Seek and You shall Find

In the mental world, in our interior “reality” we can find whatever we want. Whatever we are looking for.

For us this may appear to be reality. And indeed this is “our” reality. But it would be a great mistake to assume that others share that reality. It would be an even greater mistake to impose our “reality” on theirs.

If you are seeking “god” you are likely to find him. Or her or…it…or some cross gender thingummy-bob. If you are seeking meaning in emptiness as do those in the East, again you are likely to find it.

If you seek to deny meaning, yours will be a frightening reality but you will find it nonetheless. You will find empty, barren nothingness if that is your wont. Perhaps that is what depression is.

I would not care to dispute the meaning which people have found. Just so long as they can accept that it is their meaning and that while some others may share it, it is almost certainly not any sort of universal truth.

I do believe in certain absolutes but again I must probably accept that these things just appear to me as absolutes. And that others will deny their applicability. Good and evil – what are these except stories we have told ourselves? Do they really exist in the material universe? Well I believe so, but I wager you will find an equal number who do not. Perhaps good and evil exist only in the mind. In the absence of sentience good and evil can surely have no meaning?

I have quoted love and the abolition of suffering as moral imperatives. Many will ridicule such an assertion, and, who knows, perhaps rightly. Perhaps they are absolutes merely in the minds of those who seek them.

For those of us with minds which are not too damaged (mine probably just about qualifies) we will find what we want to find. I seek peace, in a metaphorical as well as literal sense. In all shades of meaning. Quiet, absence of conflict, a place “Where the green swell is in the havens dumb, And out of the swing of the sea”.

And to a large extent I have found it.

Others seek turmoil and conquest, noise and battle (commercial or physical). And that is no so difficult to find; it is around every corner.

Universally applicable or not, subjective or objective, the internal machinations of our mind leak out into the exterior world. Our thoughts become words. Our words become deeds.

I don’t suppose my detractors would find such a statement too controversial.

And so if my mind believes in the nothing, in the meaningless of all things, then it is not just my life which will become meaningless. People may read what I write, my family will notice my behavior and my actions, as will everyone I come into contact with. They will be affected (and badly) by my infectious pessimism.

And so yes, from thought great good and appalling evil, or even simple banality, arises. Especially if we are the sort of energetic fool who insists on proselytizing our internal states to the world at large. Personally, I have neither the energy nor the charisma. Let alone the desire.

But for those who do, the logos becomes reality writ large. What starts as a quiet thought in a single mind, what starts as a cankered and twisted desire can all too soon become not only the reality of the mind which created it, but that of countless others as well.

In the beggining was the word (or thought). Seek and you shall find.

Eventually. Whatever it is you are looking for. But let everyone seek and find for themselves.