Our personal truths....

When I first started blogging, one of my objectives was put into words my own personal search for purpose, the meaning of life, and the truth. And while over the months this blog may have diversified into a lot of other things representing my myriad interests, one thing that hasn't changed is my quest to seek my own personal truth.

What is the truth anyway? Frankly, I still don't know. Or maybe I do. The funny thing about the truth is that it can be so paradoxical. It can be there while at the same time it can't. Sometimes you find it when you're not looking for it. And sometimes it just hits you yet you don't realize it.

We all have our own personal quests, and we are all searching for our own truths in our own ways. Ask a hundred people on how you can find the truth, and you'll probably get a hundred different answers. Some search for the truth through religion. Some through philosophy. Some through the occult arts, in the supernatural and the paranormal. Some through politics, some through history, some through science and technology. Some through medicine. Some through mathematics. Some through art or music.

Some peer through telescopes into the vastness of outer space to find it. Some look through powerful microsopes into the world of the microscopic, even the sub-atomic to find it as well. Some travel to distant lands in their search. Some look for it in barren desolate deserts. Some in tropical rainforests. Some in the cities of man. Some look for it in books. Some in the ether of cyberspace. Some in other people. Sir Isaac Newton merely had to sit under a tree to find his truth. Sir Edmund Hilary had to climb a Mt. Everest to find his. Some, like Mahatma Gandhi, or our own national hero Jose Rizal, gave their lives for it.

There is a dark side in all of these as well. There are some who seek the truth in evil, in drugs and alcohol, in pain and suffering, in death and destruction. In virtually all of the wars fought by humanity since the dawn of makind, there is not one civilization who has waged war who does not believe their cause to be righteous. Even now, those who sow terrorism like the recent bombing attack in Bali Indonesia, believe their cause to be pure and just. Even if it is just the opposite.

I could go on and on...

In every culture, in every corner of the world, there is always someone searching for that small sliver of significance which he or she hopes would bring meaning and purpose, to his or her existence. I know I am. Everyone is, in their own way.

The truth can be found in all of these, and none of these, at the same time. That is what makes the truth so tantalizing. It is never far away, yet most of the time it is out of reach. Most of us devote our entire lives, whether we know it or not, into the pursuit of an abstract, an ideal that defies definition, that defies convention. Perhaps it defies even our own meager and finite understanding.

And yet we persist. There are a few of us who actually come to terms with our own personal quests for the truth. We may realize this after successfully achieving a particularly lofty goal, or perhaps even a gaze at something mundane or commonplace, or anything in between. There are some who say that the truth can be found in the smile of a child, the caress of a loved one, the warmth of the morning sun, the beauty of a flower moist with dew. Others say it answers the questions: "What is the meaning of life?" or "Is there a God?" It is actually all of these, and none these at the same time. It is merely the quest which drives us forward.

That is precisely what makes us human. We need to know that we are an integral part of something that is much bigger than ourselves. We need to know that we belong. That we exist for a reason. Paul Coelho's book The Alchemist (see previous post here) refers to this as our personal legends. Sometimes I just refer to it as destiny.

Perhaps that is the meaning of life. Our search for purpose...our personal legends, our destiny. That is what we are here for. It may sound oversimplistic, but then again, maybe the truth was never meant to be complicated.

These are just random thoughts of mine. Perhaps they have aided in you in your own quest. Then again, maybe not. The bottomline is, we are here for a reason, even if that reason may not be readily apparent to us. It is our responsibility to search for that reason, not necessarily to find it. For it is the search itself which makes our lives worthwhile...and allows us to touch the lives of others as well.

Yeah. Perhaps that's it.

If not, then the search continues.

As it rightfully should.

Quaere Verum.