Thoughts... on a flight from San Diego to New Orleans

If it is intelligent, whatever force makes life happen and sustains it must find desert lands the greatest challenge.   Believing that somewhere, if place is a necessary factor, an intelligent prime mover and overseer exists only complicates rather than simplifies the search for meaning and answers to the great "why" questions. The young person expects to become securely a fortiori sometime in adulthood, but wisdom in old age comes not from knowing but from continuing to ask honest, real questions.  The person who says he knows for sure the answers to the great existential questions is either a fool or a liar, or perhaps doesn't  understand the questions. The best a wise man can do is to continue to try to formulate better questions, beginning with  "Who am I?" believing that any new insights will not be final answers. Questions will remain.  The end of questioning is a kind of death. 

The dilemma for the person who wants to live authentically is determining whether or not to abandon or to stay involved with institutions that reassure the questioner that the old ritualized verities are the final word.