Humans, as very complex beings, have many places in which they can take their lives. They can choose to accept all input as equally relevant to their lives, or they can take control. They can choose to take everything given to them and live by imitation, or they can question the commonly accepted beliefs and make their own choices. I truly believe in the possibility for choice and change in ones life, or else I couldnt explain my existence. If I had been a sponge and taken everything that had happened to me or was told to me as how to live my life, I would be a violent drunk. I would hate my life and everyone in it because I would blame my problems on them. I would choose to, in essence, waste the most wonderful gift of all, existence. I have been able to see and wonder about what more there was to life. I have chosen to question everything, and to hopefully make myself better aware of our potential in the process. We need not suffer our choice being taken away from us. We need not assume that we are more important than every other creature that exists.

In my short life, I have seen many things. I have seen human beings acting more pompous and self important than any deity we have ever envisioned. I have seen them lose their feeling of connection. And through that loss, I have seen them despair. Through the feeling of purposelessness that must fill the void that is left, I hear their cries. It keeps me up at night and puts a chill on my heart. Perhaps I put to much faith in people, but I feel that we all have the potential to know truth, and to fill our lives with it. I do not, by truth, mean some vague and unknowable entity who directs our every word. I mean simply, our innate connection to everything. When I think of those who have not realized this, I feel no malice whatsoever, only pity. I am sad that they experience so little of life only life based on things that will eventually wither and fade away.

In my experience and my learning from others experiences, I have found two unique ways of coming to this kind of conclusion. By recognizing this, I hope to steer clear of the assumption that anything said is literal, instead of metaphorical truth. I would not assume that one is better, although one is undoubtedly older. One, the path that originally brought me here, is science. Science offers a way to know the earth as never before possible. It supports all of our thoughts of connection while providing a way to show them to others in a definitive way. As Fritjof Capra said in The Tao of Physics,

As we study the various models of subatomic physics we shall see that they express again and again, in different ways, the same insight- that the constituents of matter and the basic phenomena involving them are all interconnected, interrelated, and interdependent; that they cannot be understood as isolated entities, but only as integrated parts of he whole.

As this quote so elegantly states, it is the interconnectedness that makes all understanding possible. Now an equally valid way of stating this principle has been said in many paths of Eastern Mysticism. Again, I quote from The Tao of Physics, and indirectly from The Central Philosophy of Buddhism-

Things derive their being and nature by mutual dependence and are nothing in themselves.

The language of these exceedingly different paths is strikingly similar. They seem to point to the fact that their is a universal truth that one can come to and experience if they chose to contemplate on truth. Therefore, based on such similar conclusions attained from drastically different paths, one may infer that the purpose of contemplation is to discover truth. Truth being, of course, the innate connection of life.

As a human, our highest goal should be to develop spiritually. I come to this conclusion by what I have seen occurs when this isnt pursued. In humans, the response is perhaps even more grave (no pun intended) than it might otherwise be. We have attained such power over our environment that without realizing our connection to it, we are tempted to destroy it, as it seems to be a completely independent entity with no relation to us.

It is only through this process of contemplation on truth and spirituality that we can be clear on our own beliefs and ideologies. If we do not question what we believe, stagnation and waste can weasel in. We can fall into the trap of assuming that our opinions are universally held. And if our opinions are universally held, then any who disagrees must be somehow sub-human and not worthy of consideration or protection. By contemplating in whatever fashion appeals to us, we all but rid ourselves of contempt for that which is different.

If we live only through our limited vision and dont seek to expand, we threaten not only ourselves, but our planet and its existence. I believe that I have thoroughly covered such possible consequences. True contemplation inevitably leads to action because when you discover something so miraculous , you really want to help those who havent. You realize that their is no reason to force them because if they also contemplate on those concepts, they will arrive at a definition of this connection that is appropriate for them and their lives. This is not forced assimilation, but illumination and removal of illusion. Only when we begin to contemplate on the world can we ever truly be free to experience and understand all that is possible within it. And isnt that what we all seek?