…… Something or Nothing
A reflection on physical and spiritual approaches to life and its purpose

A friend with strong opinions felt I clearly must have missed
That we have this one existence.
She’s a cheery humanist.

We’re sat beside a fountain in ornate city square.
I continue with my questions on this life we gently share.

Her nature is delightful with reason at her core.
Logic holds the answers.
That’s it. There’s nothing more.
No vagaries or wondering on dreams of life beyond,
Science will explain it, is the phrase of which she’s fond.

I thought I’d try that question.
‘Have you, in moment clear, asked for an explanation
As to why you’re really here?’
She laughed. “Oh, don’t be silly.
You know I’m bound to say, it’s down to frisky parents and good old DNA”.

I paused for fleeting moment as I considered my reply.

Well, when logic rules the day;
It looks at life as physical and in no other way.
Should birth be simple consequence of chances over time?
To end with us departing when I hope we’re passed our prime.

No prospects, sense of purpose, it’s material that’s all.
All effort, be they victories for all our good intent,
They disappear to nothing, however well we meant.
Equally all influence that’s unpleasant, dark or bad.
We leave it all completely as if some passing fad.
There’s little point to loving or fomenting violent hate.
With no enduring consequence,
Nor lessons to relate.

My friend said, “Don’t be silly, I’m merely what you see,
I am this friendly body, that’s all there is to me”.

I asked about emotion, of love or even pain.
She emphasised “That’s chemicals, almost fizzing in your brain.
Dreams are something similar, a facet of your mind.
There’s nothing I assure you, no spirit you can find.

Ah ha, I now recall,
Those reports of how some surgeons,
Experienced in their role,
Say in countless operations they have never found a soul.

I mentioned, it is spirit, connected through the mind.
The soul is nothing physical,
No presence there to find.

My friend, then left…….Still smiling.
“This life holds nothing more,
Than our physical existence.
Of that I am quite sure”.

Alone with time to ponder,
I need to clear up what this means.
Is there more to life than bodies, even with designer genes?

If the essence of our presence is not height, nor hair nor skin.
It’s the character that matters as the spirit deep within.
The lessons of experience that we manifest today.
Include all incarnations before this current stay.

This life that we continue is designed to help us know,
How to overcome emotions and through the spirit show
That our capacity to love and our consciousness both grow.

I must mention when we have our chat,
If science has to rule,
What point is there to anything, when one day the Sun will cool?

I know, it sounds ridiculous,
Remote from all we do.
Yet astronomy predicts it.
Physics shows it’s true.
Sometime, far in the future all life on Earth will wane.
The Sun, once always shining, shall fade and not sustain.

I know it’s not for donkey’s years, yet may help her to recall,
Should life be merely physical, there’ll be nothing left at all.
From ammonites to empires, both civilised and wrong,
No memory or history.
All life completely gone.

That’s it, a time to choose
Life with one beginning and one very final end.
It’s what appeals to many, as with my lovely friend,
Or does a sense of spirit, both intangible yet near
Assist deliberations as to why we’re really here?