The 'why's of life

I'm upset. This afternoon, I received the news that a major air crash has occurred in Medan. As bad news goes, the effect wasn't immediate. It took me some time to process, and now, after researching and asking family at home, it finally dawned on me that this really, really is terrible news.

I ask why. This is the sixth major air accident worldwide since August. Why, in such short span of time, horrible events keep manifesting themselves? The air crashes, Katrina in New Orleans, tsunami earthquakes in Asia, all pre- or un-warned; I have a visceral conviction that people are expecting worse things to come. Forgive my negativity, in my current state of distraught mind, I felt the urge to ask the very question people asked themselves when the tsunami struck. I tried and tried, to dredge up the answer I know lies somewhere within the deep enclaves of my being.

I was not a big believer in Him. Still, I find myself uttering words like 'My Goodness!', 'Oh My God!', or 'Gosh!' to trivial things ever so often. Perhaps I do have faith after all. The tsunami and today's crash struck the deepest impact because of the proximity of the events and the fact that my family lives in Medan. My heart never skipped a beat when I heard the news. I have faith that my family will be okay. I have faith that my relatives and friends will be fine. I just couldn't bring myself to even imagine [...]. This is my power. My strong-willed determination to never accept any possibility that anything [...] can happen to them. I'm one of those people who vehemently deny the existence of anything remotely harmful to their loved ones. It pains me to write that last line. I'm that egoistic. This is how I protect myself.

But I digress. When disasters struck, humans start questioning. Why did God do this to us? Why didn't He save the people? Was this fated? Is this the way He punishes us? I ignored those questions because I believe it has nothing to do with the God that I presume people pray for. I refuse to believe there is one supreme omniscient being that controls the universe. It is oxymoronic when we say God is a being that transcends our imagination. I believe disasters happen, just as the sun rises and the rooster crows. It's part and parcel of our world. If there's one thing I believe in, it's science.

Now, to appease those who would disagree with me, I equate God with Faith. My faith is my God. Not faith in God, but faith (for lack of a better word) in anything I want to. This is how it works: Every being has faith (forget in what), then God lies within their core, the collective core consciousness of all beings in the universe forms an 'x' (I don't know what x is), which in turn governs everything. We're all our own mini Gods. Just like in Buddhism, "Buddha lies within us." This crude thinking is quite old school, but it made much sense to me now.

I don't have the answer to everything. As I progress on this entry, contradictions abound. There's still much to learn, much to find answers to, but I shall take things slow. It's sad and enlightening that the events that have befallen us lately could give me inspiration. Life is contradictions.