Truth, Reason, Why

We plink and putter away each day. Often days merely trying to survive. To keep our heads above water, when it feels like there's a hard ceiling above us and the tide keeps rising each day.

There are other days, when we've left Maslow satisfied, and we have time to ponder and reflect.

And not the sort of pondering and reflecting that results in angry letters and moody poetry, but the sort of contemplation that leads us stealthily creeping or even stumbling backwards into a stone foundation surrounded by all this quagmire and bog and sand that we hope to one day call the truth. Our truth, at the very least.

Throughout history, truths have been very much opposed to one another and we called it war.

Today truths are very much opposed to each other and we call it politics or law or justice.

What is justice to one may be tragedy to another.

And still, we continue to strive in our failed human condition to appeal to higher principles, much like a toddler reaching for the top shelf to get at that cookie jar, hoping that through sheer force of will that we will attain that mighty summit. Cookies are a prize for children and philosophers alike after all.

Yet, as we grow and learn, it seems that that shelf just keeps getting farther and farther away. And as our child's eyes shift to adult's eyes (should this change take place, throughout the ages I've learned this is not as commonplace as I'd assumed growing up) that perspective comes into view. The top shelf is further away for myriad reasons that we did not understand as children, and we're left with an awful choice: to continue striving for that which we might never attain, or to walk away and give up.

But with that growth and gaining of wisdom, another thing changes besides perspective. Reason. And not just the lofty reason through which we work through the puzzles of life and society, but quite simply the reason why we bother at all. Why? The great Why. The reason we must have for the endeavors we take on. And at the end of the day, in the still quiet moments we can conjure away from the raucous and pedantic world around us, that is all we have. Our Truth. Our Why. Our Reason.

And we may examine and shift that reason if we are the type of person capable of doing so. We will reflect upon that high shelf, and daily decide if it is worth the climb and struggle, or if we are happy with our place here amongst the lower cabinets. Which, there is nothing wrong with the lower cabinets. Being short myself, I make sure there are still goodies accessible at the lower cabinets.

Yet even still, that becomes our Why. Our Reason. Our Truth.

And that journey, whether we struggle or coast, whether we ponder or party, whether we study or assume, becomes the story of our Truth.