Keeping Me Up at Night

What gives value to our lives?

What makes one life more valuable than another’s?

At what point does someone’s greatness allow us to overlook their misdeeds?

Is there not something fundamentally wrong with idolizing a slaver just because he taught us “how to say goodbye?”

Is it not creepy to be enraptured by a dancer and singer who was by some accounts a pedophile?

How is it that we can look at another human being and decide that we are better or more worthy than them? Or to put it another way, how do we look at another human being and decide that they are less worthy than us?

Moreover, how do we look at an animal and say that they have less right to life than we do? If, for the carnivores, we remove the food chain from the equation, how do we decide that a creature’s right to life is less than our need to use it in sport, or to wear its furs or skins?

What makes us so sure that our truth, our scripture, our inner voice, is more accurate than another’s truth, scripture and inner voice?

Why do we deserve to hoard our riches away while the tired, the sick, the disabled are struggling to find a warm corner to curl up in on the street?

Why do we go on insisting that we are not our brother’s keeper?

Why do we take for granted our sister’s eternally forgiving demeanor?

Why is the quality of humanity, not naturally possessed by human beings?

Why does each and every one of us believe we are the center of all things?



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  1. Your question about life…reminded me of a quote…which in this senior moment…I am unable to recall who or the exact wording…but in essences it said…’That men spend so much time trying to define life, that they don’t have time to live it.’

    1. I’ll see your seize-the-moment quote and raise you a Socrates one: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” 🙂 Although without the balance we’ll surely run out of time.

      1. Ah…then why not add a little Zen to the mixture…”Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble with none.” Be well my friend and get some sleep. 🙂

  2. Well not every one of us think that they the center of all things. Some don’t judge others on their actions or appearences. Some don’t think everyone else as wrong and only what they beleive in as right. Some of us justify every bad action done by some one else by giving a weak positive argument to our brains. They must have a reason to do what they did. They were humans after all. Humans make mistakes. Whether it’s stealing something or pedophilia, mistake is a mistake no? And some of us are vegetarians too you know, vegans even. Who don’t wear fur either 🙂 So what if we take every small positivity from every small part of those small human beings and built our own self on that? Do you think, then, we could be able to say that we are a little better than them?

    1. I think that that sincerity and being tuned into the divine are two very different things. Most people filter the divine through their own ego and worldly experiences. I think we can be sincere about our own perspective, based on our own experiences without having the depth to understand where each other is coming from.

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