Life cannot wait until the sciences may have explained the universe scientifically. We cannot put off living until we are ready. The most salient characteristic of life is its coerciveness: it is always urgent, "here and now" without any possible postponement. Life is fired at us point blank.This quote is telling me that there is not always time to analyze everything in the minutest detail. We must make decisions, whether we are ready or not.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
Somewhere along the line I became a cautious person. I didn't trust many people. I didn't trust what I had previously understood.
I have tried many different ways of knowing things. I grew up in a church and even though I had reservations about the existence of God I was influenced by a group of people who had convictions and desires to better the world for themselves and others. My interests in high school were physics, mathematics, and music, and I understood the world through these things, especially physics. Ever since high school I was interested in "Eastern" religions. I started practicing meditation when I was sixteen or seventeen. At some point I decided there was a god, because the world didn't seem to make sense otherwise. I tried looking at the world as a grand contest between good and evil. I think it was my interest in religious understanding that drew me to philosophy.
Through my study of philosophy I have learned that the universe is a weird and wild place. It is strange and wonderful and nothing like what it seems on the face of it. Most things are not what we think they are. Now I think that - god or no god - the universe is not an easy thing of which to make sense. On the whole I think the evidence points to there not being a god, but it doesn't seem to make that much difference to me anymore, really.
This is not a world in which good decisions are easy. But since time marches on, we have to do the best we can with what we've got, knowing that along the way we are getting things wrong.
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