If the skeletons in our closets told stories...

Jan 25

If the skeletons in our closets told stories…

I keep discovering new things I know nothing about.

The more I realize that I don’t know, the more I want to know everything there is to know.

Surely it would be impossible to learn all knowledge in one lifetime. In fact, that’s my greatest hindrance: there is only so much “time” I have left in this life. I don’t know the amount of time, but I recognize that there is a limitation.

If my purpose is to learn as much as I can, then perhaps this purpose gives support to the idea that maybe we’re here in one lifetime more than once. It’s not evidence, but it would make sense.

I have recently had a taste of how much I don’t know about human history. History is as important in understanding human nature as is religion and biology. In fact, history is just the past of religion and biology. My quest is ultimately to understand people.

There are so many facets of the human experience. Technology is a new one, but before this generation, there was still a plethora of faces, or lenses, with which one could view the human experience. There is science, and there is religion. There is spirituality, academia, magic, and politics. There is evolution and philosophy. There is awareness. There is psychology, which may be the compilation of all human faces within one person. Or all persons. In order to really understand our people of today, it seems important to know what really happened throughout our past.

It is a challenge to know where to begin to discover the unknowns of these past human faces. The information isn’t prevalent because the majority of people do not care about the past. And, history books are never written without bias. The ones who won wrote the books. The ones who lost, often had their literature destroyed. The folklore that remains alive through story telling has the bias of the story teller. Have you ever played telephone? It will be nearly impossible to know the truth of what our past was.

So, does this make me the interpreter, forced into placing judgment on whatever “facts” I unearth? This is a great responsibility. Huge.

Should I be able to somehow define a reasonable history, what, then would I aspire to do with my knowledge? Can I aspire to be truly great teacher– as the Ones before us? Be like Jesus, the Christians have proclaimed. Yet, do they believe in their hearts and minds that it is possible? Is it blasphemous to think it is? If it’s not possible, why would one strive to do so?

Is it too late to begin my quest for the ultimate awareness? The ultimate knowledge? Am I too old to begin, only to die half way through my conquest? Is there a way to tap the great blanket consciousness of knowledge in which our civilization exists– so that I do not have to spend my whole lifetime learning things that previous teachers already taught us?

And once I have that knowledge, and I find my niche in teaching as the great teachers, then what? Do I just settle into leisure or will my life be dedicated to hard work and suffering. What is it that I want?

It is blissful ignorance that is simplest.

But I could never settle for it.