The Answer to Life, The Universe and Everything.

Posted on by Opher

To ponder

Appreciate

Love

Behold

Protect

Live

Experience

Laugh

Share

Search

Explore

Create

Be satisfied

Be fulfilled

Be passionate

Be tolerant

Be still

Eat

Drink

Make love

Cuddle

Look

Wonder

Be amazed

Believe nothing

Be satiated

And fade to nothing.

 

27 thoughts on “The Answer to Life, The Universe and Everything.”

  3. Love this! One question – ‘believe nothing’ do you mean, don’t believe anything unless you see it or can prove it?

    1. Ha Curiosity – thanks for that – I think a healthy skepticism and open mind on everything. Many things are not what they might appear.

  4. Hey Opher, Namaste 🙂

    Poignant and considered, the secret of life revealed! I feel comforted y your poem. It seems to me we are complex creatures with capacity to always wonder creatively.

    Some say our soul returns to ‘source’ when we slide from this mortal coil and I get to wondering what these returning souls might say about life on earth to those waiting to come into this dimension. I wonder what advice they give out and if any of it ever makes any sense or is ever acted upon. Perhaps those returning just smile sympathetically and simply advise the newbies to Love and be Loved?

    Namaste 🙂

    DN

    1. That “Believe nothing’ line, for me anyway, was pure stupidity and makes an unintelligent mockery. I really dislike this type of risible prose.

      1. Well Zeitgeister – we all contribute to the zeitgeist in which we dwell. I prefer positivity to negativity. I’m sorry this is not something you appreciate. Never mind – maybe something else will grab you.
        For me I like to look at everything with a degree of skepticism – particularly if I cannot see the evidence.

  8. Each to his own. To believe nothing, I believe is very sound advice, that rings with me quite strongly. Belief is the stuff of dogma, inflexibility and prejudice. To have the ability to keep an open mind on everything is the stuff of wisdom. Wish I could say I was wise and rue that I developed strongly held beliefs, as it does make me intolerant of some things and people. Now a little wiser, I’m trying to let go. For me, the line is beautiful. What is it mocking?

    1. If the extent of your interpretation of the word ‘believe’ limits you to indicators no more extensive than “dogma, inflexibility and prejudice” – what a strange concoction – this causes one to ponder whether you may have struggled with or perhaps succumbed to religious pressures or something of such nature.
      I’d like to pass on that extremely immature concept “an open mind on everything is the stuff of wisdom.” Everything? Really?
      I would suggest that you may not be quite as wise as you have lead yourself to believe.
      Put it this way for example, it mocks the fact that it is way off the moral compass to stab someone at random in the street, to shoot an innocent, to rape children, to carpet bomb cities, to defend anti-semitism etc.

      1. Hmmm – interesting perspective Zeitgeister. But not something I would interpret that way. Keeping a healthy skepticism on everything does not indicate to me that one has either lost one’s moral compass or succumbed to religious dogma. Far from it. I too do not believe in dogma, inflexibility or prejudice, political solutions or the motives of religious and political leaders and I also question all scientific facts and the whole nature of life and reality – though of course I do have to accept a model of life that conforms to some reality as a working model to live by – that does not prevent me philosophising.
        I do not think there is the slightest mocking of those terrible crimes you list. For me it is the opposite. All those terrible crimes you highlight have been given moral credence by many. Many following religious dogma are stabbing people in the streets, raping children and carpet bombing cities. They say it is justified in their doctrine. They believe it is moral. Many believe that it is moral if the end justifies the means so dropping bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima and carpet bombing Dresden was morally right. A healthy skepticism in their justifications is essential. I do not think they are being moral and I believe the religious and political dogma they follow is bollocks.
        I would also suggest that the latest work on quantum physics indicates that the reality we hold to be true is far from it. Research on the nature of the human mind and our delicate psychology also indicates that we may not be at all what we think we are.
        In the face of no firm evidence for anything then I think to disbelieve is the only sane reaction.
        I would certainly question anyone who tells me they understand what is going on.
        Love and be loved. Enjoy and appreciate. Trust nothing.

      1. I think you have made a whopping error here Opher. You’ve certainly misinterpreted my statement to the extent of your self-revisionism to incorporate the opposite of what I was saying. I simply conveyed that do exist conditions where belief has a credible function. It didn’t need convoluted with the actions of the nutters of god.
        Their the very last people on my radar.
        I’ve never been particularly keen on that term of expression that you prefer to indulge, that trite “it is moral if the end justifies the means”. Well, the answer without too much difficulty is yes, you bet that is true. Because history informs that if you don’t stop something being committed against you, it may not stop. If you don’t engage in corrective action the problem may get worse.

        I always have a problem when people cite reasoning on a matter with use of the narrative of the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan. These bombs saved millions of lives throughout south-east Asia. Japan had reeked tyranny and killed untold millions pan continent while on the receiving end of almost no repercussions. Conclusion to that problem had to be as monstrous as the Japanese were. Lessons were learned. One, these bombs really work and two, maybe it’s best that we don’t drop any more of them. So you’re some 70 odd years way too late with that as any kind of useful analogy. We learned that they were a last resort and have been regarded as such ever since. Suffice to say that this subject matter had nothing to do with any bombing reference that I had made, which were surely obviously relevant to today’s events such as in Syria, for example. I mean it’s hardly off our TV screens at any hour, so what led you to be thinking of unrelated events 70+ years ago is stranger than fiction.
        Dresden – always the subject matter of the delinquent non-historian, bleeding-hearted liberal without a clue.
        Dresden was the biggest industrial ammunitions development factory base that Germany EVER had, and had remained untouched since 1939, running at full capacity production in no less than 125 factories, with at least 50,000 people building these ammunitions. So, 25,000 of them died over the course of several nights. But it completely shut down that end of the war effort and saved an estimated one million more lives in other parts of Germany and shortened the war by an estimated six months, having been estimated pre-Dresden, to continue through to November.
        Countless thousands more died in Berlin through starvation, filth, disease, exhaustion and shock, but nobody ever mentions that because it lacks the “bleeding hearted politically correct” angle that sucks the living life out of it as it is just so convoluted, crass and dishonest.
        So, there you have it – war was ended at a cost of 25,000 versus one million.
        Even London lost at least 40,000 in bombing raids. But hey, there must have been good “moral justification” for all that.
        Yes indeed, the end justifies the means. Too true it does.

        For some reason I couldn’t use my web name, Zeitgeister, (I’m German, so it makes sense to me) so decloaked into the spotlight with real name.

  9. Drat, I forgot to ask. Your comment about quantum physics. What about it? We get conflicting reports from all sorts of scientific agencies on a daily basis. I used to be into physics, but too many years ago now to be on top of all that’s topical, but enough to understand all the palava that conflicts throughout all these competing agencies all over the world. There’s always one lot wanting to outdo another – so I’m very slow to ever be concerned about “latest findings” this or “expanding universe” that. So what? The latest findings again are of course our universe is expanding. As long as we reinvent the powers of the looking glass, we will always get a bigger universe. We will never stop hearing this news.
    You would actually have to have an incredible level of understanding and working knowledge to ever be able to use terminology such as “suggest” as per your comment, quote, “I would also suggest that the latest work on quantum physics indicates that the reality we hold to be true is far from it.”
    What exactly does that mean to me? Well, truth be told, absolutely nothing actually.
    You’ll have to expand your horizons onto text to enable anyone to even begin to understand what it is you’re trying to say here.

    Quote “Research on the nature of the human mind and our delicate psychology also indicates that we may not be at all what we think we are.”
    I never knew that we ever knew enough to suddenly conclude otherwise. Some, correction, too much of that “research” amounts to nothing more than horse-shit, so comes as no surprise to me. If you want charlatans in science, look no further than psychologists. That’s why there’s a quarter of a million of them working a dollar in USA. A nine year old could figure out all’s not what it should be in that domain.

    Quote, “In the face of no firm evidence for anything then I think to disbelieve is the only sane reaction.”
    Obviously. That’s basic street level education. No genius required.

    Quote, “I would certainly question anyone who tells me they understand what is going on.”
    So why follow political persuasions with such devout and unerring conviction?
    Why believe what any half-assed, self-promoting piece of shit that calls himself a politician has to say about anything? Why judge one wing to be superior to the other when you can ascertain that no matter what angle you at it from that it’s all the same spurious lie full of falsities.
    Why do some British people not think it’s a great idea to leave the EU. They should come and live here in Frankfurt, then say the same thing. Trust me, that would be an impossibility. We have been fucked up the ass by some megalomaniacs. They’ve taken some towns in Germany back to the stasis of WW2 with camps and compounds of thousands and thousands of foreign aliens never to be wanted, trusted, integrated, employed, encouraged, emboldened, or educated. That’s just their men. There’s nothing at all to be done with their women folk. They just hide away huddled in corners, covered in black clothes like they’ve got shell-shock.

    Quote, “Love and be loved. Enjoy and appreciate. Trust nothing.”
    I’ve kinda burned out with all the love stuff and regard it as just a bit too silly for receptive reasoning and it is perhaps the single most misunderstood emotion and vastly misused as a descriptive term. So many people these days over egg that pudding. I’m more inclined to loathe something more these days. I’m not 19 anymore, I don’t need or ever needed vacuous false security. And please don’t engage in narrative opposites and turn around like a wimpy lemon and say “if it’s not love then it must be hate” or something crass like that. No, matey, we’re well and truly all grown up now in some quarters. We don’t need any fucking approval from anybody. Thanks. I’m not a 1%’er or such, but have arrived at a juncture where I have next to nothing left in common with hardly any people. And that’s purely down to the way I led my life versus theirs. I was always a self-sufficient self-starter and learned never to accept a municipal grade level paycheck or do any job that operates that level. That’s for losers.

    To enjoy and appreciate is a very quiet and mostly personal pursuit that cannot for very good reasons amount to very much interaction with others, other than to request that they calm it down a bit in the vicinity. So many, too many people are so damned loud and shouty these days and I find them very wearing.
    Trust nothing – I seldom ever did, at least certainly concerning other people. I was lucky enough to learn that at a very young age and nobody ever got to screw me or take a rise out of me and certainly never concerning work related matters which is where that really counts for something.
    Judging from the content of your blog and the opinions that you frequently convey within it, I could accurately say that you would be about 1,000 times more trusting than I ever could be.
    I really don’t ever need anybody to tell me to trust nothing.
    But I do, my Mercedes car. As long as I’m driving and the wife isn’t!

  10. Stephen – it is the same moral dilemma whether it is seventy years ago or the present day. Whether the end justifies the means is not an absolute; it is a grey area.
    You make gross assumptions about the morality of dropping atomic bombs and the fire-bombing of Dresden as well as the bombing of Syria. Your figures are nothing more than vague estimates. Who on earth can know? Nobody!
    It is therefore a subjective call.
    Dropping the first bomb on Hiroshima might have been justified. It probably did save a lot of lives and shorten the war. I am in no doubt as to the warmongering of the Japanese at that time. Perhaps it should have been followed by the threat of a second if surrender wasn’t forthcoming. The morality of the second bomb is dubious.
    Perhaps there were major weapons dumps in Dresden. If they were they were legitimate targets. But to deliberately firebomb a whole city with the deliberate intent of creating a firestorm is something else again. I do not think that is morally right.
    Then we apply the same thing to Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya. Are the regimes as evil as they appear? Possibly. Do the regimes need removing – possibly. Who should decide? How should it be done? Who should do it?
    My view is that we need a global body who makes those decisions. That is the UN,
    The illegal actions of the USA, with its poodles in tow, have only served to make matters a lot worse for everyone. A lot of people got very rich out of it!

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