What in Sea World am I Here For?

Part 1: What in Sea World am I here for?

The quest for the meaning of life has plagued humanity since the dawn of civilization. Wait a minute…no it hasn’t. 98.3 percent of the people who have ever lived never seriously questioned the meaning of life and I doubt if any one who has made it to page 3 of this book lost sleep over this question last night. The truth is that the proto-type of modern man was probably much more interested in how to dislodge the sliver of turkey drumstick from his molars than worrying about why he was here. And so it has been with humanity as we have it recorded in history. Very few of the Biblical characters ever discussed such lofty questions. None of the founders of the 3 major monotheistic religions ever discoursed on the subject. God calls Abraham from his home in UR, commanding him to haul all his family and stuff across the border. No record of Abraham asking why. In fact he makes it all the way to Egypt before we hear him speak, and then it is only to make sure he can pass his wife off as his sister so that Pharaoh will do her instead of killing him. The prophet Mohammed didn’t spend much time doodling on his philosophical Sudoku about the meaning of life. He was busy converting the entire Arabian Peninsula to Islam before his death. Jesus steered cleared of idle speculation about our purpose in life, saying only that he had come that they “may have life and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10 NAS ) When Jesus wasn’t trying to keep from getting pushed off a cliff or busy breaking up fights on the disciples’ short bus, he was way more concerned about how we live than why we live. Buddha didn’t raise the question of the origin and purpose of life at all. He compared life to getting shot with an arrow. You don’t have time to know or care who shot the arrow or why, you just got to figure out how to get it out. (cite reference) Even the great renaissance athlete and philosopher of the late ‘80’s, Bo Jackson, offered but one kernel of truth, “just do it.”

Only the writer of Ecclesiastes let himself get hung up on the question of the meaning of life. And, maybe not so ironically, he was the wealthiest of all of the bunch and had plenty of time to think about such questions. Unfortunately, his conclusion was less inspiring than a half hour of Nancy Grace: “I have seen all the works which have been done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and striving after the wind.” (1: 14, NAS)
Homer, not Simpson, tackled this question sometime in the midst of charting two of his novels on the NY Times best-seller list, The Iliad and The Odyssey. Here is his happy synopsis of the meaning of life:

Insignificant mortals, who are as leaves are, and now flourish and grow warm with life, and feed on what the ground gives, but then again fade away and are dead. Homer, 9th Century BC

Maybe we can learn from these and other great minds who devoted their lives to the quest for why we are here. Here’s the lesson, don’t think about it. If you do, you’re liable to end up more depressed than a Blockbuster shareholder on the eve of Netflix. I’m open-minded, inquisitive, and not afraid of the truth. But there are certain questions that are better off not asked. “When are you due?” “Did you not get my text?” “Is this my hair on this Whopper?” “W exactly is there a 13 dollar Ticketmaster convenience fee So it is with most “why” questions Usually, when the “why” question comes up in our daily lives, it’s not a good sign. “Why” did I pay 9.25 to see this movie? ? “Why” did we get up at 4 o’clock to stand in line for this Wal-mart Black Friday sale? “Why” exactly is there a 13 dollar Ticketmaster convenience fee? An “why” did I buy this 60 dollar Gordon Lightfoot ticket anyway? As long as life is good, rarely do ultimate questions of life’s meaning arise. And maybe that’s a good thing. As soon as we stop and obsess about the why’s of our existence, our soul slips into neutral, and we stop experiencing life.

And so it is with the porpoise driven life. The perma-smile on a dolphin’s face is not the result of a benevolent obsession to make small humans happy, nor is it the sadistic smile of countless Jokers in 5 decades of Batman. The dolphin’s smile is a result of the fact that the dolphin is wise. He is wise enough to never stop and think about why his aquatic ass is trapped in a 10,000 gallon tank for the rest of his life while his intelligence is exploited by underpaid 16 year-olds. The unreflected life can be a beautiful life, or at least let’s wait until the credits start to roll.