Charlie Munger’s demise got me into thinking. This process of being born as a human is so complex that it is almost a miracle to be born as one. Unfortunately, we don’t experience this process as a first-person experience. If we did, I’m sure, this urge to be validated, would be taken care of for many of us.
Once we’re born, what happens then? Well, nothing, it’s a process. We give birth, through a process. Our instincts protect our genes. If it didn’t, this process may not have progressed much. All those moral responsibilities, sense of duty, yolo, happiness, society, and family are constructs by us based on these instinctive senses. In truth, it is a process that has no meaning. All your feelings towards another being is part of a process.
You are born through a process and you die as a result of it. Let’s not even get into the stories of karma, rebirth, and all those theories. Let’s stick to the one absolute truth. We don’t know beyond this reality of now. Even time exists as a relative fact.
Thus, naturally only ‘now’ exists. It is an unending ‘now’ as a result of one individual situation replacing another. For example, you may have been eating, and now you’re having a coffee. Two individual situations, not related to each other except for the one common factor, you. Since you’re the common factor, you feel they’re happening in a sequence, but no it isn’t. It is separate since the definition of you cannot be completed other than the fact that you’re an outcome of a complex process.
What matters then? I think to constantly understand, and keep understanding the meaning of balance. My instinct is to protect my genes. I call them my close ones like son, mother, father, etc. But, also true is the fact that they’re separate outcomes of the same process, thus, individual agents with individual outlooks, irrespective of age(age is time mixed with unique experience, remember, time doesn’t exist), having individual understanding of this reality. It is said, that age wisens up people. It is not the case in most cases as most don’t consider the one fundamental truth before forming their opinion based on experience. Experience mostly is irrelevant for any sort of reference, as two situations are never related but separate individual ones. The fundamental truth is balance. Once you know this, you start acknowledging balance. Say I understand a situation in my way, I also have to immediately understand that I don’t understand it fully as a result of the billions of unseen reasons that were there behind the existence of the situation.
To understand why you were born, you have to go right up to singularity to understand fully, maybe even beyond. Can we do that all the time? No. Never. That is why to acknowledge that you don’t know much is a show of faith. It is a show of faith on something that you don’t understand, and will never understand except be a part of. This acknowledgement brings humility, and courage to respect the balance and live a good life.
It allows you to understand that like you, others also have their understanding and it is equally incomplete as well as based on situations like yours and that your idea of life may be completely different than theirs, even though they can be genetically connected to you. It can also mean that your idea may be very similar to someone having no genetic connection whatsoever. You see, the unique way of balance.
Oh btw !! RIP Charlie, a legend.