My worldview is being shaken, not stirred. Many things have contributed to this, including climate change, peak oil, maturing past age 50.

But what I want to focus on here are some words from a recent CBC radio program (that will be available on podcast until mid-December 2009). It is an interview with Mark Rowlands, author of “The philosopher and the wolf,” about the impact a long-term relationship with a wolf had on Rowlands’ outlook on life.

Rowlands makes several fascinating points, but one in particular has stuck with me:

We experience time as a line, from the past through the present and into the future. … This way of experiencing time is fundamental to human beings and brings with it a certain conception or outlook on the value of life. Just as time is sort of an arrow flowing from the past to the future, so too the meaning of our lives is sort of built into things we’re aiming at somewhere down the line, projects we’re trying to achieve, goals we’re trying to fulfill. … I think that’s an unfortunate way of thinking about the meaning of life.
…
A better way of looking at our lives is not so much the meaning of our lives as the value of our lives.
…
When things have purposes, the purpose typically lies outside the activity – you go to school and work hard to get to University. You work hard at University so you can get a good job and the good job is to get money… The purpose is outside them, and therefore the value lies outside the activity. We do all these things, but there’s very little that has value in itself.

That will serve as a starting point for this blog.