The title of this article isn’t that creative on purpose; it helps drive home the point I wanted to make. That everything we think, know, talk about… it’s no more than a rehash of everything we already know. Here’s a little example I whipped up (but really didn’t, because it’s nothing new, it’s just something that already exists); If  I were to ask you to think of a completely new colour, and then describe it to me, you could only ever tell me that it’s kind of brown, but more rhubarb, and it sounds like cheese falling on a tin roof and it’s kind of that, but it’s also mixed with cornflakes. You could even try to tell me that it’s ‘quijamastatlakka’, but you would have only chose those words or sounds because they are a subset of everything you already know.

So, she asks… what was there before the whole universe existed… what was in that big empty nothing? Well.. the answer isn’t in a science book hidden at the back of the library, or hidden within the ancient teachings of some religion that was made up because they were shit-scared of not having any answers. It’s a trick, it’s not the answer which we need to figure out, it’s the question. It’s why we try to explain things in the same way that we experience life. It’s why we’re so focussed on asking why.

There are things in this universe that we don’t know, like colours that we’ve never seen, or  some concept that I can’t explain to you, because I don’t know what it is. I believe that whatever there is/was/to before the universe is out of our understanding simply because we ask this question in terms of things we know; before, during, after, exist, not-exist.

I’m not saying that we’ll never understand, but I feel like we’re not doing ourselves any favours by asking these questions. Instead, I suggest we just observe more; increase the number of tools we have to relate to things. Once we know Everything (seeing = knowing??), we’ll be able to explain Everything. Until then we’re still going to be wastefully treading water, when we could be just sitting on the edge of the rapidly expanding universe watching the beautiful stars unfold a billion years in the past before our very eyes.

Even though there is a 100% chance that I am wrong, I won’t tell my niece any of this, even though there is also a 100% chance that I am right. Perhaps she’ll figure out something completely new and different and won’t need those decaying jetpack blueprints after all. We can only hope.

I suspect this is a knock on effect on the way our particles work at a subatomic level, how either something will exist in a particular state, or it doesn’t exist. But then if research into quantum physics points to an alternative suggestion, where the world of binary results doesn’t necessarily apply, then maybe the way we look every day interactions should be changing too.

If someone was to ask me if I preferred the bitter salty taste of olives over a delicious Snickers bar, my answer would be a resounding no. But my binary response would fall flat on it’s face if that person then brought me a seafood pizza covered with small chunks of peanuts, chocolate and caramel…. “What?! I thought you didn’t like olives”.

I really do hate olives, I find them repulsive… but if I was to choose between a sandwich made with either plain or olive ciabatta bread, then I’d probably choose the latter. If we choose to live in a binary world, this makes me a hypocrite… but in a world where multiple contradictory statements exist in parallel, I’m just as normal as anyone else.

I wonder if it’s easier for us to manage ourselves, if we can categorise everything we think into tidy little packages… or if it’s easier for us to interact with the outside world if we present a consistent and predictable character to the people we meet?

If life for you, is a quest to define yourself as a person, remember that we aren’t always just one thing. We’re a big crazy bowl of Atomic Soup, which responds to the constantly changing environment. It changes, you change.

Sometimes I have to tell myself that it’s OK to have a love/hate relationship with olives, depending on how I feel at the time; I’ll either eat them, or start a protest march to facilitate the plants demise.

In practise though, the world we live in doesn’t always react the way we expect it to. The element of chance always shows up at some point, and I welcome his unpredictable ways. So when you set out to seek rewards, the outside world can sometimes respond in a manner which is counter productive to your quest. I’ve come up with two possible solutions to this dilemma; You could either ignore the outside world and listen only to the feedback that’s happening in your own head, or you could apply a filter to all the feedback you get and attach relevance to the parts which serve you best.

There is a story about a man who decided to become self motivated… and despite the penalties that loomed over his goal, he carried on regardless and continued to be passionate about something he believed in.

It’s an inspirational story that shows us that it is possible for someone to be passionate about something, despite the attempted influences of the outside world.

So when thinking about what I would to have as the things that are important to me in life, I found myself asking the question:

What am I passionate about?

I drew a blank, and so continued to ask myself questions to aid my quest… What does it mean to be passionate? I can sense it, but found it more difficult to put into words.

After a few conversations about what creates passion, I started to see a pattern. All of the people I spoke to seemed to have experienced a series of increasing rewards relating to their obsessions. What caused them to start in the first place still escapes me… I guess that it could be a random chance, if such a thing exists in this world of preordained events.

So, can one become passionate simply by seeking reward for a particular action?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passion_(emotion)