Periodically, I ask myself those questions. You know. “Why am I here? What am I?”

With recent events, I found myself questioning again. There was a time when I was younger I would have been adamant that I am an eternal being. These days, I’m unsure what eternal signifies as it demands I have an answer for the question – what is time? And I don’t. Although I have directly experienced things that suggest we do survive after death, as I get older, I actually find it more acceptable that perhaps we don’t. Which is a tad weird but, where was I during the 8 hour bowel surgery I had a few years ago? It was as if I did not exist during that time.

It’s hard to conclude that perhaps we are really nothing. Just actors strutting our time on stage to be blown out like a candle at some point in time. But thinking about what we are is even more mind boggling – like thinking about infinity. There are lots of theories these days but no real answers because no one has ever come back and told us what happens. Or, perhaps they have?

Someone I have known form many years is Anthony Peake and he has developed a lot of theories about this very topic based on a synthesis of science, medicine, psychology and more. His theory is something like that just before we actually die, time stops. We then relive our life over and over again. His theory can neatly explain deja vu, and many other phenomena. He sees us as having two components – one an eternal aspect and the other a temporal aspect that is actually living the life. He likens this to a video game in which you play a character in the game. Each time you die, your character respawns and starts again under the control of the player of the game. It’s quite a neat theory. But whether it is correct? Who knows?

After decades of esoteric work, I’m not even convinced that this isn’t a dream and my dreams reality. My dreams are complex, filled with details and I have even awakened from a dream to find I am in another…. so how do i know that the next wake up isn’t simply to another dream?

I have also pondered if we live a life at all? Perhaps now is all there really is and our past is simply a false memory placed there to give us context? And if so, are we just characters in a game – in a computer program something is running somewhere for fun? Am I in the end just a plaything? or just a simulation? A what-if experiment?

The more I think on this stuff, the more I end up down a rabbit hole. So in the end, what is, is. I had better own it and get on with it to the best of my ability. This means accepting responsibility.

In the last decade or so, we have all observed the growing idea that people are not responsible for themselves. Someone else is always to blame. These days, white males mostly it seems. I think this idea that we are victims and need to be protected is the very antithesis of our role in life, which is to engage, to live, to love and to direct our own lives as best we can. I think the victim mentality will result in the end of humanity if it is pursued to its logical conclusion. We have evolved by living – a constant brawl with events and situations that hone us, firm us and make us into well-rounded people.

If there is any point in living, it surely is to mature and evolve? The only way to do that is to engage in life and take responsibility for it…..