To live Life in a free fall of uncertainty and doubt can be terrifying and/or exhilarating.

To float through Life harnessed safely to a parachute can be breathtakingly beautiful, unpredictably bumpy, mindfully thought provoking, and/or redundant.

To fly through Life in the comfort of a well-stocked jumbo jet full of like-minded cohorts is delusional.

Ultimately, we must all hit the ground; and even from the jumbo jet, we will each disembark alone.

A danger in thinking that something is meaningful lies in the unspoken (and often unrecognized) acknowledgment that it may as easily be meaningless. This is a double-edged sword: dangerous in that the spoken acknowledgment and conscious recognition can discourage and even incapacitate, yet at the same time valuable in that it has the potential to improve and refine selection criteria, and (once prioritized) this active acceptance of possible meaninglessness can make the meaningful more meaningful.

Many people choose (consciously or otherwise) to avoid the danger by either conforming to a majority opinion of what is meaningful, or by selecting priorities based on an immediate sense of urgency - (i.e. low-hanging fruit or busywork).
NOTE - The majority in 'a majority opinion' may not be an actual majority but rather a vocal majority or even simply a majority of those in one's inner circle.

When I look for meaning, in many ways, my granddaughter's smile is a good and fair representation of all that is personally meaningful. My greatest fear is that all is meaningless. Blaise Pascal said:

"When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after the little space that I fill, and even can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I am ignorant, and which know me not, I am frightened, and am astonished at being here rather than there; why now rather than then. Who has put me here? By whose order and direction have this place and time been allotted to me?"

I find that when I actively and respectfully focus on this fear (and other fears), my granddaughter's smile becomes more brilliant - more intense - more meaningful. In fear, I find Life.

On a pleasant summer evening in 1686, while strolling through a garden and pondering the nature of the Universe as seen in the clear night sky, Bernard De Fontenelle said, "All philosophy is based on two things only: curiosity and poor eyesight." This thought is applicable to many different settings from the comfort of a well-stocked jumbo jet quashing curiosity and limiting vision, to the exhilaration of uncertainty and doubt exciting curiosity and sharpening vision. This thought is also circular. Curiosity expands horizons creating a wider field of vision which encourages more sophisticated observation, in turn producing more questions than answers, once again piquing one's curiosity. More sophisticated observation demands new and improved observational tools. When first introduced, the microscope and the telescope drastically changed the way we see the Universe and our place in it - both empirically and philosophically.

I need a microscope to better see and understand my inner self, and I need a telescope to better see and understand all of Humanity; all in search of inner peace and global tranquility.

My telescope may be 'Free Floating Circular Compassion' as introduced in this post two weeks ago, and as a progressive result of my thoughts on compassion in the three preceding posts. This week I would like to examine 'Free Falling Focused Fear' to determine its potential viability as my microscope.

Perhaps it is true that very early man's search for meaning revolved around survival and their search for food; but perhaps it is also true that in those (rare?) moments of relative safety when hunger was satisfied, individuals also stared at the night sky and pondered the nature of the Universe as De Fontenelle did in 1686. And it is this pondering curiosity and historically poor eyesight that has brought Humanity to this point where our empirical eyesight and curiosity continue to evolve, but our spiritual vision is blurred and confused because our transcendental curiosity is still playing in the sandbox, or in the mud, or in the kiddie pool, or with the Ouija Board, or...

In multiple previous posts I have encouraged a less divisive, more communal, and (Yes) more evolved spirituality. Consider the following questions:

• Which is more important: a meaningful Life or an eternal afterlife?
• Even if a meaningful Life is a prerequisite for an eternal afterlife shouldn't we just live a meaningful Life for the sake of living a meaningful Life?
• Are we more afraid of meaninglessness in Life, or are we more afraid of meaninglessness because we are afraid of a possible nothingness in Death?
• Can a Life have meaning regardless of what Death brings?
• Does the prospect of an eternal afterlife encourage and enhance Goodness, or does it promote and perpetuate divisiveness?
• Do we really need the threat of Hell Fire and Damnation to be Good, or have we evolved - (or when will we evolve) - as a species to where we understand the mutual benefits of global Goodness?

Earlier in this post I said, "My greatest fear is that all is meaningless." I then identified the smile of my beautiful granddaughter as a good and fair representation of that which is personally meaningful to me in this Life. So now I am asking myself, how can there be meaning as typified in this two year old smile, if all is meaningless? The answer of course, is that all does not have to be meaningless. This Life can be full of meaning, or, depending on circumstance and one's personal outlook, it can appear meaningless. Either way, I should not confuse my fear of Death with meaninglessness.

What I have done above is to focus my free falling fear in order to examine, amplify, dissect, and better understand my inner self. I can impact my impact in this Life and steer it toward Exoteric Goodness, but if there is no God I cannot create a God from nothingness, nor can I annihilate an existent eternal afterlife or cast it into the oblivion of nothingness if there is no nothingness. I can only impart Compassion and work toward Goodness, Peace, and Tranquility on this empirical plane, in this Life.

This Free Falling Fear employed as a microscope is meant to focus on ever-smaller components of my inner self, eliminating overlap. In this case my focus originally encompassed two components - (1) fear of Death and (2) fear of meaninglessness - creating a blurry, confused vision that in turn inhibited understanding and progress. So in this case, it worked. I narrowed and sharpened my vision and by doing so I recovered meaning in Life, I have (for the moment) recognized the futility of fearing Death, and I better appreciate efforts toward Goodness.

Compassion can expand horizons. For Compassion to do this work I must consistently remind myself of the equality of suffering, and persistently, thoughtfully act on this knowledge as encouraged in this aforementioned post.

Fear can identify, focus, and amplify personal meaning. For Fear to do this work I must first allow it to free fall unimpeded into my consciousness, and then grab hold, hang on, and see where it takes me. If I am able to hang on, it will most likely slice and dice its way to my core potentially exposing a heretofore unknown essence.

Compassion and Fear can also aid in the evolution of my transcendental curiosity by focusing on a practical, global application of personal spirituality.

One can choose to Live Life in a Free Fall, Float through Life, or Fly through Life; and one can choose to switch modes of migration to fit a circumstance. But regardless of transport method, one can still utilize Compassion as personal telescope (even on a jumbo jet there are small windows and a cockpit that can expand vision) and Fear as personal microscope all in search of Global Tranquility and Inner Peace.