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What are you waiting for?
and no one is there to hear it, does it make any sound?
Such are the thoughts running through my mind today. That saying makes me wonder about a person's existence. If one person ceases to exist, what effect does it have on the rest of the world if they know?
According to what I found on the internet, the estimate world population in February 2009 was 6,761,600,203. I sat here and thought of it in these terms:
Take the entire world population and line them up in rows side by side and have them all close their eyes. Then have a hand reache down and pluck one person out of that 6 billion plus people. Everyone opens their eyes and looks around. Who is going to know that one person of that vast number has vanished without a trace?
Well, there are at least three people. The person in back of that missing person and the person on either side would most likely notice them to be missing. The person in front would not know, because they would not have seen the person behind them unless they had turned to look. In society today, it is common practice to turn away from what we don't wish to see or know. So most likely the person in front never bothered to look behind them.
Now, the three people who have noticed the missing person tell the people around them and they in turn tell the people around them. Eventually everyone of those 6 billion plus people are going to know that someone has disappeared. But will it really have an effect on their lives?
What if the people who were standing by that person didn't even know his or her name? Just some random man or woman...boy or girl...no name no identity just nobody. Or even if one of those three knew that persons name, in a population that vast, how many other people would? And would those people who did know them even really care? Would it change the lives now that this one person doesn't exist?
It's like learning that a high school friend or acquaintance has passed. You might say, "Oh, so and so has died." But do you really let it bother you? Or do you simply go on living? And when a relative dies? Is it the end of your world? Does that person's death effect your life? Yes, in a monetary sense, emotional sense, and the companionship. But does that person need to exist for you to exist?
What if it were a celebrity, a politician, military leader, etc? Would it truly make a difference in the majority of these peoples lives? True, they may feel saddness, relief, concern or whatever emotion you may name. But would it have a lasting effect on their lives? And what of people in third world countries? Ones who have never seen a tv or newspaper? Would the loss of some celebrity really mean anything to them? Or would they simply look at it that there is one less person eating food they could eat, drinking water they might need, or even breathing the air that they have to have to survive?
And then what of a person, such as Princess Di? What effect did her death have on the people who did not know her? The ones that may have been helped by her efforts of humanitarianism? Does the loss of someone like that have a long term effect on anyone? If they had already lived their lives in poverty, pain and need, how would they know that their lives could have been better? You can't miss something you never had.
Which brings me to another thought that is linked to this whole theory. Is one of the reasons that people in this generation don't believe in the concept of love because it truly doesn't exist? If a person has no one that they love or no one that loves them, do they have a reason to exist? Does the lack of one person in the world change the reason anyone for why anyone is here?
When a person wakes up in the morning, do they need a reason to get out of bed? Or do they simply do it, because that's what they know they should do? If someone wakes up and thinks "Do I have a reason to exist?," do they actually sit around and think about it, or do they just accept the fact that they are alive, therefore they are?
Doesn't every human being have the desire to be needed, wanted, necessary to someone? If there is no need for you to be, then why do you live? Supposedly the soul of a person makes them who they are. It is the single element that makes them be. Your soul is necessary for life. Without a soul, you do not live. Christians believe that the person's soul comes from God. That it is what makes them a person. Yet does the body actually need a soul to live? And before the Christians take my head off (and I am one), think very seriously about the answer to that question.
Consider a person in a coma. Does the body require the soul to live? No, it does not. The body requires the machines, the people who maintain them, and the nutritional elements that are pumped into the body to keep it alive. Therefore, the soul is not a necessary thing needed to live.
Which brings me farther into this mad train of thought I am having. If the soul is not necessary for life, then does the being who gives us that soul truly exist? And here is where the controversy lies. It has been said that God is dead. What other explanation is there for the lack of miracles that existed in the times of the bible. If God is gone, the soul does not exist, then perhaps humans are nothing more than a freak of nature. A group of atoms that formed together to create what we call man.
Deeper down we go into the lunacy. If we are nothing more than a binding together of nothing but atoms, then how can love be true? Does an atom have emotions? I think not. An atom is nothing more than neurons, electrons and protons, all circling around each other. Pulled together by a force that scientist have explained to the best of their ability.
So where do emotions come from? The soul? Perhaps. But I have already stated the theory I have been batting around, that a soul is not necessary for life. Think about it. An atom has a soul? Again I say, I think not.
Down farther into the darkness I go. Because truly I am digging deep into an area of great controversy. If there is no soul, then emotions are nothing more then chemical reactions in this group of bunched together atoms we call bodies and have named humans. And if emotions are not real, then how can love be real? It would mean that love is nothing more than a chemical reaction to certain events that occur in our puny little lives. And that leads me to my orginal thought that I posted early this morning as my status on Yahoo. I can't remeber exactly how it went but it was something like this:
"I am sitting here wondering if I am the only one in the world who believes in love, monogomy, faithfulness, integrity, fidelity. Has the whole world turned narcicistic? Am I alone in a world wishing for love that doesn't exist?"
Because what I have found in my years of being online is that no one is looking for love. They are looking for gratification. And is the reason for that because love truly doesn't exist. Because we truly don't exist. We are born, we live, we die. And why? What reason do any of us have to exist? If all we are is an accidental eveolution of a lower species, then there is really no reason at all. We are here because two different cells made up of different sets of atoms happened to be attracted to each other and created what we call a baby.
Amazing what a person can think of when they have hours to sit and think. My job gives me four hours a day to sit and think without interruption. No one who doesn't have hours to spend alone with no one to talk to can understand the thoughts that can occur. Perhaps those of you who are truck drivers, security guards, or any other occupation where you spend untold amounts of time alone can grasp where I'm coming from.
All I know is that today I realized that in all seriousness, I can't come up with anyone single reason for my existence. And wonder if other people can. It's that age old question of "What is the meaning of life?" And in all this random babbling that I have typed here, I think I am far from finding the answer to that question.
Just as there is no answer to the question "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make any sound?" there is no one answer to the question "Does my existence make a difference in this world?"
