How often do you think you can make sense of something, or find meaning in it, without considering something else for context? Probably not often, not even for some reflex reactions because your brain would likely have some experience relative to which it could compare that to which it was were reacting, like pain or cold.

For everything I learn and/or consider in life that isn’t a reflex reaction, I must have lots of context in order to be able to deal with it to my satisfaction. Sometimes, I grasp for analogous or metaphorical context because the topic is foreign to me. Other times, I find further context despite my familiarity with the topic. Sometimes, I do both. That’s because, in my opinion, everything in the world and in life is relative to each other, albeit some more than others. The more I know how and where something fits everything else, the better I can understand its impact and meaning, and the more confidence I can have about it.

By chance, science and the English language have a beautiful thing called the Theory of General Relativity, derived by Albert Einstein. It unified many concepts and theories in physics by defining how they behaved relative to each other. However, it was incomplete for being able to unify everything. It still is and may never be, pending what the Theory of Everything ultimately turns out to be like. What Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity was to physics did, though, was to inspire me to unify my view of everything’s interconnectedness in life, and summarize it as Life’s Theory of Relativity states that everything is relative. Unlike Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, though, Life’s Theory of Relativity, I believe, is complete.

.

This post is one of 70 quotes I wrote, each with an accompanying essay, in my e-book and paperback Stars I Put in my Sky to Live By, on Amazon or Smashwords (choose your price including free!).