“In the remote depths, in the most inward parts, in the hidden recesses of happiness, there dwells also the anxious dread which is despair.” —Sorën Kierkegaard.

I am born, I live, I die. If I am no more than a chunk of meat bipedaling my way back to earth and dust, then what is the point? Alternatively, if I am a being diffuse with light in a world of shadows, radiating steadfastly toward a shadowless light, again, I have to ask, what is the point?

Bipedaling, I am the means and the end. I am left to make choices based on personal values. I am privileged and cursed to carry my accomplishments and my mistakes back to earth; back to dust; with perhaps remnants of a few accomplishments and a few mistakes left behind.

Radiating, I am the means, but to what end? Some vague notion of a better place. Shadowless light. A place where I can glory in Goodness. Mistakes forgotten; or overlooked. Living in this existence, only to reach the next. Remnants still left behind.

If I believe that I am a chunk of meat, I believe I am more likely to work toward accomplishment and veer away from mistakes, whereas if I believe I am diffuse light I believe I am more likely to believe wrongdoing will be understood and I will (regardless) reach exclusive Goodness and I am likely to incorporate less thought and less reason into my work.

So if I go about my day as if I am merely a chunk of meat, still (if I desire) allowing for a faith-based belief in a better place, I believe I will accomplish more of, in and for this world than I will if I otherwise busy myself (even part time) with rhetorical, discordant piety. This is true most especially if I believe that within the possibility of shadowless light, I will ultimately face a judgement. And this is of course contingent upon acknowledgement that all of Humanity is one.

So, for me, whether I am a chunk of meat or diffuse light, the point is to work to accomplish goodness in this existence, with the underlying requirement that I go about it reasonably and efficiently.

I have to make the first choice first: Do I work? Or do I believe?

To attempt to further a cause or to convince others of a belief, is less likely to be work because it is not efficient and often not reasonable or productive. To believe in the superiority or inferiority of certain segments or factions of Humanity, is never work because it is not reasonable or productive and often not efficient. To allegedly ‘work’ for a cause or to divide Humanity is to choose to believe.

There are some, (perhaps many, perhaps most), who are quiescent believers, opting to believe according to immediate circumstance and allowing for convenient agreement to placate and preserve. Yes, at times it is necessary to placate and preserve; (far more often than I would like). But for this practice to become comfort-seeking habit, for one to purposely insert their self into such circumstance, is not work because it is unreasonable, inefficient and nonproductive.

Political affiliation can be such a circumstance. Organized religion can be such a circumstance. Fervid populism can be such a circumstance. It is easier to believe and to allow a group to think and act for me, than it is for me to think and act for myself.

Danish philosopher and devout Christian, Sorën Kierkegaard, who practiced an active living faith, said, “the earnest understanding is that if death is night then life is day, that if no work can be done at night then work can be done during the day; and the terse but telling cry of earnestness, like death's terse cry, is: This very day.” Not tomorrow; not in or for an afterlife; “This very day.”

I am a chunk of meat; with personal values; and choices to make.