The existential nature of human beings is to exist as the confrontation between the bounded finite and the boundless infinite. We all deal continuously with the reality of our limitations, and this is what causes suffering — or at least the sensation of suffering. And in a bizarre way, we crave the sensation of suffering. If we are not actively sensing suffering at this moment, chances are we know and are emotionally connected with someone who is. And in the absence of these, we will reach out and connect “by proxy” with the general body of all human suffering.
Imagine you could at this instant be everything. Be everywhere. With absolutely no limitations. What would be the meaning? The story? The journey? The goal?
The existence?
In very real way the limitations that create the sensation of suffering are what creates — or at least encapsulates — being. The things that we tend to treasure and value the most . . . are most entangled with human vulnerabilities to the point of being inextricable.
So, the Central Question to Existence . . .
Is there a way to conduct your life in such a way that the intrinsic vulnerabilities that characterize being and existence are rendered not just acceptable, but desirable?
Or put another way, if tragedy is the price we pay for existence, so be it! So how can we render ourselves not as cripples (or victims) as we move through life?
© 2026 – SoulSequel
31 responses to “The Central Question to Existence (kinda deep, but take a stab at participating!)”
Immortal Pirate and I have been putting together a life and style of living that is as comfortable as an old worn pair of sneakers. We brainstorm every now and then to figure out what would make living even better. Then we buy it and install it. My favorite of all is the cat door it allows the cats to go in and out —– and do their business outside.
You’re in essence asking us to imagine what it is like to be god. Such a useless concept. Far better to be who one is, and strive to be a better you if you aren’t happy by enacting changes.
@Jear77
More accurately, I’m asking people to consider that the finite is encapsulated in the Infinite . . . and not the other way around!
All kinds of “unhappinesses” (and incongruities) happen when one doesn’t have a proper understanding of their nature as the meeting point between the limited finite and the unlimited infinite.
Any changes made without first understanding this, are doomed to failure in the long run.
@griz not necessarily. Let’s say you know 100% sure that if you ate x, you will die – not in some far off future, but within moments,of consuming it. Wouldn’t you make damn sure you read the ingredients of everything you ate? Never go to a restaurant because you might accidentally be served something with it ib the dish?
@Jear77
Exceptions tend to be. . . exceptions! To always be hunting for and relying upon them means we are at odds with the “rules of the game”. And that means we despise the game; and perhaps even our selves within in it.
If the game is Life ( which is uncertain and with no guarantees) and we come back saying we want absolute certainty . . .
. . . According to pop wisdom all we are living for is death and taxes! And that could make a person powerful resentful and bitter.
@griz Be that as it may, the point is that there are (and will always be) things that we will change, not out of pure “want,” not out of having a new understanding, but out of sheer necessity. These necessaries will often override any plans we had.
@Jear77
Necessity is the mother of invention. It has a way of generating serious want and new understanding.
And it is entirely conceivable that a person who is not at odds with the very nature of their reality, would be able to respond sooner and more effectively to necessity; and in exercising the wisdom to not do something just because they want to or they can.
@griz not necessarily. You can have a disease, but no symptoms, such as the 1st people who contracted HIV via a blood transfusion through no fault of their own.
@Jear77
I’m not sure how this relates to the conversation we were having.
But I would point out that their not having symptoms at the time didn’t make them any less a part of the phenomenon of AIDS.
@griz response. You can’t respond to something you know 100% nothing about. And why bother “just in case”
@Jear77
Counter-esponse.
Knowing 100% nothing about something is a good working definition of ignorance.
Can ignorance be cured?
@griz you clain to know 100% in regards to your fate, yet cocurrent with that knowledge is 100% doubt in your knowledge, as the next life is supposedly so much better than this one.
@Jear77
I enjoy a high degree of certainty that my “fate” will neither be “wrong” nor mis-timed.
You still haven’t figured out Luke 23:43 have you? You still want to cling to the religious lie?
@griz if you take ot into your own hands, how can it be, as god knows all, is all powerful and should he desire, you wouldn’t exit this existence
@Jear77
The child, lacking mature awareness and outlook and driven only by love for its own feelings in the moment, will most certainly think that things are thrust upon it randomly and unfairly. (Going to bed, brushing the teeth, going to the dentist. . . . being the delivered!)
But their inability to see a larger design, full of great love and compassion for them, doesn’t preclude its existence. (Even if they might want to stomp their feet and arrogantly insist that it does!)
Simply put, lives of great purpose and meaning tend to produce deaths of great purpose and meaning. (Perhaps even metaphysical purpose and meaning!)
But this cannot happen until a more mature awareness and outlook on the nature of being comes.
And this cannot happen while one is still struggling with the internal conflict between the limited finite nested within the unlimited infinite.
(You are still trying to insist that the unlimited infinite must “prove its love and power” by nesting within the limited finite).
@griz what you’re saying is that we humans of zero power/ ability have more power than a god with infinite power over this part of our existence.
@Jear77
The nature of good parenting is to have 100% control over the child early on, but to cede increasing amounts of that power over to them as they are able to maturely administer it.
In an average lifespan of 86 years, we spend about 1/6 of that time maturing enough to exercise full control over our adult self.
So if the accepted premise is an eternal God and we are somehow spiritual offspring, what is one sixth of Eternity?
Even with the premise of a God only as old as the universe, a maturation process of 2.07 billion years would not be amiss.
And you’re pissed because you cannot yet make food and blankets materialize out of nothingness; or assemble particle accelerators, super-computers and a team of quantum physicists to re-assemble the glasses I break, because mine are out being dry-cleaned??
Seriously Jear?
@griz look at it this way: God is all powerful, wise, and yet there are evils that exist that should not which could be taken care of (simply to be nonexistent) if we had the ability to alter *the very fabric of reality* with our words. I see such a god as powerless… or actively evil for not giving us that ability.
@Jear77
1. Eliminate all the ones we could conceivably take care of and see what’s left. Most of your “ammunition” would fall silent or fail to fire.
2. Railing against the nature of manifest reality because it makes one “feel icky” is self-entitled and will only work against such a person in the long run.
Healing and peace will only come in reconciling the fact that the “limited finite” is nested within the “unlimited infininte”; and not the other way around.
(And then perhaps seeing that the two can meet very peacefully and unto profoundly great asset, in us. Provided by this, one doesn’t see mainly self-profit — because then the process simply doesn’t work!)
@griz or better yet… make no free will to exist, thus eliminating the possibility of evil to begin with.
I’ve said it many times before free will is a curse; the one who needlessly foisted it onto us is evil
@Jear77
Well you could try a cortical excision. It would remove all higher brain functions and just leave your hypothalamus. You would be like a primitive animal again.
Pain would just be a sensation, a state of being. No higher functions to register suffering.
Is brainless where you want to go?
@griz the point of free will is to play a chess/ checkers game, one that’s already won before the world was created. It’s useless and evil in the extreme to purport to care about your creation when they’re nothing more than a chess/ checkers piece. The stupid part of all this is that all the pieces are pawns – nobodies in the grand scheme of things. No one can be “crowned” (turned into a queen) in this life. And if you know anything about me, you should get the point that I HATE useless games.
@Jear77
There exists in current human thinking a delusion that the finite gets to define (and even convict) the infinite.
I understand the hate of useless games. But even more reprehensible are truly counterproductive games that very effectively annihilate the possibility of sufficient self-actualization to see more than just “uselessness” and “meaninglessness”.
BTW, remember that I am enjoying these exchanges and actively exploring/learning from them. If you are not, remember the debate format I introduced and call “final argument”. There’s no sense letting frustration build to an untenable level.
@griz let’s end this here with me saying the following: be that as it may, do keep in mind that the infinite would already have every possible iteration of the finite contained in itself (it would look like a chart that shows one circle representing the infinite and other circles contained therein housing the finite)… the infinite gains nothing by producing such…
@Jear77
Remember that the person not citing final argument gets a chance for final comment.
“. . . gains nothing by producing such . . .”
Perhaps nothing by finite perception.
But the finite does not determine the infinite. It cannot.
there is nothing we are not. In order to recognize a thing, it would have had to have been a part of us. In essence we are, as Alan watts so eloquently put it, an aperture through which the whole cosmos looks out. There is great value in what we see as suffering, because it allows the cosmos to see what it is. Growth comes from most suffering. Suffering is not a thing I go searching for, but I try to teach myself that most of my suffering comes from not the suffering itself, but my mental thoughts about the suffering. In becoming a bodhisattva, it is discussed to be a bodhi is essentially serving others suffering. Human beings will not end suffering as long as they are attached to the ego identity that deals with this physical reality.
@Scarlett
Or us a part of it? (created “in God’s image”).
I wonder if that aperture might be 2-way? The Cosmos also looks in? I’ll have to think about that some more. Running low on energy right now!
The classic concept of God is that God is beyond suffering. It is alleged that is why the manifestation of Christ and such an anguished death was such a “high cost” sacrifice.
I see similarities in your final sentence to what I offered with suffering being a precondition of physical being/existence.
(With leeway for the fact that we still haven’t really identified whether things like ego, being pr self-conscious existence are purely physical constructs with entirely biological underpinnings, or something else)
If I had the power, there would be no meaning, as I feel it’s the same without the power as well, and the goal would be to entertain myself. We go through life trying to find ways to entertain ourselves or to help others, which I guess that could also be seen as entertainment to some. This thing (entertainment) helps with our many ways of suffering. So, yea, first order of business, of course, is to change the global suffering problem, and then I’d use the power to entertain myself until I felt the need to not exist anymore.
Acceptable or desirable? For Me? No.
@yin
Without omnipotence there would be no guarantees of success in whatever one attempts. The “no guarantee” is what keeps things interesting.
But it is also a source of suffering (for those not yet reconciled with\to the reality of being).
So in a way removing what we say we don’t like, would also remove what we say we like.
If everything was doable and indeed has already been done, what entertainment would be left save for tormenting lesser beings like Star Trek’s Q?
@griz Your ‘interesting’ is my ‘nightmare.’ Well, I’m the type of person that if given all of this power, I’d most likely create a different reality for entertainment, maybe like a computer simulation, where none of the beings have an actual consciousness. If not possible, I would end it all and myself on the spot. I’d rather not do the “live long enough to see yourself become the villain” thing.
@yin
I found a different skill-set turned nightmare into interesting.
And it’s a hell of a lot easier and far more pleasant than gaining ultimate power just to annihilate everything!
And what is evolution, then just gaining a new skill-set? Your organism knows how; provided yourself doesn’t insert itself in the way.