When I was little, there were so many things I needed to learn and figure out. I always asked questions like most kids until I learned I could no longer get answers. So I sat in silence, trying to figure things out and contemplate stuff on my own.
Despite my failures to understand, I still believed somewhere someone knew what was up with everything. Someone had to know just what we were and why we were here. It wasn't until much later when I began to understand that we don't know anything. Mostly we are all trying to figure things out on our own. I don't recall who it was that told me 'no one knows,' I suspect my older brother did. But it took me a while to understand the meaning of what was said.
My parents were highly religious, so we would go to church and be told there was some divine plan and meaning, but because of our wretched selves, we were not privy to this plan. However, we had to do certain things without any explanations that sometimes seemed absurd, which usually didn't make sense. If we didn't, we were told we would be tormented for all eternity. Of course, when I asked questions in that environment, I never got anything more than an instruction to pray about it. Supposedly if I were lucky, perhaps a part of God's plan would be revealed, but if it were, it would be beyond my mortal means to understand it. As a child, I accepted the information without much question but with great reluctance. I just assumed the disjointedness was simply due to my lack of understanding like so many other things.
I grew older and still was unable to understand anything. It just seemed like I was lost in the middle of an endless sea swimming randomly in a circle with no purpose or reason. Many times I would be instructed on something, and it would feel internally wrong. Yet I could never articulate why and that bothered me.
Eventually, my family moved, and we ended up going to a public school. On the first day, I was isolated due to my ignorance. On that day, I learned all about the human reproductive anatomy. I also learned a bunch of other slang words. I stood out because every day, I was dressed like it was picture day. Unfortunately, I didn't have any say over what I wore, and I didn't own a tee-shirt until highschool. On top of this, I was ignorant is mostly everything. I was a very naive and innocent child when I was young due to sheltering. When your only friends you could hang out with where your siblings and very little other external influence, your perspective becomes very narrow. I remember sitting in the middle of the bus, trying not to draw attention to myself and only resulting in having the bullies being attracted to be due to the easy mark. Sometime in the first week of riding the bus, a bully decided to pull a knife on me and cut my jeans, then held it against my throat and threatened me. He got my lunch money that day for sure. What was a 7-year-old who was taught self-defense was a sin to do, well he turned his other cheek and yielded in meekness. It wasn't until late high school, where I learned that yielding to tyranny is the wrong choice.
The thing is, I was a very sheltered, naive kid, but even so, I also realized how ignorant of everything and everyone I was. It wasn't until a year later in public school that I made my first friend in the school. We would talk and hang out during lunch and breaks and hide from everyone else. He taught me so much about how to survive. Who to avoid, as well as what types of tricks they would pull and how to detect them. You know the wind around a corner changes when someone is on the other side lying in wait for you. We were the 'good' kids. We sat with our hands folded as we were supposed to. We raised our hands to talk and so on. We tried our best to follow what was right as it was explained to us.
Even though I was a curious kid, I was ignorant in ways I didn't realize I was. I didn't understand the notion of peer pressure. I didn't get how people are drawn to those they are like and can relate to, and away from those they do not. Simple social dynamics I never got. My only friends as a small child were my siblings. We got along because we had no choice, not because we liked each other. But that rule doesn't apply outside of your family typically.
Throughout my younger life, I always felt lost. As I went through high school and college, I was introduced to atheist beliefs. At first, I found them to be so odd that they didn't believe in a God who sat on a throne and punished you if you sinned, and everything was a sin. Eventually, I began to understand the freeing nature of atheists and the challenge that notion of a God without indisputable evidence. Since I was never big on religion in the first place, I was never big on non-religion. I didn't care about what it was called anymore. Despite that, I still thought there must be a purpose to everything. The notion that we are nothing, and when we die that is it, there is only nothingness after death. That didn't sit well with me.
Yet even after all of this, I still sought for an explanation outside of me to find some external intrinsically recognizable authority which would give me the answers. I tried to find something, but eventually, I grew tired of this search and came to understand what I was told long ago. Nobody knows. Who you are, what you are, what your purpose, what your reason is. Are you something more than a meat puppet? Is there more than us. To my understanding, there doesn't seem to be a consensus or indisputable proof. People have ideas and thoughts people have different perspectives. But nobody that I met seemed to know.
I am no different. I have no clue. I have formulated my thoughts on the matter and believe them to be in the right direction, but I have no idea of what the truth is. If someone were able to perform a miracle, I would listen to what they had to say with great seriousness. But even then, I would question and expect to find an answer to my questions. If I didn't, I would consider the miracle worker is just better at understanding things then I am but still is not fully aware.