I find myself searching for meaning a lot these days.
I am not religious, nor was my dad, but these days I find myself asking, why? What is the point of it all, if we all die in the end? I don't mean this in a suicidal way by any means, I suppose I am trying to justify life and death, to make it make sense to me. My four year old asked me why we have to die at all. To respond "because that's the way it is" is pretty flat and of no comfort or justification at all.
I sometimes wish I were religious, I quite envy those who believe in God who know for certain where a loved one has gone and it was all part of God's plan. My brother has gone down the phsyics route, the atoms that make us up were never our own to begin with, we are just lucky enough to experience them for a while before going on to the next. That doesn't work for me either.
I thought I'd make a breakthrough the other week. It was the first time since his death that I actually felt he'd lived a great life and that that somehow eased the pain, a little. I think that the things people tell you, the "he had a long and happy life" etc, although all of these things are said with well meaning, until you are ready to believe them yourself, they are essentially meaningless. My breakthrough seems to have been short-lived, and now I am right back at the "unfair" stage. Who cares if he had a good life? He's not here anymore. It makes me feel incredibly selfish to think such things.
Can anyone recommend me any books. anythings at all to read, to look at life from a different perspective?