Conference quark::human_relations-v1

    Bacause it's there?
    
    - M

    Karen,
    
    
    	Don't know what I could offer that would help answer your question
    other than what works for me.......
    
    Answer is.........why search for an answer....I mean, why does there
    HAVE to be a reason?  Simple, cause we can't 'accept' the reality of 
    NO REASON....and you'll really never know if there is a reason unless
    you reach the end...ie; death...	So my advise...enjoy the experience
    of life. Some of it will be good, some of it will be bad. Some will
    make you happy, some will make you sad. Thats life!
    
    Look at it mathametically, there are millions of eggs in each woman,
    the male produces billions of sperm during their lifetime, each
    combination could result in a different human being.....it's kinda like
    a life lottery of sorts...you won, I won, we all won. I've never heard
    anyone who won a money lottery ask WHY they won, they just accept the
    $$$$    Whats so different?
    
    
    I know, I know, I'm a philosophical phool!!!!
    but it works for me!
    
    chet

    
>>    I've done alot in my life.  I've been married, divorced, had a kid,
>>    managed to move my career along.  I've owned a home.  You know, looking
>>    at it I've done the great American Dream.  Maybe not like other people
>>    might do it, but I've done it.  I watch TV and I see all these people

	Because it isn't about the "american dream" .. INfact there is NO
great American dream.

	It is because YOU *Karen* are important and wonderful, just the
way you are. AND because * you care enough to ask WHY!*

	I am looking forward to the answers myself..

	B^)  Mikki

Why ask Why ?  Drink Bud Dry!

 I heard someone say Life is Hell! and to those of us who have experienced
 pain in our lives we can only hope that our suffering is for some greater
 happiness in our next life or the hereafter. For those who don't believe
 in life after death and believe that when you die its all over I really
 feel sad for them. For these people have nothing to look forward to when
 times get tough and the suffering and pain they feel sometimes overpowers
 them. Look at people who have very little material wealth but do have faith
 and love for their creator and you'll realize that happiness is not found
 in material things. A great man once said "it is easier for a camel to fit
 through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of
 heaven"

 Neil....

    
    I tend to think of the point of it all as being the actual experience
    of a single lifetime amidst a continuum of lifetimes.  This with an
    eye to interacting with those who came before and those who come after
    in the acts of learning and creating.  The connections are so varied
    in type and direction as to defy our tracing them to consequences.
    Keep in mind Faulkner's caution that every action may cause harm
    to someone, but that inaction is equally likely to cause harm. 
    This can save you from the paralysis of inaction in the face of
    uncertainty.
    
    	Ron

    I believe that the answer is 42.

    Source; the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

    My personal opinion goes with the "Why does there have to be a reason"
    line of thinking. The universe is neither for you or against you, it
    simply doesn't even notice your existence.

    Jamie.

    	Well...

    	Just enjoy the ride, and someday you'll have the answer without
    	even thinking, and you'll wonder how you could have ever missed
    	it.  At least that's what I'm hoping for, don't stop asking the 
    	questions, but don't actively seek the answers.

    	John

    I agree with some of the answers here.  I believe we're put on earth
    to learn and to teach.  When we succeed to learn in this life our next 
    life will have a higher level of challenges until ultimately we are
    allowed entrance into "heaven" [my version of heaven has me sipping
    t-n-ts on a tropical island with scantily clad men serving me :o)].  
        
    *  this accounts for why young children die -others learn from their
    deaths. (perhaps greater appreciation/value of people?)
    
    * Reincarnation should only work if you have a finite number of people,
    unless we're being shipped in from other galaxies, so I've reasoned
    this out that, yes, you may have been a fish in your former life, or
    an eagle or a brontosaurus- where you learned basic survival skills.
    
    Re:  "Why does there have to be a reason"
    I think we should all have a mission in life, it gives us purpose,
    keeps us focused and makes our life a lot less mundane.
    
    
    tami

    The only purpose Life has is the purpose YOU give it!
    
    Only human beings have purposes, everthing else just is and exists. 
    But people can choose to be interested in something, concerned about
    the future, and make plans to change what they don't like.  Like
    someone else said, the cosmos doesn't know or care about us.  WE have
    to care about us.
    
    So, the starting point for replacing the despair of nihilism is right
    at home.
    
    One of my boys used to complain that he was bored.  My response to him
    and to you is that "You have to take interest in the something." 
    Nothing will reach out and tell you "I'm important", that's your
    choice.
    
    Find some spark of interest that you can kindle into a fiery passion. 
    That's what makes Life meaningful.
    
    fwiw,
    
    Dick

    
    I had this send to me a few years ago, and thought it was good. 
    
    			The Station
                            by
                        Robert J. Hastings
    
    	Tucked away in our subconscious is an idyllic vision.  We see
    ourselves on a long trip that spans the continent.  We are traveling by
    train.  Out the windows we drink in the passing scene of cars on nearby
    highways, of children waving at a crossing of cattle grazing on a
    distant hillside, of smoke pouring from a power plant, of row upon row
    of corn and wheat, of flatlands and valleys, of mountains and rolling
    hillsides, of city skylines and village halls.
    
    	But uppermost in our minds is the final destination.  On a certain
    day, at a certain hour, we will pull into the station.  Bands will be
    playing and flags waving.  Once we get there, so many wonderful dreams
    will come true and pieces of our lives willl fit together like a
    completed jigsaw puzzle.  How restlessly we pace the aisles, damning
    the minutes for loitering -- waiting, waiting, waiting for the station.
    
    	"When we reach the station, that will be it!"  we cry.  "When I'm
    18".  "When I buy a new 450SL Mercedes Benz!"  When I put the last kid
    through college."  "When I have paid off the mortgage!"  "When I get a
    promotion."  "When I reach the age of retirement, I shall live happily
    ever after!"
    
    	Sooner or later we must realize there is no station, no one place
    to arrive at once and for all.  The true joy of life is only the trip. 
    The station is only a dream.  It constantly outdistances us.
                                          

        The first line and the last line of .9 make sense to me...
    
        Are we here to live a destiny?  Yes, but we choose that destiny;
    it isn't handed to us.  
        Are we here for some grand purpose?  Our negative egos would like
    to think so.  
        Why are we here?  Well, a wise one I know has said, repeatedly,
    that each of us is here for very unique reasons...no two individuals
    alike.  Therefore, no two people have the same "purpose."  We all,
    however, share two fundamental reasons:  to create fun is the first.
    Though that sounds simple, it was pointed out that we really don't
    know how.  The second reason: to consciously create success.  Again,
    the definition of success requires probing and most people aren't
    really sure of how to consciously do it (if so, there would already
    be just one handbook.)  Apart from those two shared reasons are
    many other individual reasons...each person doing something different
    and each lifetime giving a different view or perspective or lesson.
         Waiting until death for heaven seems particularly cruel. 
    Especially since the only ones punishing us is us.  It's also 
    terribly insulting to consider humans as something so low that they
    don't deserve heaven on earth...that they must wait until they've
    attained critical mass or something.  
         Why live?  Why would you want to?  Aren't there things to 
    explore?  Aren't there lessons to learn?  Aren't there adventures
    to experience?  Isn't there fun to be found?  If not, if life is
    drudgery, if life is totally uninteresting, then maybe there isn't
    much purpose.  But with a little effort, that tide can be reversed,
    and the other side can become visible.  
         Doing what everyone else is doing isn't the answer...for we
    are too unique for that.  We must do what is right or appropriate
    for us, taking care to be responsible to others (and ourselves)
    while we do so.  So, whose ambition is it to have the house, the
    cars, the job, etc.?  Yours or someone from the consensus?  Following
    the leader, when there isn't a leader, is hollow and even dangerous.
    Become your own leader, and you will develop a purpose.
    
    Frederick
    

Re.-1    Frederick
    
	Thank you!

    re: .12 (Mikki)
    
          You're welcome, but I suspect you already heard all that
    before.  ;-)
    
    Frederick
    

    Here are my reasons for living:
    
    Enjoying myself 
    
    Making someone else laugh
                    
    Helping someone relieve their pain
    
    Becoming an expert at something
    
    Watching people change over the years
       
    Life can be painful or pleasurable.  In a large part, this depends on
    you and the attitude you decide to hold on to.  Yes, we all die in the
    end, but that is not the important thing.  What's important is what
    you decide to do between now and then.
    
    A friend of mine loved to eat chocolate.  But he would get a bad
    headache from it shortly afterwards.  It was determined by his doctor
    to be an allergic reaction so he stopped eating chocolate.  I told him
    that there was a simple way for him to eat all the chocolate he wanted
    and never suffer from the headaches.  I told him to take a few aspirin
    before he ate the chocolate....he gained quite a few pounds but they
    were the most pleasurable pounds he had ever gained.
    
    Find the things you like to do, that make you feel good, that do not
    directly cause others pain.  Or try to think up new answers for the
    "cosmic question"...that ought to keep you busy for a few decades...
    
    A.V.
      

    The answer is to enjoy life.  Nothing more, nothing less.

    A simple philosophy of life;
    
      Life is like a camera, you only get out of what you put into it!
    
      
    Get the picture!!!!!!!!!!!!

    You have received some good advise.  The only thing that I can add is
    to stay positive and remenber that you are a valuable person and the
    only Dad your children will have.  I have learned, many times over that 
    no matter what the cirumstances are or who did what, that a Dad is
    always a Dad no matter what has happened.  Give yourself time to heal
    and please know that it takes two people, not one to make a marraige
    work.
    
    Also two notesfile, from people who have felt like you do now are:
    
    DLOACT::BLENDED_FAMILIES
    QUOKKA::NON_CUSTODIAL_PARENTS
    
    lots of hugs
     

    
    Good question, and one I've thought a lot about lately.  (I didn't 
    see this note until today 'cause I was on extended leave of absence, 
    in part the purpose of which was to contemplate just such questions.)
    
    Clearly, the replies here seem to say "No one knows, or will know, WHY,
    so make the best out of not knowing... i.e., enjoy the trip."  True
    enough.  What I came out with, over the month I was on leave, was to
    ensure that HOW I go through life lines up with what I truly believe
    in.  I wasn't doing that.  Now I will.  We all make mistakes.
    
    I kept a journal while on my trip, and pasted to the front cover was a
    quote from a poet named James Kavanaugh.  I gave me some inspiration
    during the tough times.  Maybe this will shed some light on your
    question, but certainly it contains no real answer:
    
    "This is a book born in my heart, born in the pain of ending one life
    and beginning another, born in the excitement of the continuing search
    for life's meaning.  Some people do not have to search; they find their
    niche early in life and rest there, seemingly contented and resigned. 
    They do not seem to ask much of life, sometimes they do not seem to
    take it seriously.  At times I envy them, but usually I do not
    understand them.  Seldom do they understand me.
    
    "I am one of the searchers.  There are, I believe, millions of us.  We
    are not unhappy, but neither are we really content.  We continue to
    explore life, hoping to uncover its ultimate secret.  We continue to
    explore ourselves, hoping to understand.  We like to walk along the
    beach, we are drawn by the ocean, taken by its power, its unceasing
    motion, its mystery and unspeakable beauty.  We like forests and
    mountains, deserts and hidden rivers, and the lonely cities as well. 
    Our sadness is as much a part of our lives as is our laughter.  To
    share our sadness with one we love is perhaps as great a joy as we can
    know - unless it be to share our laughter.
    
    "We searchers are ambitious only for life itself, for everything
    beautiful it can provide.  Most of all we want to love and be loved. 
    We want to live in a relationship that will not impede our wandering
    nor prevent our search, nor lock us in prison walls, that will take us
    for what little we have to give.  We do not want to prove ourselves to
    another or to compete for love.
    
    "This is a book for wanderers, dreamers, and lovers, for lonely men and
    women who dare to ask of life everything good and beautiful.  It is for
    those who are too gentle to live among wolves."
    
    ***
    
    Sums it up for me.  Next question:  Why, then, am I still working here?
    
                                                       

    re .18
    
    Thank you, that is beautiful.  Would you mind if I extract it and print
    it off?
    
    While I haven't come to any answers yet, I do appreciate all the input. 
    I expected some rib-poking and good-natured kidding when I entered this
    note.  I've enjoyed all the replies and I've certainly given them alot
    of thought.  No answers yet, but I do have focus on some things I would
    enjoy.  For the first time in my life I'm coming to terms with my
    "aloneness" in this world.  I'm only responsible for me and I feel and
    have felt a little lost on trying to find direction in my life.  Trying
    to find what I truly enjoy in this world.  
    
    Thanks for all the answers.
    
    Karen

    I placed this note in here a couple of years ago.  It was easy to find
    because I wrote it about a friend who had died that day and I remember
    the date of his death.  This string reminded me of it, so I thought I'd
    repost it.  Feel free to delete it if the redundnacy is unnecessary.
    
    Kris
    
         <<< QUARK::NOTES_DISK:[NOTES$LIBRARY]HUMAN_RELATIONS.NOTE;1 >>>
               -< What's all this fuss about 'sax and violins'? >-
================================================================================
Note 901.17                       I am, I cried                         17 of 23
BRADOR::HATASHITA                                   129 lines  14-NOV-1989 22:51
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Without a base note this topic lacks a foundation but I'll place
    another brick on it regardless.  This topic has been heavy on my
    mind all day as I mourn the death of a friend.
    
    For all their contribution to mankind, those who can be considered to
    be great and those whose impact will be felt for generations, have all
    died or will be dead within the space of few short decades.  And a few
    decades after that their names will also be forgotten.  It is the
    happiness we grasp while alive which gives substance to our lives.
    Life and Death give no thought for an individuals contribution. 

    It is this termination of life which makes precious our thoughts and
    actions as they exist in the here and now.  Given that no action that
    we as humble mortals can perform will result in immortality (unless you
    count here-after existence) the best that every person can hope for and
    work towards is a happy life.  I can't help but wonder whether or not
    Madame Currie would have traded her fame and work and Nobel Prizes for
    better health and a longer life for her husband, Pierre.  Would
    Heinrich Boltzman, a famous 19th century physicist, have traded his
    contributions to an ungrateful and malicious scientific community for a
    life of peace in obscurity?  He was in enough turmoil over his fame, or
    perhaps lack thereof,  that he shot himself in the head. 

    The list goes on.  It seems that fame and contribution always exact a
    demanding price on the individual.  Paul Gaugin was a troubled man who
    suffered from syphilis most of his adult life.  He escaped his demons
    in legendary drinking bouts.  Julius Robert Oppenhemer changed the
    course of the world and became a bitter outcast who had been stabbed in
    the back politically more times than Julius Caesar.  Ernest Hemmingway
    made the grade in the literary world. His work will live and continue
    to affect English Literature for decades. I doubt that this was much
    comfort to him before he took his own life.  The only way Einstein
    escaped the events around him, which, for the most part he looked upon
    with a humble but firm disdain, was to ignore it.  He took life the way
    life was meant to be taken, not too seriously. 

    A friend of mine died yesterday.  His name was Victor Davis and for a
    time I envied him.  He was an Olympic medalist and world record holder
    in the breast stroke.  None of that matters to him now and the only
    thing which matters to me is the fact that I shall never see him again
    in the flesh.  He is gone and I am here.  In time his records and
    medals shall be forgotten and he'll exist as another statistic; another
    innocent victim of a drunk driver's idiocy. 

    I find a greater proof in the existence of God and an underlying
    harmony within the universe in listening to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony
    than I ever have attending any church; and yet would the composer of
    this, perhaps the greatest demonstration of human genius ever created,
    have traded the composition for an opportunity to listen and see
    children at play just one more time before he died? 

    There is both pleasure and misery in glory and fame. There is
    vindication for mediocrity. And there is significance to every life to
    have graced this planet. 

    Anybody who thinks that it is only the Curries and the Einsteins which
    matter is severely short-changing themselves.  If those who think that
    way consider that their lives are nothing more than background noise or
    backdrops for the "more important" lives going on around them really
    believe that, then they really deserve to believe that.  The names of
    every person, like their bodies will be dust and forgotten in the
    course of time.  Who remembers the first person to till the earth or
    dam a river?  Who even considers the magnitude of their impact on our
    lives in comparison to Einstein or Currie?  Glory, like all things, is
    fleeting. 

    The inter weaving of life is far too complex for any person to decide
    which lives are important and which are not. 

    I think about the Greek bronze smith who's name is forgotten, who
    toiled and sweated in complete obscurity on the outskirts of Athens and
    forged a helmet almost 3000 years ago. While contemplating the form of
    the helmet five years ago in the Royal Ontario Museum, I met a young
    lady.  We discussed the work of this nameless craftsman and we became
    involved.  I introduced her sister to a friend and that union has given
    the world a child in the form of my god-child, Jessica.  In her smile
    and her wonder of life, I find that my small part in her creation to be
    all the reason I need for my own existence. 

    I don't think that it ever crossed the mind of the man who made the
    helmet, the soldier who wore it into battle or the archaeologist who
    unearthed it, that this shaped piece of metal would result one day in a
    beautiful little girl. I'm sure that each of these people had, at least
    once in their own lives, pondered their significance.  I think about
    that whenever I struggle with my own significance. 

    And I have come to realize that it is not for us to judge whose life is
    worthwhile and whose actions vindicate their existence.  That judgment
    is reserved for history or God. 

    There are, as have been pointed out, those of us who are movers,
    shakers, builders and collectors.  I find that in itself to be of
    comfort.  I believe that above all these things, however, that humans
    are marked as thinkers. 

    Consider this: We are a part of the universe in every sense of the
    word. The components which make up the structure of our minds and
    bodies were forged in the same astronomic event which gave rise to the
    sun and the earth. The universe passes through us and around us
    constantly in the form of food we eat, air we breath and sunlight we
    absorb. 

    In all the time that has passed since the inception of the universe
    there has never been, to our knowledge, anything which can comprehend
    what the universe is.  The rocks and stars and oceans do not perceive
    their own beauty.  It is only within the mind of mankind that their
    beauty becomes perceived and their existence become questioned.  It is
    only through our minds that the universe can know itself.  And our
    minds are the only thing in the universe which has the ability to
    comprehend its own existence. 

    With that remarkable gift comes the burden which is borne by those who
    keep there eyes to the ground and wallow in their misery of their
    misperceived insignificance. I suppose it is the way of the universe;
    the universe is structured so that there is never a net gain.  Doubt
    about the value of our own existence is the price paid for the ability
    to comprehending it. 
    
    We are not drops in an ocean for we are conscious of our existence and
    the existence of the infinte dimensions around us.  To liken us to
    sands on the beach denies everything which is wonderful about being a
    human.  I can't comprehend thinking that way, but I imagine that for
    anyone who does, life must be just a prolonged wait for death. 

    Late night musings.  Long, but I hope it was worth it. 

    Kris 
    
    

Thank you, Kris.

-- Cathy

    
>>    Sums it up for me.  Next question:  Why, then, am I still working here?

RE.18

	Thanks, Bob.  It so refreshing to see someone with so much DEPTH
	on a Monday(holiday) morning.

	I, for one, hope you don't leave....but wishing you happiness.

	ALWAYS,

	Mikki    
                                                       

    
    Re: A couple back...
    
    I, personally, don't have a problem with extracting and printing the
    Kavanaugh quote, but just realize that it's something I got a long time
    ago, held onto, and entered w/o author's permission.  Maybe if you keep
    his name on it, it'll satisfy all the normal Notes requirements.
    
    Bob

    RE: Base note
    
    I enjoyed reading your note.  Oh, if we only knew the answers... but I
    believe there are answers, through the knowledge of our Creator.
    
    Have you read the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes?  It's not very long,
    and the writer struggles with the very same issues.  It's great reading
    and it just may give you some profound insight.
    
    Mike

    
    Re: .last
    
    Mildly humorous... while I was out & about contemplating a bunch of
    things, I kept the journal mentioned a couple of replies back.  It
    actually got rather frustrating; I wound up asking a whole host of
    questions, and didn't come up with many answers.  I kinda got tired of
    writing "?."
    
    My personal belief is that at some point, either near or just after
    checking out, "all" of it makes sense in a flash of insight.  Whether
    that is provided by "our Creator," or is simply the result of analyzing
    your life in a split second, ("My life flashed before my eyes...") it
    should become very clear.  My real goal is that, when that happens, I
    should be able to review it and say, "Not bad... not bad at all."
    
    Either that, or we simply cease to be.
    
    

    All thgis kinda reminds me of a story my dad told me one day.
    
    A philosophical rendition of 'what's it all about?'
    
    There were these two children born on the same day in the same 
    hospital.  They co-existed in the 'baby' room and got to see/know
    and recognise each other the week they were there.  All of a sudden
    one family took the one child home to Cleveland, and the other family
    took their child home to West Palm beach.....both children grew up
    never seeing each other.  Until one day, when they were both 82 years
    old, contracted diseases that placed them BOTH on their deathbeds in
    ......drum roll, you guessed it, the same hospital and same hospital
    room to boot!  As they layed on their respective death beds awaiting
    the enevitable, the both rolled their heads towards each other
    and when their eyes met, it was instant recognition.  They gazed at
    each other for about fifteen minutes until one of them finally
    spoke........
    
    	He looked at the other fellow and simply asked...
    
    
    	"so what did you think?"
    
    
    End of story.  Simply stated, we know the beginning, we know the
    end, what we think of the middle is what me personally make of it!
    I sure helps me out in difficult times to reflect on that story as
    it puts it in perspective for me.
    
    hope it helps.....
    
    chet