Apr 29, 2010 7:44:35 AM cite

In living we are given opportunity. What we choose to do with this opportunity dictates our destination. To say all individuals are given the same opportunities would be erronous on many levels. Yet there is a distinct reasoning to what drives a large majority of the population and that is the desire to engage. The desire to learn, and incorporate what is encountered in our particular lifestyles. The degree to which one does this, while purposefully seeking out love in the ways they see fit, is the degree to which one is truly living. There is no definite answer as to where we come from. Biologically, its broad. Spiritually, it's vague and subjective at some level. We must not worry where we are from as our own identities are shaped by the circumstances that face us. The other two parts to your question are one and the same. We are here to experience and love, and the factors dictated by the two direct us through life.

by opentiosuit

Mar 18, 2010 6:26:11 PM cite

I think that we won´t ever know this answer because we are ignorant, not in the bad way, but because the things that we know or we think that we know are few and we can only imagine, think and try to know more than we can. But if we start to imagine, we can think that we could come from here, or we could come from another planet, but I think that if all the substance are made by the same, we came from, that big cloud of gas and dusty that have been formed in billions of years before. And if we want to know more properly where, it’s very difficult because we probably came from the Earth, but we are made by the same things that made the stars and it´s good to know that we are made by the same substance from others, and we can have the same composition but in the same time be so different. For the second question, we are here to live, to learn and find things that anyone had discovered before, or we can be here to find from where we come from or where do we go. But, in years and years, the humans have been in the Earth but they have forgotten to learn and try to know the past or even the present. So, they only are here, because they have to be, because it’s almost like a routine or a law, and they aren´t for living the beautiful or interesting things that they could. Like, watch the developing of the nature and even see the development of the proper human being.

by Jane

Mar 11, 2010 5:32:26 AM cite

What we are doing here, is living, being alive, but that is more than just eating, breathing, reproducing, and working at some job. It means that we are fully engaged in where we are and what we are doing. It means that we are not spending our time worring if our bank account is big enough, if our house is as big and nice as our neighbors, if our car is the latest model with all the options. It means that we are content to happily live within our means, to appreciate and enjoy our home, and to drive fully focused on what we are doing and where we are going, and not going over the latest deal at the office, or problems at home. We are alive when we take the time to contemplate where we are, the place, the world around us the Earth and the Universe. Ignoring these things because they have no bearing on the imediate needs is not living but is shutting out the world and only leads to stagnation and spiritual death. 'A Christmas Carol', mentioned in another post, is the story of a man who had shut out the world and was about to suffer a spiritual death. Only the prospect of physical death opened his eyes to the world and people arround him and opened his heart to experience and accept the love of others. Mythology should spiritulize where we are, the world around us, and fill us with a sense of awe at the mystery of life. In the winter when it is below freezing with snow covering the ground, I am amazed when I see small birds flying about singing and surviving. These creatures are only a few ounces with just feathers to keep warm, and yet they live and survive, where people need thick clothing and insulation in their houses to survive. The point is we need to see and be aware of the world around us to really be alive, punching a clock from 9 to 5 and then flopping down in front of a TV with a beer is not living, it is just lifeless existence. It may be that learning is the key to being alive and mythology teaches us our place in the universe. One of the problems with peoples preception is that often when we see a familiar object the mind will provide a generic image from memory and people do not see the actual object but only a remembered image. Most people do not actually see what is in front of them and miss the intricacies of nature and the wonder of creation. This also manifests itself in mans failure to recognise the distruction and deterioration of the environment. People are still seeing an idealized view of nature and often refuse to recognize the crisis at hand. Human beings who are truely alive will see, and engage in the world, realize the problem, and become part of the solution, unfortunatly there is a lot of spiritual dead weight that is draging everyone down to distruction. Its time to wake up and live.

by thedoc

Mar 8, 2010 5:29:37 AM cite

I refer you the reader to doc's post below, it is very good but I wanted to add that the latter part of the question is the most important. The probability that our Earth will soon be a burning cinder hurtling through space is high and this is because of our estrangement from it. Getting one with the earth, (the primary purpose of mythology) is our only hope of survival because if we don’t kill the earth with global warming we will kill it some other way. It is like we are drilling holes in the bottom of our houseboat and expecting it to stay afloat and the sickening irony is we know what we are doing and continue to proceed in the destruction of nature anyway. We are mentally deranged and driven by self interest; this is due to our gigantic egos. In the past myth connected us to the earth and we realized that we are not the self important individuals that our egos tell us that we are but that we are everything. Our only hope of survival rests with our evolvement into responsible enlightened sentient beings who realize that we are truly everything on this Earth and beyond. And that our soul, (our psyche) is the resting place of what knows what the earth and therefore we will experience everything and most important to ourselves true bliss, enlightenment, heaven on earth, nirvana instead of self importance. We will have realized what we are and live accordingly. We are the crux of pairs of opposites, , life and death, good and bad, right and wrong and most importantly being and not being…

by Thai sean

Mar 4, 2010 4:30:48 PM cite

This is really 3 questions and I will answer them one at a time. I will assume that you aere not refering to the physical or bioligical as there are many sources that can answer that better than I. Humans have been evolving for millions of years and carry characteristics and traits from our predecessors. Thai Sean has posted an excelent discription of this evolutionary baggage here, http://www.droppingknowledge.org/bin/posts/focus/38523.page There is also a lot of social and cultural practices that have accumulated over the generations, All these factors form the background of what humans are and where we come from. One of the functions of Mythology is to connect us with our history, not just as an individual but all of humanity, but the old myths are failing because they were told in terms of past cultures and many cannot relate to the images of the Myth and cannot grasp the meaning. A person living in a modern city has no common experience with a hunter gatherer. In Judeo/Christian Mythology we are taught that man was formed from the 'Dust of the Earth', and the common image is that God scooped up some dirt shaped it into a man and brought it to life. This is not literally true, what the Myth teaches is that like the old saying 'You are what you eat' man is formed from the 'Dust of the Earth' in that all our food comes from the Earth. Plants grow in the soil and produce fruit vegatables and grain that we eat, some of it is fed to animals that we also eat. We come from the Earth, and Mythology should teach us Awe and Reverance for the Earth we came from and Nature that we are part of. Human beings are part of Nature and not seperate from it. This is one of the major failings of Religion that teaches this seperation and allienates Religion from Mythology, to teach that man is a seperate special creation. All life on earth is one life in a multitude of shapes and forms, any living cell on earth can read and process the DNA of any other living cell. All life on Earth, including people can trace their origins back to the 'Big Bang', the begining of all space, time, energy, and matter. The early stars were formed of Hydrogen and a little Helium, there was nothing else, and cooked up many of the heavier elements, but only the stars that went nova and exploded created even hevier elements and spread them back into the universe. This early 'Star Dust' then coalesced into later stars and at some point clouds of dust rich in heavy elements formed the Solar System and the Earth, and now we have life that developed from the dust of exploding stars, and can now contemplate the meaning of life, and the universe. Human Beings are in the universe, we are part of the universe, we came from the universe. The function of Mythology is to spiritulize where you are. You are in a home, your home is in a place, in a comunity, a society, on the Earth and in the Universe. All these should give you a sense of Awe and Wonderment at the mystrey of life and existance. Mythology should instill in you a reverance for all that is arround you, and invoke a sense of caring for your world. When I contemplate the idea that every atom in my body was once inside a star that blew up I can't help being overwhelmed at the vastness on space and time that lead up to me. When I look at other living things arround me I can't help but be amazed at how life functions, and survives. There is a line from a movie 'When you stand beside lake Michigan and feel small with the understanding that there is something greater than you.' In the same light look up at the night sky and contemplate the vastness of the universe and understand that you are part of it, realize that you are one with something that much bigger that you. Perhaps there are new myths that are working for some but they are not in the old recognizable forms, but the mystrey is still with us. Life comes from life and feeds on Death. People, along with all life comes from the Earth, from the Universe, and someday we will physically return, some say that then we will be one with all that is, but the truth is that we need only to realize that we are already one with all that is, and spiritually we can return any time we like, but many just don't know it yet.

by thedoc