Thursday, August 4, 2016

Luckiest people in the world

At times throughout my life, for moments, I too have been a lucky person... when I succeeded in clinging desperately to make-believe. I would imagine briefly that my human existence made sense. That gods and magic were real. That I would only have to search deeply for meaning and happiness, and I would surely find them, for meaning and happiness were like a tasty hamburger that I could purchase, taste and totally consume whenever I felt hungry. All I needed was good appetite.

Alas, over the last few years, I have abandoned forever all my nice old make-believe worlds. My existence has become infinitely tougher. But I've finally acquired the precious art of searching constantly for the peace and harmony that Richard Dawkins referred to as The Magic of Reality - How We Know What's Really True.

Often, when I watch TV for example, I realize that relatively few people seem to have taken this step. Religious folk, of course, are still in the starting blocks, and likely to stay there until the cows come home. Politicians and world leaders, too. Indeed most ordinary people cling to common-sense and make-believe. And they remain eternally lucky, as proud as a pope. It's in our genes. How could human apes like Dawkins and me have survived back in the days when science did not exist yet, when our ancestors needed make-believe stories to carry on existing? They needed gods and convictions just as surely as they needed food, sleep and sex. That was the lucky dawn of human existence.

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