What is the greatest question that determines our destiny? Is that the wealth, employability, or our physical ability to pursue our goals? What determines our destiny depends largely on our capacity to interpret resourcefully the experiences befalling us. Yes, our creative responses to the unwelcome struggles, pains, and failures can script new episodes of hope and serenity to the lives around us. Equally important is our thoughtful responses to the moments of success, glory, and riches that can build further the lives around us into prosperity and peace.
Therefore, the pertinent question is, do we really pause before various experiences that befall us to unfold them into their maximum? We are not merely homo sapiens, but we are homo experiens (human beings who experience) too.
Gerald O’Collins, an Australian Jesuit theologian, narrates four human conditions that we experience in our day-to-day life. They are 1) homo dolens (the human being who suffers), 2) homo interrogans (the human being who asks questions), 3) homo historicus (the human being who expresses his/her stories), and 4) homo symbolicus (the human being as symbolic). Finally, he identifies something peculiar as he calls it homo experiens.
Everywhere and at all times, human beings face sufferings, ask questions, express themselves, and try to figure out the meaning and purpose of life. In short, we are beings who experience. As homo experiens, let us take stock of all experiences we encounter in our daily life. Very often the complexities of many experiences and phenomena that we face in our lives can be unpacked with courage, enthusiasm, and will power. At times, however, we encounter experiences that we struggle to understand, as well as phenomena that exceed our imagination, intuition, and cognition.
Not every experience and phenomenon in our lives can be fully grasped; certain of them surely exceed our human faculties. Have we ever come across such a phenomenon or experience where we stand in either awe or hollowness? Life will not spare us such a puzzle; sooner or later, we must all stand before one.
