So now it's 600 pages a day

I just finished reading "Rama Revealed". It was really breathtaking. Making one think about how small and insignificant, and yet at the same time special and unique we are. We do forget about the big picture most of the time, the really big picture that is. Or even the not-so-big, anything outside our immediate surroundings really. It is easier - and mostly much more rational - to just focus on the goings-on of our everyday lives. Is there a grand scheme we're all a part of? Is the Universe based on order or chaos in the end? Or maybe both, in varying degrees? Is there a meaning to all this existence? A purpose for ourselves to fulfil, a goal to reach of some sorts? Or are we simply an evolutionary accident, a bunch of atoms jumbled together in some unlikely fashion? Is there something higher for us to aspire towards, or is all our spiritual searching eventually meaningless?

I don't think any of us can really know the answers to these questions. The ultimate answers, at least. Perhaps the most we can reach are those of our own. Limited, to be sure, but personally inspiring and meaningful. I don't think we could know The Truth. At least not the way we are now, without anyone else further along to guide us - and even then could we ever be sure it was The Real Thing? But at least each one of us can find his or her own path, a light to aspire towards. If there is a higher something... then maybe that spark contains a grain of the greater truth. If there is not... what a cruel thought to have meaning-seeking creatures in a world without any... what we create for ourselves could be the best that we could ever have. Perhaps then, like the miracle of life in the vastness of senseless chaos, we could create that something higher and make it real in the little area of our own existence. Not changing the greater picture, perhaps. But making all the difference for ourselves.