Since childhood one question haunted my thoughts. Why do people think? Messages traverse nerves, from the brain to the toe; organs, limbs, and all between. The gut and brain send impulses, yet function doesn’t explain why. Why do we think?
People run around our planet from errands to entertainment, work to party, wars to family. We bounce off each other, reacting to what someone said or did. Sometimes not even understanding their intent, but no matter, march forward. Once in a while, we’ll come upon a luscious green park near a tree. Let time settle, let reactions fade, and breathe a pure thought. Why do we live?
Awake in a lucid dream, I yelled, “What is the meaning of life?” Everyone looked at me without answer. Did I ask the wrong question? What is the structure of life? We think, react, create, and sabotage. Construction and destruction follow thought, our own or the desires of another. Effort follows thought.
Effort builds our physical world. The ambitious thought develops into a house, city, community. How incredible the thought to build a universe. We crawl upon the earth expressing thought, creating. The physical world is experience. We must engage in the challenges of physical life, thereby providing purpose and reality. Thought is the meaning of life; it’s why life exists. Effort is the structure of life; it’s how life exists.
Ok, so why do we think? Dig deeper…
Society reflects our thoughts, from evil to beauty and everything in between. Follow any thought to its source, any emotion to its core. Where did it come from? Another thought?
From chores and obligations to hobbies and escape. From joy, charity, and fun, to hate, theft, and greed. Thoughts structure upon themselves. Peel the layers, until we arrive at two. A growl of fear and a breath of love, the two roots of thought.
Every thought sprouts from love or fear, shaped by our lived and ancestral experience, and expressed in the world. If fear dominates, we build the cruel world of torture and abuse. If love dominates, we build the beauty and care in a world of help. Which world do we build? The Caged Jungle torments out of fear. Love lets it be, amplifying the light. Love discards the chains of fear.
A song replays in my head, a conversation repeats from earlier today, and bills await payment. I’m trying to focus on discerning love from fear, yet the next podcast might shed light on pre-flood societies, I have to wake up early tomorrow for work, and laundry piles up in the next room. Is this the world I built? My meditation mat beckons.
Thoughts swirl; I observe. We can’t silence thought, but we can separate. Let thoughts flow. In they come and out they go with the breath, the fear, the death. I am not my thoughts, nor other peoples’ obligations and demands.
Will I decorate my prison cell or emerge? Both sparkle. Only one stands tall to the demon onslaught, helping others thrive. The forest tree grows larger in communion with its neighbors compared to the lonely tree in a planter box decorating someone else’s sidewalk.
We exist at the center of it all, everyone’s thoughts running wild. With free will, we choose to follow love or fear, constructing the world. We can live in a world of decisions based on love, with the confidence to carry through. Or we can live in a world of decisions based on fear, with pride to camouflage the ego. Imagine a world where everyone only helps each other.
Is this why we’re here, to help each other? Sounds simple. Why then do we think?
We have a choice. Every life challenge or obstacle we place in our path, every circumstance others create for us, we decide how to move forward. Resolve, delay, or succumb. In a sea of thought, our one power is to choose.
Life is a series of decisions, from significant to trivial. Our choices carry opportunities for growth or decay. Will we learn from our mistakes, from others’ mistakes, or will the lesson present itself again and again until we learn it in this lifetime or the next?
Most lessons worth learning require staring down the brutal reality of fear, reaching a point where even pride can’t bear the weight of one more lie to yourself. One more drink is ok, it’s cheaper to dump waste in the river, pesticides only kill bugs, it’s for the children, this world is all there is, the dementia patient won’t know her blouse went missing, and of course our money is real.
We enrolled in the school of life. Pick your favorite spiritual, religious, or scientific flavor of the creator, your spirit team, reincarnation, simulation. We created this life for ourselves. Our struggle is intentional. We took physical form for a reason. Entertainment? Growth?
We created this life to figure out decision-making, overcome obstacles and experience joy. Effort follows thought, crafting the world in love’s cohesion and fear’s competition. Why do we think? To learn.
Choose Love.