Voltaire, a 16th century French writer once said, “There is no God, but don’t tell that to my servant, lest he murder me at night”. The belief that there is an indomitable higher power that created us all is what keeps a significant amount of people going, it is that which gives at least a semblance of meaning and hope to them, making them content. However, there is another significant set of individuals that require more, they seek an explanation that backs that belief; and to these individuals constantly plagued with existential crises, life has little meaning to them.
The custodians who claim to be earthly representatives of the higher power fall short at explaining the mystery of the being they present. The fault isn’t theirs anyway, the modern thinking man tends to believe only what he/she can prove or reason out, while the custodian wants you to just believe and have faith that everything will work out.
I am a promiscuous theist, I can go from “staunch believer” to a confused nihilist in a space of few hours. I often find myself pondering on the true nature and wants of the being that created me, I never fully figure it out though. Sometimes I wish I was born a lot earlier, before time laid its hands on history and defiled it.
I often find myself struggling to figure out the answer to the puzzle that is life and I never win. It’s really difficult for a human being that is accustomed to the cries of bereaved individuals to keep that puzzle out of the mind. The way a product of generational wealth (old money) sees life is really different from the way a person who was born and bred in abject poverty sees it.
The rich capitalist keeps on amassing wealth and never stops trying to find new ways to make money, the person living in poverty keeps on striving to make ends meet. To what end? What’s the catch? What’s the punch line we are all waiting for? Growing up, falling in love, amassing wealth, finding success, birthing children, gaining wisdom and knowledge all just to die and return to nothingness? There has to be something at the end of the tunnel, I really hope there is. If there isn’t, then a mental image of a rat on a treadmill comes to mind. In the picture, the rat keeps running on treadmill in order to escape sliding off. Unaided, that rat will either give up hope and slide off the treadmill or grow old and die on the treadmill. There has to be something at the end of the tunnel.
