A noble bet

Upon stepping into church today, I heard this from the lady who led the Novena;

"May they not resort to drugs in order to escape from life"

Drugs, as a means to escape from life.

But what does it mean by life? I mean not only in the Church's view, but in our view, generally all of us. Surely we cannot reduce it to a biological sense i.e. to eat, move and reproduce. Our observable behaviour to a psychologist or sociologist would only reveal the external aspects of our existence; as organisms with a system of language, institutions and culture.

As equally important as, if not more, is the internal aspect of our existence. It is not so much as what is meant to them of what constitutes existence or life. What is sought for in this internal, relfective inquiry, is what is meant by you and me when we ask what is life or what is the meaning of our existence.

Can I truly characterize this sense of life or existence as something like being waken up in a prison or on a desolate island, without prior knowledge or memory of how or why you have got there? There would be no agony or loneliness in the same sense of having been thrusted into prison or island. There can be no sense of abandonment. Nor could there be a sense of guilt or victimisation which could explain your fortuitous presence in that cell or island. There is only cluelessness and if you press the inquiry further, you feel at lost. You demand an explanation or you try to find out why.

But that (the sense of cluelessness or need for explanation) is only possible if you are aware of a world beyond the cell or the people you would meet if you weren't stuck in that island or prison. What if you are not aware, or choose not to entertain that flicker of curiosity within you?

You would engage yourself with the little things around you. You set your mind to drawing on the walls about what you see around you, within those four walls, including the window high up through which light occassionally shine through. And when you reflect upon the artwork, you begin to imagine and you see that possibilities are boundless and exciting. You want to see what lies outside the window. You're thinking of a way to climb up to it.

See, you are not driven by curiosity per se? All the things you've been doing is because they gave a better sense or true context of your place in the world or in this example in the cell or island. Likewise, the act of living, whatever we're doing, falling in love, performing the best in our studies, working hard, creating buildings, community work, doing business. again, this acts of living are driven by our deep desire to acquire a better sense of our existence, not the definition, or meaning of it, I'm just saying sense, a true sense of our existence and life.

Back to our example, what if you realise that there is nothing that you can use to climb up, when you realise that your limbs can't get you up there? You become disappointed, depressed.

When it dawns on you, that there is much constraint on your life that you can't do about, you start blaming the system, you start becoming bitter and say that you've been exploited in the past. What do you do? Your actions are too guided by this myopic worldview, you see yourself as fully entitled to everything, you waste your mind on thinking that it is you against the world. Or you start thinking that life is all that is before your eyes although your heart insists differently. You seek to escape from that dull hopeless life, you get into drugs.

But the whole problem is letting yourself to believe that the world is that small and simple, just because you can't see anything beyond what your senses and mind can detect.

Believing that there is something beyond the observable reality is what characterises a believe in God. Oh, pardon my words, I meant belief in something beyond the observable reality. To believe that something exists beyond this observable reality or that God exists is stupid. At the least, it is an unwarranted or unjustified belief. To believe in God is to strive for that common principle which would bind us all.

Now, there is a difference between believing that there is something to see beyond that window (the former notion) and believing in the value of trying to see what lies beyond the window (the latter notion). Though these two notions overlap, but 'believing that there is something to see beyond that window' I mean here is the kind of assertive or affirmative belief that there is something or that you know that something exist beyond that window. This is an ignorant or baseless belief because such belief depends on facts; and until you have established your facts that belief remains baseless. You cannot say that you believe or know that something worth seeing beyond the window without having seen it in the first place.

The belief in the latter notion's sense is best described as a noble bet. The legitimacy of this statement, belief or noble bet relies not on its factual basis. A noble bet's worth rest on the value of its overall project. This is what characterises my belief in God; and also my belief in my existence and my own life.