Looking for Life
In All the Wrong Places

Last weekend, my wife, Paula, my daughter, Bethany, and I drove up to Nashville to attend our Granddaughter, Lily’s first birthday party. While the baby had been to my house for Christmas, I don’t know why I expected her to remember me since that was half her lifetime ago.

The child had a soft floormat spread out in one corner of their living room and covered with a Bazillion colorful toys. She seemed to be content sitting there for long periods of time, just enjoying all the toys, and I was content to just sit and watch her being content.

Honestly, I’ve never met a happier baby. Her parents, her fifteen-year-old sister, and her eleven-year-old brother all dote on her and her eyes light up whenever one of them approaches.

But occasionally, out of nowhere, her cherubic little face suddenly morphed into a crinkled frown accompanied by a painful shriek. Some unseen force had interrupted her peaceful existence and snatched her attention away from the toys which so perfectly entertained her thirty seconds prior.

That got me to pondering all the venues we frail humans have explored with hopes of providing happiness and meaning in our days on Earth — and all the ways those endeavors have come up short.

Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll
When I was a teen, my generation worshipped that unholy trinity. We were certain that lasting happiness and meaning could be found through some combination of those idols. Then came AIDS, drug addiction, and confusion. I was lucky and avoided the more serious consequences that killed my friends, but an infinite number of loud concerts left me with life-long tinnitus that diminishes my hearing.

Education
The vast world of higher education promised enlightened contentment beyond our dreams but dissembling educators, more interested in tearing down our values that conveying knowledge, left a lot of us with a sour feeling.

Science
For many of us, a pursuit of science seemed to offer a stability that we hadn’t known before, but that too came up short. Impirical observation only stretches so far before skewed worldviews introduce mis-informed interpretations, leading to cognitive dissonance and deeper frustration.

Politics
What was once referred to as the art of compromise, somehow morphed into the art of cancelling as our frailties left us with an insecurity that could only be addressed through herd dominance. Unfortunately, our own inconsistencies rose up and confronted us, rendering even the thought of political victory unsatisfying.

Organized Religion (the new politics)
Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not talking about genuine spirituality; I’m talking about contemporary organized religion in the guise of Christianity, Islam, Secular Humanism, Atheism, and Eastern mysticism. What should be a setting for honest self-evaluation and understanding, has evolved into an attempt to create God in our own image — based on the consensus of the herd ego.

Call me a jaded old fool but, like my granddaughter, I’m at a point where all the distracting entertainment has given way to the realities of life —a giant wet diaper that needs attending to. While that one-year-old couldn’t yet comprehend the underlying causes of her discomfort, she knew something was amiss.

If we truly believe what we observe in nature and accept that our cosmos had a specific starting point 14.7 billion years ago, then we must surely ask ourselves, “What happened in those moments prior to that Big Bang?” At some point, we’re faced with the reality that there had to be an ultimate designer (outside our realm of the five senses) who set things in motion based on a specific design.

That original design is the foundation of everything that holds true, in every field of study. And if we find a conflict between any of those “ologies”, then we simply fail to grasp the bigger picture. There is no evil in that ignorance; there’s only something to be overcome. But, unlike all those earlier pursuits that were ultimately based in self-satisfaction, our driving force must be a desire to understand the whole picture despite our intrinsic biases.

Or we could just ignore the wet diapers and go back to playing with the toys.

A meeting of great minds who think alike