Long Post Alert! Not my Original, but something which I find True.
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These are the photographs of the two most amazing pages from the book by a theoretical physicist, Sean Carroll – The Big Picture. This book stands among the giants in my personal reading list.
Get a cup of coffee, throw time out of the window, sit and enjoy…!
Desire has a bad reputation in certain circles, but that’s a bum rap. Curiosity is a form of desire; so are helpfulness and artistic drive. Desire is an aspect of caring: about ourselves, about other people, about what happens to the world.
People are not inanimate rocks, accepting what goes on around them with serene indifference. Different people might exhibit different levels of care, and they might care in different ways, but caring itself is ubiquitous. They might care in an admirable way, watching out for the well-being of others, or their caring might be purely selfish, guarding their own interests. But people are inescapably characterized by what they care about: their enthusiasms, inclinations, passions, hopes.
When our lives are in good shape, and we are enjoying health and leisure, what do we do? We play. Once the basic requirements of food and shelter have been met, we immediately invent games and puzzles and competitions. That’s a lighthearted and fun manifestation of a deeper impulse: we enjoy challenging ourselves, accomplishing things, having something to show for our lives.
That makes sense, in light of evolution. An organism that didn’t give a crap about anything that happened to it would be at a severe disadvantage in the struggle for survival when compared to one that looked out for itself, its family, and its compatriots. We are built from the start to care about the world, to make it matter.
… … … Our instincts and unreflective desires aren’t all we have; they’re just a starting point for building something significant.
… … … We aren’t slaves to our desires; we have the capacity to reflect on them and strive to change them. But they make us who we are. It is from these inclinations within ourselves that we are able to construct purpose and meaning for our lives.
The world, and what happens in the world, matters. Why? Because it matters to me. And to you.
… … … The finitude of life lends poignancy to our situations. Each of us will have a last word we say, a last book we read, a last time we fall in love. At each moment, who we are and how we behave is a choice that we individually make. The challenges are real; the opportunities are incredible.