Have you ever had the feeling that somehow the life that you’re living is just some kind of play on you; that somehow everything you have ever experienced and everybody you’ve ever met was all just a big sort of test on you? The feeling is as though someone, somewhere is doing this big experiment and because you can only see the world through your own eyes, the experiment must be on you. I imagine some ingenious scientist from the future, sitting in a laboratory somewhere far away from my world, watching and calculating every move I make. He plants people in my way that I will inevitably run into; be it people that I have only a short and meaningless interaction with, or people that end up being lifelong friends and influences on me; people that change who I am and what I believe in. He then casually jots down logs in his notebook, assessing the movements I make; the reactions I have to his disciples that greet me in the street, in the schools that he has created just for me, at the cafe where they sell coffee that only I can taste. Everybody around me knows what is going on except for me. They all work for the scientist, and he instructs them on how to treat me. Some offer me love and support that I could never have imagined, and some treat me with contempt for no reason whatsoever. My reactions to each and every one of these individuals is what he spends most of his time observing. I wonder if at some point they will all come clean to me; they will tell me that this world is an artificial, tiny place where I have been placed for an evaluation of my tiny life that only I perceive to be long and meaningful.

But then, just as these thoughts float through my head, I return to my normal thought process… This is not a test on me, to think so would be selfish. If there is some ingenious scientist working somewhere far away, he is testing all of us, and then I’m left to wonder how we are doing on this test. Are we failing, or are we succeeding? Wait, how unrealistic to think this way. We are all just here due to an inexplicable wonder of science and nature. I am just one among many, who probably think the same things, and wonder at this reality just as I do. I am just a small being in this great world, no smaller or larger than anyone else, and this large world that we inhabit is just a tiny place amongst a universe that despite are most valiant efforts, we have yet to fully understand.

It’s okay to not understand. We don’t always need to understand. Again, to need to understand everything that happens is selfish of all of us. We all wonder at what will happen tomorrow, or in twenty years, or when we die. Some choose to offer an explanation; one of faith that they believe has been given to them in literature throughout history. If this makes them happy, then I am happy for them. For me, my answer is that I simply don’t know. To be happy, I must have faith in today, and that what I do today is right and just.. That I give love to those that love me, and even give love to those that don’t. Do I always follow my own rules? Of course not… But I try, and I think that I try harder every day. That’s all any of us can do, is to just try. Try to do your best.

Posted on September 9th, 2013 by Sam Ward.