Three Great Questions

They boil down to one

It's easier to ponder deep questions when in nature. Here I am recently on the walk to Koonyunderup/Mt Hallowell in Denmark, Western Australia. Photo by R Dinsdale.

Lately I’ve had a flood of posts popping up on my online feed promising me proof that I am a genius. All I have to do is answer a series of question. At the end of the process, my incredible IQ will be revealed, and I’ll be able to share it with all my soon-to-be-impressed FB friends.

I fell for the first post (which probably led to all the others), but I gave up because the questions were too subjective, like about how I approach problems. For example, do I face them, evade them, find a way around them, or totally ignore them. When I clicked totally ignore them, whoever was behind the scenes lost interest in me. (Maybe they sensed I was a potential problem and used their default tactic, which was the same as mine, to deal with me.)

Another Find-Your-IQ post presented me with nine pale yellow circles.

The caption told me to click on the circle that was a slightly different shade of pale yellow to all the rest. I moved closer to the screen and examined them minutely. I hesitated, the cursor hovering above one circle that looked a bit sicker than the others. Should I click it? But could I trust my eyes, which aren’t the best, to reveal my genius status? I scrolled on.

Anyway, I don’t need proof of my genius status and there are far more important questions for me to answer, like the three greatest questions of all time.

Three Great Questions

1.     Who am I?

2.     Why am I here?

3.    How shall I live?

These are good questions to sink my teeth into on this warm summer day, much more satisfying than admitting that I tend to ignore problems or analysing varying degrees of colour. So, here goes.

Who am I?

A female Australian of Scottish descent, daughter, sister, wife, mother, grandmother, reader, writer, walker, weeder. (And perhaps a genius!)

Why am I here?

To support others through hard times and spread joy as far as I can. To earn some money and share it. To grow wiser as my thinning hair goes greyer.

How shall I live?

By taking one breath at a time.

Of course, these questions are demanding deeper answers than those I’ve given. More esoteric. More spiritual. Hinting at mysteries beyond human comprehension.

There are many religious, philosophical, psychological, and mystical answers to the first two questions.

Who am I? Possible answers are that I’m spirit having a physical experience; I’m an emanation of God; I am awareness in the flesh; an expression of pure consciousness.

Why am I here? Possible answers are that I’m here because of the simple fact that my parents got together and made me; I’ve been sent here to learn something  or to pay a karmic debt, the details of which I can’t recall; to move away from my unconscious state and sense consciousness itself.

But what if I never find the “right” answers to these first two questions before I die?

Even if I don’t know the best answer to who I am or why I’m here, I can still choose how to live.

How shall I live? That’s the greatest spiritual question.

I answer it, every moment, with my life.

And, as I live each moment with presence, authenticity and energy, the best answer to who I am and why I’m here, arises.

Below is the original of the photo posted at the top of this article. This one shows my insignificance in the immense landscape.

But whatever our level of insignificance is, how we live still makes a difference.

Here is the original photo, showing my insignificance in the immense landscape. But no matter our insignificance, how we live still makes a difference. Photo by R Dinsdale.

With love, Marlane