The Essential Questions of Life

For the past three weeks, I have been reading The Oedipus Cycle, which was written by Sophocles.This book contains three plays revolving around the life of Oedipus, a man whose life was filled with tragedies. After reading these plays, I came up with three essential questions:

1) Do we always want to find out the truth?

2) Why do bad things happen to good/innocent people?

3) Who decides what is right and wrong?

Since these questions may seem broad right now, let’s go in depth.

Q1: Do we always want to find out the truth?

A1: Life holds many mysteries, some that we are destined to not know or that are better to be kept secret. We find issues of truth in our everyday lives, such as when we want to know if the person we love loves us back or whether or not our friend is lying to us. However, the curiosity that is in every human being strives to find out the truth. As a result, good and bad consequences may come.

For some of us, we do not want to find out the truth, in fear that it may shed light on terrible things. The truth can either enhance or destroy a relationship. For example, learning that your girlfriend/boyfriend cheated on you will damage the relationship. Are we willing to risk that relationship for the truth? The truth can also reveal something in the past that can change the direction of our life. It can go against everything we have thought to be true. What if you just found out that the people that you have been calling “mom” and “dad” for years were not your biological parents? In addition to the shock that I would be experiencing, I would start focusing my life on finding who they were.

For others, the truth can mean a better understanding of things. It can set us free. It can open our eyes to things that we have never known about before. For instance, when a government learns the truth about a plot against the safety of its people, it uses that truth to its own advantage and would then counteract the plot. The truth can also fill in that missing piece of information needed to solve the problem. Truth is like knowledge. Some of us would rather know all of the truth than suffer from not knowing it.

Although some of us may want to know the truth and others of us would rather have it hidden, truth is very powerful in the terms that it can benefit or destroy. It can cause a long-lasting impact on those who learn the information it withholds.

Q2: Why do bad things happen to good/innocent people?

A2: Some people will say that “it is unfair” or “there is no justice” when the innocents are struck with tragedy. Events, such as the Boston Marathon bombings or the sudden appearance of cancer in a child, have greatly induce these questions. I think that the fact that innocent people experience bad things can be justified. In reality, there are no “good” people on this earth because everyone has committed sins. However, the bad things do not occur because of the wrongs that they have committed throughout their lives but because of fate. Fate is defined as “the development of events beyond a person’s control, regarded as determined by a supernatural power.”

Fate can pretty much determine what is to happen in your life whether it is good or bad. Sadly, we cannot control or change their course. We, as human beings, cannot prevent what is destined to be.

Some of us will say that fate is not real because we have the free will to decide the direction of our own lives. But if this was true, how did you know that it was not fate that made you “choose” that direction out of “free will”? As you can see, fate plays a role in our everyday life, from what we choose to eat to when and how we will die.

Q3: Who decides what is right and wrong?

A3: Throughout my fifteen years of living in this world, I have always questioned what is right and wrong. Later on, I also came to question who determines what is right and wrong. Finally, that question was answered.

I think that there are various levels of authorities that determines what is right and wrong. Usually, those who hold power over you are the ones who decide. If you are a child, then your parents decide if what you did was just. If you are an adult, your boss has the upper hand. if you are in a relationship, your significant other shares the decision. However, I believe that society holds the most authority over everyone else to some extent, despite age and status, because it sets the boundary between the two through laws and judges you based on your actions.

Now, if we go past the reality of the physical world into the spiritual and religious world, I believe that God is the only one who can ultimately answer the questions of right and wrong because he is omniscient.

Nonetheless, some of you will wonder, “What if there wasn’t a Supreme Being that can ultimately decide what is right and wrong?”

Here is a quote that might explain that:

If there is no eternal truth , then all questions of right and wrong are merely a matter of preference. Nothing is intrinsically evil. We are free to choose the standards we prefer and decide which ones should be optional. We are free to determine our own rules and systems for enforcing them, and we can change the rules and systems however and whenever we please to fit our current desires and preferences.    – Roger Foster

During our journey through life, there may be many questions about what is right and wrong in which there is no one to guide us through. Yet, during these times, we can always find the answer within ourselves.

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