Richard Riverin short story "Purpose of life" I spent so many evening hours, outside, on my rocking chair, looking at the stars and wondering what might be happening up there. I imagined different species living on those worlds building strange cities. I imagined some of them traveling between the stars in incredible spaceships. I was a dreamer and I wondered why I was here. Was there a reason for coming to this dangerous world where I was going to grow old and die? Was I here in transition between two places, unable to remember neither where I came from nor where I was going? Or could it be that I was a new creation? I read about Hinduism and the possibility of reincarnation. The universe is so big! What are those formations the astrologists found so far away that their light took hundreds of millions of years just to reach us. They calculated that the strange formations were more than 200 million light years in size and possibly only parts of even bigger things. Formations made out of thousands of galaxies! The size of the universe is so big that it is impossible to imagine; it might be infinite. Then what is my significance? I am just a tiny unit of a species that hasn’t even yet spread out to the neighboring stars. What if I am God? I mean just a tiny part of Him! What if all the animals, insects and plants are part of God? All the planets, the stars… If I am God or a part of Him, I could possibly connect with the infinitely bigger part of Me and get some of my wishes to come through. Maybe anyone can get what anyone wants if one thinks about it often and tries to make his wishes come through. Perhaps one can make miracles happen. Perhaps one can get help form one’s infinitely bigger part of one, God, if one asks for it often and tries to be worthy of help? What is my mission here if I have one? What should I do that would make my existence Worthy? I have so many questions. Once I went for a long trek in the woods very far North of Montreal. It was winter and I was traveling on my skis opening a new trail. I knew that if I had an accident breaking a leg or an ankle, I would die for it was very cold and no one would find me. But I didn’t mind taking the risk; the reward was peace, quiet wilderness, and the feeling that something important might happen. I had traveled for two hours when I reached the tall trees. They were huge, bigger than any tree I had seen and there was nothing between them, no bushes, no grass and no snow, just bare, hard packed dirt. I took off my skis and started to walk inside that forest. It looked like a cathedral of enormous pillars with a canopy so far up that I couldn’t see if the canopy was made up of leaves. There was silence, no wind but I sensed the presence of mighty minds; it was like the trees were sentient beings watching me, trying to communicate with me. Here I knew that I would finally find the answers to all my questions, I just had to listen to the trees and I would eventually be able to communicate with them. I just had to ask the questions. But as hard as I was trying, I couldn’t find the questions. I lost track of what I did there; I can’t remember anything. I found my skis where I had left them; an hour had passed since I entered that forest of tall trees. I felt no desire to walk back in between them, so I put on my skis and returned to the Benedictine monastery where I had parked my car. Strange isn’t it? Is it true or did I dream that? Probably just a dream! When I paint though, I try to branch on that bigger part of me if there is one and I ask for help to produce the most amazing painting. I don’t know on what I am branching, but I do connect on something for I can feel that my brain is slowly enhances and I am receiving new energy then I let go; I try to abandon myself to those forces and just do it in a spontaneous way. |