Do you believe in evolution? Immediately we think of evolution according to Darwin, but the word is synonym to ‘change’, while we often mean ‘progress’. The dictionary speaks of change and development. Also development does not have to be in a certain direction. So the question has become: do you believe in progress? The last thousands of years we did progress quite a lot on technological level, but did we as well on other levels? Are we more human? More sensitive? More conscious? More peaceful? It is not simple to answer that.
Did yóu progress? On which subjects? Are there things in which you degraded? Often we discover a balance of these subjects in ourselves. If you are still young, you will notice al lot of progress; if you grow older it is not so obvious anymore. You can degrade physically, your capacities, your appearance. But maybe there is still some progress: maybe we enjoy more intensely, we know better what we want and what we find important.
Do you believe in an evolution for you to perfect happiness? A lot of religions do promise it: a heaven, a paradise or afterlife in which you are perfectly happy. You cannot find it in this life: joy and suffering cling together as light and darkness, they are two sites of the same medal, two poles; there is no lust without suffering. Nevertheless there are religions and philosophers who claim we can find a perfect happiness in this life. Are you striving for this? In the meanwhile: do you become happier, or are your struggling in the opposite direction? Maybe you do love an absolute and unreachable ideal, which should come by itself one day, but which you can’t reach today anyway? A goal that is within reach, demands efforts. Therefore we repeat this question: is your life evolving forwards or afterwards? Or did you gave up and do you gamble on a beautiful life after dead?
© Copyright Johan Framhout 2009 |
