I had a blog before, ten years ago, but there was a problem. Blogs must be short.

500 words seems about right for them. But how can I say something meaningful about the big questions that interest me the most, such as:

How is a living being different from matter, even though it is made of matter and, apparently, nothing else?

Why did God smite the dinosaurs? Did He not love them?

The questions “What is life?” or “Why does nature seem so cruel?” have been asked by just about all the best intellectuals. If I wanted to respond with proper attentiveness to at least one of them, it would be an academic paper that would quickly reach 10,000 words.

But if I want to draw a bigger picture and want it to be considered as an original contribution, then I need to write a book of 100,000 words.

A blog cannot do this.

But then—I often speak with people about my work, or I use it in homilies, or I answer questions after lectures.

These are all short conversations, and people seem to like what I say. I think that it is because I have thought about such deep questions for so long that I have learned how to say something meaningful in even just a few sentences.

The website’s main purpose is to provide easy access to the longer texts that I wrote. But I decided to also include a blog so that I can quickly throw in a thought or two, as if I were answering a question after a lecture.

How does life differ from just matter?

Well…

Think of the Big Bang and the various theories that speak of how it came about. Maybe you heard that it also describes the origin of space and time itself. Maybe you heard that cosmologists don’t really see a flow of time, as the whole expanse of time seems equally real to them.

But living beings are definitely alive only in the moment of now, and they perceive every moment of their being as fleeting. Two very different descriptions of time characterize matter alone and living beings in matter. So that’s the difference.

The meaning of life is to be in time, moving forward in time. The meaning of human life is to be creative when we have choices to make as we move through time. We don’t just passively follow a path but shape it ourselves. We not only have meaning but make meaning.

This is our birthright, but we can never exercise it alone. Humans must depend on one another. Being human means supporting each other to live the most meaningful life possible.

So this is how all that is alive differs from just matter: Matter constitutes time. Life is a movement in time.

The other question, the suffering in nature, is much harder.

Another time!