A thought struck me yesterday – a frustrating day because I was unable to get away to read and write and think. It suddenly struck me that so many of us most of the time spend our lives doing frivolous and unimportant things. The train of thought began with noticing the seriousness of football players. People approach the World Cup, the World Series, Wimbledon as though they were events of supreme importance. Around the world there are daily dramas of the struggle for survival, against famine and hunger, against political oppression and discrimination of all kinds, against poverty, sickness and death – yet for so many only sport matters at weekends. Is it for this that millions of years of evolution have produced a mind that can calculate the distances of the farthest galaxies, penetrate the interior of atoms, journey into space and transplant hearts? I wondered what, if anything, had meaning and significance, because we can’t all be astronauts or brain surgeons. What is the point of all those millions of years of evolution if the vast majority spend their time in trivial pursuits, slowly destroying the planet that gave us existence?
Viewed from above we seem no better than ants scurrying about on self-appointed tasks. There seems to be no concerted goal, no combined effort to use those wonderful minds, which can penetrate the secrets of the universe, for anything more than making money and having pleasure. When it comes to science, culture, medical research, money is the absolute criterion. If it will make money – do it, otherwise forget it, or leave it to enthusiastic amateurs. What gives significance to the lives of all the ordinary people who are unable to extricate themselves from this seething ant-heap, nor mentally rise above it? Surely, a mind that can comprehend the cosmos can only find meaning in something of cosmic significance. Anything less is a travesty. Is winning at Wimbledon of cosmic significance, or winning the lottery? What about hours spent gambling, or mindlessly watching television? Few would agree that these add much to human dignity. Perhaps some might disagree about prowess at sport. There is something noble about extending human achievement to the limits; climbing where no one has climbed before, running faster, jumping higher than anyone has previously. There is something noble too about sportsmanship, about selfless effort and losing gallantly. But a life dedicated solely to sport as a means of making money – that is another matter. Where is the dignity in becoming a millionaire, in becoming a connoisseur of fine food and wine, in being able to wear the finest clothes and the most exclusive designer labels, in living in luxury while every fourth person has to live in abject poverty?
If the human mind is the most complex organism in the cosmos, more complex than the cosmos itself, then surely the person who inhabits that mind is of cosmic significance. With the human mind the cosmos has become conscious of itself. The electro-chemical energy, which originated in the hearts of the stars, in the human brain gives rise to thought, affections and love. In every human being, however ordinary, or insignificant, the cosmos has become aware. A lifetime dedicated to making money is of less importance than hours spent comforting a sick child? The achievements of an Alexander the Great, or a Napoleon are of less significance than a lifetime looking after people mentally sick and disabled? We know this instinctively although we may not articulate it. Elitist ideologies may try to declare some people as inferior, or even sub-human, and for a while some may even believe this, but most of us, most of the time, whether we are religious or not, have a profound feeling for the sacredness of human life. Is it only enlightened self-interest that urges us to spend billions on the medical the emergency services, that scrambles helicopters and diverts ships to rescue just one person?