Just thinking...

Matthew 7:8 - Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 

No, this isn't a Christian site. I'm an atheist actually, meaning that "I don't know" is the name of my deity, human connectivity is my higher power, and humanity's highest virtue is possible. 'I don't know' is my answer to the truly unanswerable...at this time, anyway...and it ignites my earnest quest. It's the opposite of resignation, a center of calm, and the beginning of  sitting comfortably with the unknowing, humbly and ready to learn with clarity. 

There's more than the rational mind to conclude the knowable, and learning the critical difference between what is justified and what is validated requires communication between us, a will to listen & challenge, and a heart to feel without shaded blockage. Connecting all of them without interference of one over the other means introspection and extrospection. There is a universality amongst us; discovering the source of that knowing is humankind's curious task while answering it without knowing together has always proved harmful.

Knowing:  how do humans know anything? Is it "in us" by Grace? Is it derived from the brain's rational conclusions? Does it come from what the collective tells us? Is there such a thing as my truth/your truth? Is there no universal truths?? Yes, there are and the headline you give them is everything. Rather than believe me, ignore valid universal facts and see what happens - go ahead, jump off the Empire State Building merely believing you will live - and you'll know the mistake of belief over the validity of conscious reality. Only trust what you feel as your truth, and you will be driven into harm disempowered. Fear, paranoia, neediness, existential crises, and hate can only consume you when you disconnected. Philosophy is actually the art & science of connecting. The art is within us; the science between us. 'Science' is not what you think, and perhaps neither is 'art.' 

Somewhere in us we "know" what is universally virtuous. How?? By activating an ascension brick-by-brick, we arrive and something rather than nothing. Life sure brings us moments when we cannot "make sense" of certain things and it is human nature to insert an answer, desiring a perfect and absolute one at that. It seems scary, but if in these moments you try to say -"I don't know" - and begin what must be an earnest quest - therein and perhaps only therein can you avoid what is actually scary. That type of questing is learned between us. Being desperate for a momentary and isolated answer through all of history has led humans to everything from cults to performing horrific acts like inquisitions. Their knowing seemed safe harbor. 

Cause or Source - the meta reason for things - is indeed higher, bigger than my capability to process as I am today, yet every day offers the opportunity to ascend to it. This may seem mysterious, but it's not. Every human has capacity, it just takes the work to not presume. I honestly don't see how presumption of the unknowable helps, filling in the blanks with an answer that is just rummaged up. It's in the how & why we arrive at our conclusions that holds the key. Saying I Don't Know as a first step keeps me humble, despite what they say about atheists. It also keeps me focused on humans, humanity and life, harmony and peace here, not the afterlife. If you ask me, every good faith has meant this as the highest good too. The very idea that we are born into a war between living life and our spirit, a fight between good and evil, the split between mind/body/soul -- the whole thing is a ruse. If the cause is war, only destruction of everything is the winner. It makes no damned sense. Nor can it be good. Good is good. It cannot be 'gooder' if it's at war.

I have a purpose for living. It's knowable not from a book, but from what brings us all happiness - Love. Now, not in some hippy-sence (sorry hippies!). This is not an etherial notion! Love is an action, and our quest has to do with the motion of balancing literal forces, or we make ourselves not real -- we self-destruct. What is not real is the idea of war between two equal forces. -1 plus +1 brings us to 0. This is a philosophical meta conceit that can be learned. Though it's not math-simple, and not just empirical, there is ...in motion... a universal truth of 0 + 1 or 1 + 1 (or any equation where the positive must have primacy as the greater force)...and its opposite of any negative being naturally greater than a positive motion brings destruction. The study, then, is a study of action or motive forces that attain not perfect balance, for that would cancel out to zero, but upon the good/positive and harm/negative forces being unequal by nature!  Both self-love and inter-connected love...right here on earth...begins its quest earnestly because I breathe, you breathe, and (no matter how you cut it) we all have to live together. Is active love not answer enough as to the human condition? No one, no one, can live alone. We can only get the good stuff by not ripping each other's eyes out, stealing, breaking hearts (negative life-acts), but by going through life together, complexly mindful that we are each value-positive in each others' equation. Again, this is not some Neo-mystical bullshit. Our interconnectivity is evident in everything from the start (we are born attached by an umbilical cord! and connected right on the ground, air, and water...like it or not), if you let yourself arrive at it. 

All this fighting, this 'my way' or 'yours' based on presumptive belief is precisely what leaves us helpless -- my culture vs yours;  my side vs your side; 'what is meant to be'; and, 'what is determined for us' -- these are the very spoken words and thoughts that fail humans again and again. But we cling on to these supposedly perfect answers that plainly, admittedly destruct! Why? The quest for absolutism versus engagement in motion. And what does it do? Separate and divide us, the opposite of interconnectivity. We get tribal, self-absorbed, primal when we give up on the value of the need for positive motion together. What the hell does 'meant to be' mean anyway? Pause for half-a-second and what you're saying is that that child was meant to be, chosen to be!, murdered by a stray bullet. WTF. That's perfect? That's the good? That's the ideal?? If your answer is that "It must be, and it's just that mortals can't see it" then you have self-destructed not just that child's worth, but your own. In that case, no-thing has any value and we should all just expire. That means that we were created into some kind of mindf*ck game of worthlessness. Wow. If you want to hold onto that, your choice. Meanwhile, nothing in life or spirit supports that as "good" in any way.

To have faith in moments of  despair...but still don't know why you despair...is a recipe you cook. Seek consolation in the absurd instead of feel that despair, which would prompt you into action to change something more positive, is a crime against humanity. Yes, if a child is killed in a drive-by, help by addressing gang violence or something. Do something! Dull your pain with consolation that that child's worth on earth was to die like that? I can only promise that life pains will repeat for you to amount to nothingness. I'm being rough here, yes. Others who bring this into humankind hurt not just themselves. Those who do not ask why, deeply- why something happened,  challenge it wide and far, and then drive good purpose...harm the whole.

Else you forfeit purpose.

There are directions, if not answers within those questions you can ask. We may slip along on that journey, but we are naturally perfectly imperfect...and that's ok. But, I'd say, don't look for consolation so you're off the hook of doing something good. We seek to solve grief, fear, pain instead of question how to live, and live well, with it. Ultimately, to learn from harm and be even more connected. Reach in to each other, give love, listen, understand, hold on tight...but not just to your tribe, to humanity. Meanwhile, within your tribe, with your best witnesses close at hand, those who do not 'yes' you or dominate by manipulation, but who support your chosen self, the who you want to be, which boils down to "loved." Not loved if this or that, but just loved because you breath. You won't need solace when you position yourself amongst people who also choose a path built on positive action (not just 'positive' thinking). 

Matthew 7:8 is perhaps a warning, not a promise. If you ask, you knock...and oh yes, you will find! Be mindful then of what you are really seeking because you will find what you seek. Seek destruction and disconnect, negative and empty, and you'll be just that. Like all things valuable to know, there is a paradox to discover. All paradoxes have unequal forces at play. Seek only comfort and you become nothing more than a grown baby. When in pain, you are clouded, low, and incapacitated from separating the bad guides from the good. You are ripe for manipulation by solace. Do not seek those who tell you to do nothing here on earth, but perhaps those who challenge you to understand what you could do. Sit with joy of your connectedness to the person harmed and sit with grief of the loss of that person, and it itself will give you a positive direction of motion. This is how and why one holds humanity up as a natural value.  #sitwiththat for a minute.