Five Hundred Random Thoughts

Why is all this stuff here? Not just stuff, but stuff that supports a profusion of wonderful, dazzling, brilliant, conscious life. Birds and worms and cats and dogs and you and me.

I realize from a scientific and maybe even philosophical standpoint there doesn't need to be a purpose. This unimaginable quantity of matter and energy may have always been here.

And yet — why? Nothing seems like a much easier state of affairs than something. A universe is a lot of work.

If there is no purpose, then what we do matters much less. Hurting, suffering — yeah, we don't like it but without purpose what are we other than a bunch of molecules?

If there is some purpose — a basic moral component of the universe — maybe this is what people feel when they sense God or spirit. We may not be able to scientifically prove that it exists — or maybe we will in a million years. In the meantime, we have to rely on our gut feel, and our heart, like we sometimes do when deciding if something is the right thing to do.