Reaction to Life

In my opinion, too many people are too curious about the meaning and the origin of life. You see these “philosophers” wandering about, pondering, “What is life? Where did we come from? Where do we go?” Well, news flash, boys. It doesn’t matter. So get on with your lives!

Why do we concern ourselves with the most mind-boggling questions all the time when there is life to be lived? Even if someone really sat down on the ground and thought hard for a month or a year, chances are he’d go insane. Trying to find the answer would be so hard and tedious that, instead of finding the answer or forgetting it all and living his own life, he’d lose his mind and get really, really ticked. While he was thinking, though, he’d miss such great things in life such as the Super Bowl, the Fourth of July, and hockey.

He leaves all the fun things in life just to wonder about something that happened one heck of a long time ago, even when there’s a slim chance of him ever getting the answer that will ultimately satisfy him. There will always be something that he forgot to consider. Now where’s the logic in all that?

Sure, we may use our free time, say, when we’re just sitting there in the bus, and maybe the thought comes to mind. I should know. It happens to me all the time. But that’s different, you see. That’s just plain old pondering to kill time. It’s like twiddling your thumbs. There isn’t a point in doing it, you just do. That is drastically different than living in a small straw hut on a mountain somewhere in Mongolia and sitting there, staring at the paper and trying to define life.

Another interesting thing to look for from this kind of people is that they really don’t have anything else to do. Have you ever seen a blue collar worker sit back and really, really ponder about life? Rarely. Because they’re all trying to live life itself. They go to work, they pay their taxes, they raise a family. They have better things to do with their time. But these “philosophers” spend most of their time thinking out all this stuff. Doesn’t that say something? There are better things to do with your life than answer an almost impossible question.

But there are those who supposedly have come up with an answer. For the origin of life we have the incredible theories of evolution, divine creation, space seed, spontaneous generation, and much more where those came from. There are still major flaws in these major theories.

Evolution. Believing that we come from the smallest, most simple bacteria and we’ve evolved from that. But where did that simple bacteria come from? Another planet, another universe? God? Or did it just show up? Divine creation. God made us, and he made everything else. Same question goes here: where did God come from? And why would he make us if he has everything at his disposal? There just might be better things to do with his time.

Some people tried to explain this by “the uncaused cause” theory. Everything has a cause, but the ultimate, original event that caused everything else has no cause. What could that be, and how in the world could that be possible?

Space seed. Why would there be one? And where did it come from? Are there other beings in this galaxy than us? The same questions that faced the previous two theories also apply here. And, as for the spontaneous generation, beg your pardon but that is just about the sloppiest theory ever introduced. It has no substance to it, really. All it says that we just were. Bing! Boom! There’s man. We just showed up. No explanation. Apparently there wasn’t much thought put to it.

So these theories which people have been sitting around for very long amounts of time thinking up, although commendable for their efforts, all have the problem of forgetting something.

And then there’s the definitions of life. Everyone has their own where they link it to something they know. I constantly use my own comparison of life when this kind of topic comes up. The hockey game. (I love hockey.) You buy your ticket, you get all your food and beer ready, you go in and you enjoy the game. If you’re lucky, you get good seats. If you’re not, you end up sitting behind this big guy with a huge hat and a nasty temper that you just don’t want to try. During the game or between the periods you take a break or two to go to the bathroom and replenish your food. Then you go back and continue to enjoy people bashing each other against the glass. When the game is over you go home and remember the good time you had.

Everyone has their own definition. That must say something about the entire thing. If there are so many variations, then there must be no real fixed definition of life. Life and its meaning is entirely up to the person who is living it, then. To each his own thoughts and way of life.

If they choose to sit and ponder and try to think up a universal answer, that’s their thing. I have my own thing to do. Like go watch a hockey game.

. . .

Copyright (c) 1998 by Gemma Truman
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'Tis a reaction paper to one of the topics discussed in my Philosophy class. 'Tis life. The reaction is basically whatever comes to mind about the subject, and what was discussed about it, like definitions of life, the idea of reincarnation, yada yada yada.