endev42 - documenting the meaning of life

There’s an old joke about a man who spends every moment and dollar of his life traveling from one end of the earth to another, from one guru to another, from one faith and one denomination to another, asking, “What is the meaning of life?” Finally, in old age, his body wearing out, his energy exhausted, his savings spent, he is directed to a sage who has lived in a cave on a mountaintop for 80 years, a man of renowned wisdom and sanctity. He reaches the cave of the wise man and asking the question above all questions. The hermit pauses for sometime, and finally answers, “Life—is a fountain.” The pilgrim is dumbstruck by this response, saying, “Are you kidding me? I’ve spent my life and resources for years and years, asking the most learned and the most spiritual beings this question and you tell me life is a fountain?!!?!!??

The hermit looking at him with utter disillusionment and candor replies: “Life isn’t a fountain?”

I’m sure that a care giver in a nursing home, a new mother, a nurse on the front lines of yet another tragic war, a janitor working the night shift in a kindergarten, a gardener weeding his vegetables knows more about the answer to your question than do “celebrities” and those you describe as having “extensive accomplishments” who are just on pedestals in our culture, and who have clay feet.

Perhaps to learn to love, accept and forgive others and even ourselves may give life meaning, and to live in awe and gratitude in the paradise we are misguidingly destroying.

To value & respect the precious uniqueness of beings, animals, birds. The natural world and the realms beyond thought and expression.