Why are we here?

On this past Thanksgiving 2005, my husband and I had to go to not one... not two... but three Thanksgiving family get-togethers, all in the same day. The first of these (bright and early in the morning) included his mom, his two sisters, a brother in law, a soon-to-be brother in law, and a baby nephew. We didn't find out until we had already got to the gathering that one of the sisters had invited one of her friends and her three kids, two boys and a girl, all between the ages of 4 and 9. That was fine because we had a ridiculous amount of food, and she apparently had no one to spend Thanksgiving with. But with us not used to being around kids, it made for some interesting conversation.

After spending about 30 minutes wrestling on the floor with the two boys (read: being viciously attacked, smacked, tackled, and hit by the two boys), Jared decided that enough was enough and sat down on the couch with me and the girl, age 9. The conversation between him, her, and I turned to her interests, what subjects she liked in school, and what kind of books she liked to read. Eventually she asked him, "What kind of stuff are you interested in?"

Jared told her, "Oh, I guess mostly philosophy and theology and stuff like that."

Her, "What's philosophy?"

Jared turned to me and asked in a low voice with a nervous laugh, "How do you tell a kid what philosophy is?" He answered her, "I guess it's about asking the important questions like 'Why are we here?'"

She looked genuinely puzzled. She kind of gave Jared a "you're an idiot" look and then explained to him, "Well, we're here because it's Thanksgiving." The inflection in her voice just about punctuated the sentence with, "duh!"

I am just like her.

So why are we here? I'm here right now because I can't sleep tonight and my mind is racing with a billion thoughts and stupid nervousness. I'm here because between my husband's and my 8-5 jobs we can afford a modest little house in Norman. I'm here because I was born into a family in a part of the world where I have the leisure time and the money to plink away pointlessly on a computer, or go back to my Stephen King guilty pleasure instead if I so choose.

There are so many brilliant people who tackle the real "Why are we here?" questions, I feel small and insignificant compared to them. I feel like all I can offer is simple, childlike, non-complex answers, and I feel guilty for not even caring to go deeper most of the time. Occasionally I will have an intellectual reawakening... and now is not one of those times. I feel as unintellectual now as I have ever felt, even with that piece of paper called a college degree in my posession. Right now I feel like "Why are we here?" really can be answered with a practical, easy answer. It's the Dubya in me.

Now here's another one of my favorite things:

(I am a very simple girl)