In Search of An Oasis

We have almost reached the end of this voyage of introspection. I started off, a few posts ago, with providing you with an account of the influences that prompted me to write this blog. True, this is a sort of ending. I hope to have covered the themes I wanted to cover. I reflected on the realities of death, change and difference - which define me to this day. But, in so many ways, this trip into introspection is not really the final word. Indeed, it's just the beginning.

I have long searched for the answer to the ultimate question: What is the meaning of life? I have sought the answers from religion, science and philosophy. I confess that I was raised a Roman Catholic but since I was young, that didn't stop me ask difficult questions and explore what other religions and traditions had to teach me. This wasn't that easy when you consider that, at the time, different religions were the subject of jokes and ridiculed.

I admit that I may have sometimes been an accomplice in such acts of mockery. But then I did wonder... There was always an implicit condition set forth in Christianity. That you had to believe without question and that, at the end of the day, you had to be "like us". And I also knew that some believers closed their heart and mind to other people having a tradition or faith that was different than their own. I thought about how a religion professing unconditional love could become one which clings to dogma and rigid conditionality.

I also noticed a hypocrisy that I couldn't understand. People who proclaimed their love for a God they never saw with blind devotion and, then, treating those around them badly - judging and condemning them. I sometimes felt an outsider as I participated in mass every Sunday. People thought I was many things - a less fortunate boy, an inspirational Christ-like figure bearing the 'cross' of my impairment. Some may have believed I was somehow a product of sin, or else I needed a miracle.

What about being thought of as a boy having a particular character and way of engaging with the world?

Don't get me wrong. I searched for the answers in science and philosophy too and the answers to who I was weren't so uplifting either. For medical science, I was 'abnormal', 'defective' and even 'sub-human'. For psychology, I may be seen as 'compensating' for my impairment or, as implied, my 'inferiority'. As for philosophy, the only valid reality was one created by men who could walk, see and hear and who, it appeared, were all intellectually advanced.

I confess that I often adopted one or two of these images produced by religion,, science and philosophy. In some respects, I also find refuge in thinking of myself as somehow superior to other disabled people, if ever defining myself in those terms. But I knew that these constructs of being rarely spoke of my reality. I felt robbed of my right to be human. To be thought of as having being that was good as it was. I wanted to find a peace and a sense of who I was that wasn't based on a pre-conception, a pre-judgment or an imposed order.

I cannot deny that I respect the teachings I learned from the major world religions. I still love to read about science and progress across the various fields, especially psychology, sociology and technology. I do love to immerse myself into philosophical inquiry and debate. I dare say that I am also interested in politics and activism as well. But, until now, I still found a problem with how the world around me. It was created in the image of a God that was alien to me. He wasn't the God I found as I read the Bible, or when I read about Judaism and Islam. It wasn't the same as the rational God of philosophy or the prime mover of science when it still believed.

It appeared that some people only said they believed in God or else denied God. But, in either case, there was the absence of God. Perhaps they have lost themselves in this world. Lured by the world's material pleasures without realizing that this world was not forever. And a few months ago, I would have agreed that I needed this or that. That success, fame, money and all this were fundamental to my happiness and peace. But I feel changed.

A poem perhaps can best describe this...

As I travel through this desert,

In search of peace and happiness.

I find no meaning and only dirt.

Death and destruction, no less.

Until beyond, I see a pool of water.

Some palm trees and life again.

Is it a mirage? Or a cruel dream?

I get closer and behold my reflection.

I dare put my hands in the cool liquid.

Will I scorch my insides? I wait. I feel alive.

This is real. This is true. It is as it is!

Is my search over? Have I found my oasis?