Questioned Beliefs (Page 1)
I used to believe in things but when I saw Kuma die, my beliefs followed her into the darkness. I have been searching and questioning ever since. Real hard questions. Maybe this will uncover some kind of belief again because without belief, life is dark and futile.
Before, I believed in things like faith, destiny, the universal law of action and reward, spiritituality, the soul and consciousness, luck, God, love, life beyond death and many other things that I didn't understand. But, I never really thought about these things. I never had a great need to understand. I just accepted things as they came along and lived my life doing the best I could and moving forward toward preconcieved goals of happiness and prosperity with love and family.
That was my life before. I was marching like a good soldier toward a destiny that I didn't define much beyond a general desire to be a better person until I die.
But when Kuma died, I died. And I am looking at my life and asking what and why. Most everything is wiped out and has to be rewritten. I need to be rebooted and started again and I have to find a reason why I should start all over. When I lost Kuma, I lost everything that was important to me. My enjoyement of living disappeared. The is nothing that I can think of that would answer the question "what do I want?". Nothing measures up to what I already had in Kuma.
I had everything. I made over a million dollars, had two houses, a boat on the ocean, two new Mercedes bought with cash, my own company for 23 years, a great dream gym, a beautiful wise daughter and loving family, a best friend for 24 years, real love with my family and my daughter and then an unexpected beautiful love with Marie, sent to me by angels, that changed everything and would last forever. I lost all these things. The rug of my life was pulled out from under me.
I ended up with nothing but Kuma, my car and some gym equipment. The physical things didn't matter, they could all be replaced. The betrayals and lost relationships almost destroyed me, they knocked me out and pinned me down for the count. I survived because I had Kuma. Kuma stayed. I lived for Kuma and she lived for me. Kuma should have died at 14, but she kept regenerating herself with love and lived until 17 and would have lived longer till 18 or 19 at least.
When Kuma died all life around me died. Flies and bugs that were annoying disappered. No life inside here. Just quiet. Have you ever been in a room with a person that just died? It gets very quiet. You realize that you are accustomed to the sound of their breathing and now it is still. More still than if you were just sitting in the room by yourself.
From this quietness, from this nothingness I have to find a reason to want to get up again. A reason to want to go outside and enjoy life again. When I think about it, I realize that I have had a very fortunate life. I have been given a great body for sports and an intelligent mind. I have been born in a good era and into a good family that loves me and are all still alive. There must be some reason for this and I must show my gratefulness and do something with what I was given. I don't know what that is.
For now, here are some of the things I have been thinking about:
We were Born with Instincts and Protective Fears
Just like animals who are afraid of predators even before they know why and have instincts to do certain things like be domesticated or stay wild, to trust or not, we too are born with certain beliefs and fears. These are built-in at our birth just like the preloaded programs that you can't get rid of when you buy a new computer.
Some of these beliefs inherently built into the neurons of our creation for whatever reasons are:
We believe we are special and will live forever. We feel invulnerable and that we will never die. Oh, we know we will sometime in the future, but we don't really believe it, at least not just now.
We are driven by sex to procreate. We are driven to compete and stand out as individuals better than the rest yet are even more driven to be accepted as part of a group. We want to be loved, understood, comforted and respected. We never grow out of wanting to be a good child seeking approval from our parents. We want to impress others with our progress and achievements. We believe that we are good no matter what we do.
We are driven to be comfortable, safe and secure. We seek entertainment and pleasure and happiness. We are hungry and want to live. We have a strong desire to survive.
We seek fairness and get most upset when we aren't treated fairly.
We fear death, poverty, being rejected and ostracized from the group, isolation, hunger, losing our family and our home or place to live and being replaced. These fears guide us and are used as threats against us.
These are just some of the beliefs that we are born with as part of our human operating system, our brain and consciousness. They may have evolved from our DNA, our past life experiences or from our creator. Just as we received a nose when we were born, we received these beliefs and fears and these are built in deep inside and are not easily changed.
Our Family and Country Gave Us a Package of Beliefs
At the moment of our birth we receive a package of bundled religious beliefs on how to behave and live our lives. Boys are circumcized for religion or custom, babies are baptised or welcomed with other religious customs.
We spend all of our youth learning these beliefs from our parents, schools and places of worship. We are told to repeat these beliefs over and over again until we believe them to be our own. We really don't have a choice in the matter. We are brought up that way. We become so ingrained in these beliefs that we feel fortunate that these are the beliefs we have and not other beliefs. People knocking on our front door trying to change our beliefs have about as much chance of doing that as a snowman has of surviving in a fire. The brainwashing is complete. We believe and nobody can change that. Until something comes along that kills our former life. Even then, our beliefs are still the underlying foundation of our lives and chances of changing our beliefs are slim. We will continue to believe until our grave and into our believed afterlife.
Life Gave Us New Learned Beliefs from Expeience
Life teaches us more about fear, trust, love, loss, loyalty and betrayal, needs, beauty, attachment and desired lifestyle. Life tought us what works and what doesn't. Through these personal life experiences, we tend to adjust or fine-tune our beliefs. We may venture further into our beliefs or further away from them.
A magazine advertisement once showed a Porche sportscar with just one caption under the picture: "Everything we have learned so far". We are in effect at this place today with everything we have learned so far.
All this is just to say that we are first preprogrammed and then we are taught what we believe and how to behave under centuries old developed rules of ethical individual and group behaviour for our survival and then we learn from our own life experiences. We don't really question this until we need to. Our beliefs necessarily give us comfort from the vast amount of things unknown. Without belief we could spiral into an infinite abyss of confusion and dispair.
Which is kind of where I am right now. Spiralling down and reaching for a branch to hang on to.