Why are we here?

For Gillybob .one of my favourite poems.a bit long and starts with an idea from a Spanish poet /philosopher.

So many different lengths of time
15 April 2011
How long does a man live after all?
A thousand days or only one?
One week or a few centuries?
How long does a man spend living or dying
and what do we mean when we say gone forever?

Adrift in such preoccupations, we seek clarification.
We can go to the philosophers
but they will weary of our questions.
We can go to the priests and rabbis
but they might be busy with administrations.

So, how long does a man live after all?
And how much does he live while he lives?
We fret and ask so many questions –
then when it comes to us
the answer is so simple after all.

A man lives for as long as we carry him inside us,
for as long as we carry the harvest of his dreams,
for as long as we ourselves live,
holding memories in common, a man lives.

His lover will carry his man’s scent, his touch:
his children will carry the weight of his love.
one friend will carry his arguments,
another will hum his favourite tunes,
another will still share his terrors.

And the days will pass with baffled faces,
then the weeks, then the months,
then there will be a day when no question is asked,
and the knots of grief will loosen in the stomach
and the puffed faces will calm.
And on that day he will not have ceased
but will have ceased to be separated by death.

How long does a man live after all?
A man lives so may different lengths of time.

Brian Patten
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Categories Poetry

All's clear now then.

We're here to procreate and then, as we get older, pass on our knowledge. What I don't understand is that all other creatures on the planet seem to pass on important knowledge [where to find good food; what dangerous foods/other animals/situations to avoid etc] whereas we just go on making stupid mistakes and having wars .

We don't ALL do that, it just feels like it when we switch on the news.

I think we are here by accident. We are all just chemical mutations. But since we do exist (or do we???) we have to make the best of it and get along with each other.

Unfortunately, that part seems to be missing from some peoples' DNA coding to varying degrees. Some are just pains in the butt, others are murderous pains in the butt.

Being a gardener, I think we are all just highly evolved seedlings, growing and maturing into mobile plants that eventually die once they have gone to seed. I find that explanation the easiest for my mind to accept, and have thought it ever since I was young. And have been laughed at too.

Thank you for that poem stansgran it absolutely sums up the way I think about my late grandad (and my grandma too). I am hopeless with words but this is lovely. I am printing it out and taking it to read to my grandma.

By 'we' I meant mankind in general. I can't think of any other creature that brings about the demise of other inhabitants of the planet. Which made the von Daniken theory make sense to me all those years ago [not saying it does now, though]. Even viruses aren't silly enough to kill everything.

Do any of you believe in a spirit world? I ask because of an experience I had shortly after starting on nightshift in the last nursing home I worked in before retiring. A carer I didn't know very well entered the staff room where I was sitting. She said "Hilda there is a man standing behind you". She went on to describe my late Grandfather, even down to the age he was when his hair turned white. (This I confirmed by asking my mother). The carer said he is often with me. I was not aware that this carer could communicate with spirits, and was a little unsettled but reassured none the less. I think we all have a place in the world and make of our lives what we will. We are here to learn, and our lives can be repeated over and over until we have learned to be the very best that we can be. I know my life isn't prefect. I have made mistakes and taken decisions which I will regret to the end of my life, but at the end I hope there will be forgiveness and acceptance. I believe in God or a supreme being, as did all my family before me. I hope I don't come across as all preachy. I don't go to church. (was put off completely by a Minister but that's another story). Rather long post, and probably not what this thread is all about but that's how I feel anyway.

I don't disbelieve in it, hilda, and have heard of similar accounts.

I don't know what the reason is for our existence, the best I have ever come up with is the same as gillybob, that we are a giant laboratory with a presence overseeing how we evolve and react to different situations.

I know how we evolved, but can find no reason why.
Perhaps the 'giants' and 'gods' that apparently visited the earth were from other parts of the universe where life became unsustainable. They visited and left their seed, which would explain a sudden leap in evolution. Perhaps we may one day become the 'gods' if we conquer space travel and visit less developed planets.

If we believe in life after death then this could in fact be purgatory. But if we do not then we are merely a product of evolution; we are, we die and are no longer.
Religion is a way of explaining that which we cannot explain in other terms.
As for the reason - heaven knows!

No, my family on my mother's side are spiritualists and I am a bit of a black sheep, I tried hard over the years but something in me won't and can't believe it. So I would have put it down to a lucky guess.

It's so sad that we are such a murderous race, I do wonder if we really shouldn't live so much on top of each other. Maybe the world is too crowded. The fight for survival makes people desperate and greedy, wanting to control all resources so that they won't be the ones to suffer should there be a shortage.

I went to the beach a few years ago, at Southwold, during a period of oil shortages, and was surprised to see a long chain of coasters out at sea, just sitting there. I had never seen it before. I googled it when I got home and discovered that it was oil containers. The owners were refusing to unload until the prices had gone up even higher.

Do any of us exist - or are we all virtual Gransnetters?

I would love to live a virtual life, and tell porkies on here and be something I am not - but I would never be able to remember all the porkies I had told. Sadly I shall never be cross-dressing paunch named Bert, he of the ballet pumps and jam-making.

Gransnet has to be real, but the advice given does not. For example - we give objective advice, but put in the same circumstances, are we able to step back and give ourselves that same sensible advice, and follow it? When my own marriage had a hiccough, I found it very hard to follow what I now see as good advice, but at the time couldn't see it.

My point being, that although we may think that we are capable of logical thought, there are times when we are not. Maybe those times are what causes wars.

Our murderous nature is because, like all animals, we are territorial and part of the competitive food chain. It is genetic. Survival of the fittest.

Our efforts to be kind are often thwarted by our genetic legacy. We can only do our best.

There is a funny song about someone who lives a virtual life janerowena basically he is a 5ft 3 overweight pizza delivery man who lives with his parents. But on-line he is 6ft 3 ,has a mind blowing six pack and models for Calvin Klein !! Very funny but entirely possible.

My virtual self would be plain looking and not very bright. But I can live with being beautiful and highly intelligent.

rose you have just beaten me to it.... do we exist or are we just a figment of somebeings bored imagination.

You would have to be VERY bored indeed to make me a figment of your imagination glass

Me in my pumps

i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm181/janeharrison/jokes/securedownload-1.gif

I think that we are nothing more than a higher form of mould, just as you see different colours of mould colonising an apple and vying for supremacy whilst reproducing at such a rate the mould rots the apple. So humanity is colonising and will eventually rot the earth.

joelsnan I'm with you! We are rotting the earth, bit by bit and species by species. I think that we are a huge mistake because no other species has done so much damage.

Are we human or are we dancers?

I am here to take the dog out when he asks - which he is doing now and then I am here to get the dinner and make sure DH takes his pills.

Are all dancers not human?

joelsnan that is a very good analogy. My 'us as plantlife' theory explanation is that as we grow, we take all the goodness out of the soil, but as we die we put it back - until lately, when we have added too many chemicals to enable us to grow just too many crops.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz-PMDqq-L8

The question is Why are We Here? rather than what we personally feel gives our lives meaning.

If we feel there is a "grand design" that has in some way been set in train by a superior being to "test" us, then we may feel this test involves caring for other living things and for the planet in order to achieve some sort of heavenly goal of eternal peace.

If we feel the universe and our existence is totally random and inexplicable, we may still choose to care for other living things and the planet just because it makes us feel better to do so.

I really don't understand why we - or any other living things - are here, or anywhere else in the universe. The whole question is so unanswerable that if I thought about it too much I would be overwhelmed by the apparent pointlessness of it all.

Personally, I find it difficult to believe in a higher being that has created the universe and everything in it. If such a being existed, I would not feel kindly disposed towards it. Why create pain and suffering when there could just be infinite nothingness and peace?