1 of 38

Write now Article Tools

Our quest to understand the Truth and Meaning of life begins before we even learn to walk; it's natural for us to propel ourselves around "Seeking" and this self-propelled inquisitiveness becomes more complex and intricately directed the older we get.

The day I first formed an actual idea of a "quest" in life is still very clear in my memory. Relaxing in a grassy schoolyard one day, I watched with the visions of children scenes of racing chariots and horses infused with lumbering elephants and monsters; all drifting languidly across the sky in puffy white clouds.

The unsophisticated Reality of childhood was a mystifying experience for me at times regarding what was real and what wasn't in the World around me; and that mystery only deepened with the growing awareness of the differences in how we each perceive this World and each other.

Within our individual subjective Realities, the fluid nature of Truth can sometimes flow between us like a phantom river between distant Worlds.

And as an eleven-year-old boy, this subjectivity was a prominent mystery for me in itself; a sometimes confusing cavalcade of contradiction and even outright lies. It was that perplexity that prompted me to vow to myself then that no matter how long it took, if it was the last thing I ever did in this life "I'm going to figure out what's going on here."

The quest had begun in earnest.

But I didn't begin this lifelong journey of understanding fueled with noble thoughts of finding some ultimate Truth and Meaning; only with the intent of sorting out and making sense of a baffling World as perceived through the eyes of a child.

It seemed like such a simple goal to me then.

But the scope of life isn't as small as it seemed then because the more we see from the looking, the larger and more complex the picture becomes. And the quest to understand this riddle of living is just as complex when directed inward as it is when looking outward.

Out into the galaxies, beyond time and into a seemingly infinite Reality our probing Minds can fly, but the inevitable subjective differences between our individual visions leads us back to begin looking into ourselves in an attempt to understand the fluid nature of the Perceiver of this flowing Perceived.

And it is here within ourselves that the infinite possibility in the World around us reflects like a hall of mirrors back into our own unknown depths of understanding.

This is the nature of our life: a Quest for understanding and Meaning - within the mutual depths of this mystery we call the Reality around and the Reality within; and the understanding of that Reality zigzagging between us.

Within the fields of our individual "Self", our splendid Human Minds, it is our work in life to plumb those depths despite the fact that, in all probability, we will never completely ". figure out what's going on here."

Learn more about this author, S E Garrett.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

Add your voice

Know something about The quest for truth and the meaning of life?
We want to hear your view. Write now!