Looking Back to 2006: Like Grains of Sand

Like Grains of Sand
Original post date: March 8, 2006

One of the most basic elements of human life is the act of questioning. Each time we encounter a new experience, we make sense out of it -- or at least TRY to -- by seeking to engage or embrace it in an inquisitive fashion. We compare the current thing or circumstance with other things or circumstances in order to try to discern similarities or differences. By approaching life in this way, we seek to derive answers.

Not all questions are equal. Most share the quest to pinpoint something specific or tangible. Who said that? What are those? Where are we going? How did you know?

These types of questions lead to quantifiable or qualitative answers. Who said that? It was Mike. What are those? Plantains. Where are we going? To the beach. How did you know? I read it in the newspaper.

There is one question, however, that genuinely cannot be answered. Asking it only begins a never ending process in which each answer only leads back to the same question. Why?

Despite all our advances in the sciences, the why of life is still beyond human comprehension. We can describe processes, quantify data, and sometimes predict outcomes, but we can't answer the most fundamental of questions. Why?

While religion seeks to make vain attempts at answering this question, it really ends up no better than science. To answer why by saying God, still begets the question of why God?

The myriad answers to why are tantamount to the grains of sand on an ocean beach. There's no way any of us can count these grains of sand. While we begin our count, some grains are washed to the sea, while others are freshly deposited on the shore. If we each spent the entirety of our lives on the beach counting these grains, we would be no nearer done once our lives came to an end.

One of the central messages of Taoist thought is that why is a question that need not be asked. The Tao is the way of the way of the Way. Why it is that it is should not concern us. If it could be explained to us, we wouldn't understand it anyhow.

Rather than ask why, we should simply embrace this mystical force like the flowers, rivers and clouds do. By eschewing the search for the answer to why, we will find the answer to the question unasked.

To read the intro to this retrospective series of posts, go here.