In the Beginning

I didn’t know it at the time, but this book began when I was 18 years old. I could not have started writing it before that, because people are too self-absorbed during their high school days, too naïve during their middle school days, and too stupid during their elementary school days. And while I don’t think I was the epitome of the above progression, I don’t think I was its exception either. At the start of my freshman year, though, I had my feet under me enough to reach out for something more and I did.

Having been raised in a religious household, the first question naturally became, “Does God exist?” It was an attempt to either affirm or reject my upbringing. To date, I have yet to find an adequate answer for this question. As such, I cannot say with any conviction what someone should believe. Maybe I will learn in time. Maybe I won’t.

Here’s what I do know about the subject though. Everyone in the world falls into two categories. People either think there is something greater than themselves out there or they don’t.

The believers are better off. In terms of people’s happiness, it doesn’t really matter how you describe this ultimate power. Old Man. Hot Blonde. Big Tree. As long as there’s something – anything – out there to aspire to, to hold on to, to share life with, then it will be easier to deal with adversity. No matter how bad things get, there’s always something to help carry the burden, to soften the blow, or temper the sadness. And the good is better if you have someone and something to share it with or if it fits into some greater schema. The good will have more value if it feels aimed at, deserved, or destined.

In contrast, those who feel there are alone at the most fundamental level will always be at a disadvantage. Their spirits are not hopeful that things will get better. For them, tomorrow is sure to be like today. And soon, you will die. They feel cheated. They will ask the universe, why are you doing this to me? And they do not expect a reply. Even when things are good, they see it as a fleeting moment in time. For these people, the only thing that real is themselves and the world and they soon grow to resent both.

In the end, the non-believers will console themselves in believing that they are right. The Marquis de Sade wrote, “I write of the great eternal truths that bind all men together the whole world over. We eat, we shit, we fuck, we kill, and we die.” But what good is truth if it is of no good to you? Truth alone will not sustain you. You cannot eat it. You cannot be loved by it. The ancients knew this, so they wrote a story about God, or the gods, or the Forms, or Nature.

But even for the happy believers, there is an exception, of course. There are believers who put all of their stock in this ultimate power and who, consequently, can never appreciate this world. For them, life is just reaching forward, a quest that will forever be frustrated until they die and go to heaven or its equivalent. They will hate the world, but at least they will be hopeful. When taken to its end, though, it leads people to launch crusades and drive airplanes into buildings. Suicide bombers excepted, I’ll take these folks over the Nihilists any day, for at least they have hope, if nothing else. Too much hope may be dangerous, but having no hope is sure to kill you, eventually.

The ideal though lies somewhere in between, I think. You have to at once appreciate the importance of this world and embrace something greater than you. It is human to hope. Put your hope in something, anything. Family. Love. Virtue. God. Justice. You cannot have only yourself. The content of what you believe is far less important than the simple fact that you believe. And that's what I know about God and Man. Forizzle.