I GOT FAIRIES

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To say about life, “This is amazing!” – can that authentically be said to be absolutely, objectively true?

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No.

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No, it can’t.

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It can only be true that life is amazing if there is somebody there being amazed by it. And even in that case, it is not absolutely true, but subjectively true. A human life is not absolutely anything. Such is the nature of being a human animal in the relative construct we know as spacetime.

For those of us who wish for life to be amazing, rather than random or pointless or downright evil, it can be. This is the joy of really understanding relativity. Douglas Adams once famously asked…

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Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe

that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?

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Gentle folk such as Richard Dawkins and Derren Brown have referred to this quote in their pleas for reason, rationality, simple sanity. But, love Douglas Adams as I do, and I really do, I don’t find it so impressive a piece of rhetoric. One might as well ask…

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Isn’t it enough to see a table without having to believe that there are atoms in it too?

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And the spirit of Douglas Adams might roll his eyes, gnash his teeth and say, “But there ARE atoms in a table, and there AREN’T fairies in the garden, you cretin!”

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He might.

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And that just shows what Douglas, Derren and Dawkins know about atoms, fairies, tables and gardens. Their understanding of physics and relativity doesn’t actually go that far, but they have faith in the idea that what lies on the far side of their understanding doesn’t actually contradict the conclusions they have made on this side.

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While they might, if pushed, accept that absolute truth is an abstract concept that can’t be directly experienced by a human being, that a human animal, by its very nature, can only experience a subjective truth, they will still put their faith in the idea that there really is an absolute truth there, regardless of us being unable to objectively verify it. And this faith of theirs is a religious faith, no more or less valid than claiming there are, or are not, fairies at the bottom of the garden. And this placing of a mythical objective truth above the truth of subjective experience is an invented hierarchy of value, a made up thing.

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I, myself, would heartily love to prove, objectively and beyond a shadow of a reasonable doubt, that life is absolutely amazing. But of course life isn’t amazing – not unless there is somebody present being amazed by it.

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Would you like the rest of your life to be spectacularly amazing? Seriously, would you? Because there are many, many people, I am sure, that could honestly answer No to that question (something I personally find amazing, but to me humans are painfully amazing).

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If your answer is, “Yes, please, I would very much like the rest of my life to be spectacularly amazing,” then there is only one course of action that I know of, which will deliver you that wish. Yes, only the one, but it is a dead cert to succeed, and it’s incredibly simple. All you have to do, in order that the rest of your life be spectacularly amazing, is to be spectacularly amazed by it.

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The job is done. It’s a good’n.

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Seriously, well done. Congratulations.

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And that’s absolutely true.

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Are you able to do that?

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Because, in my humble wonder, to not be spectacularly amazed by life is the feat that takes a soul-destroying amount of effort and commitment.

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But the human animal is an incredible thing to me, that never ceases to amaze me with its ability to look this way and that, seeing things I cannot, and not seeing things I can.



You really can’t see I’ve got fairies coming out of my ears?