Parents feel it when looking at their children, millions felt it as they were captivated by Barack Obama’s rise to the presidency, religious-minded people feel it as they find their faith, and Tar Heels experience it as they become “true blue.”
It’s the feeling of belonging to something bigger than yourself. It’s an experience that moves beyond scientific description and exposes the inadequacy of human description.
It exposes the deeper meaning of life, the intangibles of existence.
“It” is the human condition to believe. To believe in something greater, something “other.”
When attempting to describe it, words, pictures and songs never do it justice, but still the feeling remains. Writers, philosophers, painters, dancers, singers and composers (just to name a few) are driven to illustrate it through whatever medium they can. They never fully succeed …and that’s the point.
Although the feeling may be experienced collectively, it is always translated by the individual. No two dialects of belief are the same; your belief is shaped by your own thought patterns and experiences.
Even though the feeling cannot be defined by science, it must never be disregarded. The tacit knowledge of belief is an essential part of who we are as a species. Something within us has been hardwired with a desire to believe in something, anything.
In 1997, Hollywood released a movie that spoke to this very topic of unexplainable belief. “Contact,” starring Jodie Foster, centered on a mysterious signal sent from outside our solar system containing plans to build a device capable of transporting one human to visit with its alien messengers.
The film culminates in a worldwide televised trial of Foster’s character, Ellie, a cynical scientist who scorned anything improvable or approaching the spiritual. Ellie’s account of being transported through a worm-hole and spending 18 hours on an alien world was being criticized and even mocked because only a fraction of a second had passed on Earth during her supposed journey.
During the inquiry, Ellie is asked if they should take her entire experience on faith, since she has no proof of her 18 hours on the alien planet.
“I had an experience,” Ellie replies. “I can’t prove it. I can’t even explain it. All I can tell you is that everything I know as a human being, everything I am — tells me that it was real. I was given something wonderful. Something that changed me. … A vision that tells us we belong to something that is greater than ourselves ... that we are not — that none of us — is alone.”
Through a single exposure to the unknown, Ellie was forced to recognize that there was a realm of existence larger than even her brilliant, analytically oriented mind could grasp. Even though Ellie was unable to convince the world that her trip actually took place, she still believed.
Whether you find your belief in your favorite basketball team, your children, your country or God, believe in something. In a world that values tangibility over all else, never let your personal experiences and beliefs be scoffed at. Instead, wear them proudly.
Become a believer of belief.
Ryan Lee is a freshman journalism and English major from Lewisville. Contact Ryan at leery@email.unc.edu.
