idea of “luck” is a strange thing. It is assumes a chaotic event that has no cause that can be defined; an event that has no source other than in the moment. When the idea of “luck” is applied, it brings with it the lack of reason. “Why” is answered with “just because” and, thus, meaning is subtly extracted from what we experience.
Yet, when things go awry, we are quick to find the sources of it. “Bad luck” is certainly an idea, but it is one where reason for misfortune has not be found or recognized, not that it isn’t sought after.
Why is it that when things go ‘bad’, we search for the meaning around us, but when things do not, we more readily accept the idea that events could exist without causes or meaning? Why is it that we more readily accept a chaotic view of the world when things are ‘right’, but demand order and reason (even if it is not ultimately observed), when things go wrong?
It’s a strange existence because, on the one hand, it can be recognized that there may be an inherent purpose and order in the world; yet, on the other hand, the choice to not do so is readily taken. Is it that there is not any inherent purpose or meaning, and that searching for it, even in times of misfortune is blindly grasping at things that will make sense in trying times? Or is it that, when there are times of peace, when everything is in working order, we do not feel it necessary to take a look at the parts that make up the ‘machine’?
“It is working. There is no need to investigate.”
“Do not look gift horses in the mouth.”
Alas, things do not simply go awry by random. “Luck”, both sides of it, are a seed of belief that events are disconnected from one another; that something unseen or unnoticed could not truly affect something experienced.
The car’s engine does not break down randomly: there are steps in which this occurs, reasons for it happening, causes that lead to the effect. A person can, and often thinks, that because they have not noticed it, it cannot be real; that it cannot have an effect. Yet, this cannot be true. For it to be true, cars wouldn’t often break down and, if they did, there would be no reason to ever hold a manufacturer liable no matter what the supposed ‘cause’ was.
For better or worse, many people seem to grasp for meaning, purpose, and cause only when the machine seems to malfunction. Only then do we try to take account for everything that we did, everything that others did, and everything we plan to do. It’s as if there is suddenly a realization that there is meaning to the world around us and people try to frantically find it for the brief moment that its presence is noted. Not only do is it noticed that there is an order in the world, it is often immediately believed that something is ‘wrong’ with that order; that the machine is broken.
Many, when their cars cease working properly, take it to an expert. Who is the expert on our lives, though? To whom do we seek the knowledge of order? Who can see the causes that lead to the effects?
>(cont'd…)