WHY?

For those who read "Sense and Sensibility" - not the book but my second to the last musing, two down before this one - will remember what I wrote there:

"Peaceful protests, allowed and guaranteed by law in much of the free world's governments, are  the citizens' rights to express their sense of civic duty. Rioting and destroying properties and businesses during these protests are one of the darkest manifestations of disdain and hatred towards sensibility that took eons of social evolution to achieve.  

It is a pity that what took centuries of social progress to develop and achieve can be swept away under a wave of regressive behaviors among young people, some of whom are actually pursuing higher education. 

That young girl from the anecdote above will have more "why" questions to ask". {There was a young girl in an anecdote in that musing}

"Why?" is, of course, always the more difficult question to answer. It is, however, the easiest to ask when you were a child from the moment you learned to pose questions.  When we were young we loved to ask "why" questions because we knew we can always follow them up with another...and another "why" questions, almost ad infinitum.  It was exhausting for our parents. As adults now, or persons of "a certain age",  "why" is sometimes the question that truly digs deeper, sometimes much too deep, than all the other queries we can come up with. Children, of course, ask them with transparent innocence, with absence of malice. Adults can be motivated by a lot of reasons for asking "why". 

Children, before they truly see the world for what it is today, do not yet know why certain things happen, why they can't have what other kids have, why there is corruption (let alone understand what it is), why people die, why their parents divorced, why bad things happen, why are there bad people, and so on and on.  

We know better but in reality we know less from the answers we get from some of the questions we preface with "why" as we get older.  As our "why" questions get deeper we actually generate more questions. When a child asked her dad, "Did God create the devil?", the old man managed to skirt and danced around the question because he knew that in just a few  moments the kid will go on to do other things, quickly forgetting the question and the answers she got.  Promptly she did and didn't even remember she asked it or to ask it again. Then she went to college and majored in philosophy.

She graduated and did get her doctorate in philosophy and now she asks, "Why did God create the devil?" Now, as we can see, not only "why" questions dig deeper, sometimes they can lead us to paths that end in a cul de sac or "No Thru Traffic Streets".  They send us back to where we came from, make us seek a different route, or we altogether abandon the search.  Sometimes that is what we get when philosophers enforce traffic on the streets of ideas or enlightenment but we cannot and should not cast blame.

Scientists, on the other hand, assure us that given enough time they will find the answers.  We, of course, know too well that they do - but only up to a point.  To that they will say that the only reason they may not find an explanation is because they do not have the necessary data or that they are prevented from getting them.  Indeed, they gave us what holds the moon in its orbit, our place in the solar system, why or how antibiotics work, when is it a good time to plant crops, get the most out of animal husbandry, split the atom, develop fracking, convert sunlight to electrical energy, take us to the moon,  how superconductivity works, mapped our entire physiology as to deal with our ailments, explain how and when did the universe begin, etc. 

Speaking of when did the universe begin, cosmologists take us back to about 13.5 billion years ago.  They cannot be accurate with that but they do describe what happened at the first second of the beginning, what sequence of events occurred, tracing it all back to fractions of a second, subdivided unimaginably into 1 followed by 32 zeros of units of time contained within one second.  They are able to begin their description of what happened at the first instance, written as 10⁻³²  second.  Any earlier than that, scientists have no answer - theoretical answer, that is.

What it means is that scientists do not have any clue as to what happened before it all begun.  They do not have an answer to what was there before the beginning of the universe. In other words, try as they would - scientists, philosophers, religious leaders and mystics all - they do not have an answer to the question, "Why did God create the universe?"  Hence, that girl, turned philosopher when she grew up will never get an answer either to her query, "Why did God create the devil?"

Forget the last three paragraphs above. We all get light headed from the rarefied air where it took us momentarily. We are back to solid ground now. Then we find that reality is, of course, no picnic either. We ask why in an "enlightened" era such as where we are today, society is till searching for answers.  

A year ago, Sept 2019, I wrote "Eulogy for Common Sense".  Last week I was trying to clean out my old emails, starting from the oldest and I ran across one sent to me by a high school classmate and very close friend.  Sadly, he had passed away not long after he sent me the email.  He attached a short anonymously written essay.  All this time I thought "Common Sense" died just a year ago when I wrote my musing, not realizing there was an obituary for him a decade earlier already.  Here was his note to me:

 "My parents told me about Mr. Common Sense early in my life and told me I would do well to call on him when making decisions. It seems he was always around in my early years but less and less as time passed by.  Today I read his obituary. Please join me in a moment of silence in remembrance, for Common Sense had served us all so well for so many generations.  

Obituary

Common Sense

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as knowing when to come in out of the rain, why the early bird gets the worm, life isn't always fair, and maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you earn) and reliable parenting strategies (adults, not children are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a six-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job they themselves failed to do in disciplining their unruly children. It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer Aspirin, sun lotion or a Band-Aid to a student, but could not inform the parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the Ten Commandments became contraband; churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims. Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot.  She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust; his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son, Reason. He is survived by three stepbrothers; I Know my Rights, Someone Else is to Blame, and I'm a Victim.

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone. If you still remember him, pass this on.  If not, join the majority and do nothing".

Author unknown

 

 Now we know WHY.