‘Open your eyes child and wonder, who and where and why........?’ It is this common beginning that makes kindred pilgrims of us all.  We are born into an unequal world of wondrous dangers and opportunities.  Where did we come from?  To which destination might we one day depart?  Why this particular bed at just this time?  Male or female, poor or rich, talented or challenged? The list grows as our vision expands.  Why this country, or even this planet?   Why does life exist?  What is the relationship of mortal man to an overwhelming Cosmos? In this reality must there always be more questions than answers?

This desire to truly know has taunted man since our ancestors first gazed in spellbound wonder into the limitless heavens.  Yet even with all our science, are the answers any nearer?  The reply is a guarded yes regarding HOW.  We now appreciate the quantum realities of matter, the mechanisms of life, and the evolution of the Cosmos.   But the question of WHY remains tantalizingly opaque to analytic study.  Truth is not a sizzling banquet on a silver plate, asking to be devoured.   Rather it is a truffle-hunt, where succulent morsels lie hidden from view and patience is needed to unearth them.  Most scientists concede that the Universe displays order, progression and intricate balance as it unfolds. But does it embody an overriding objective?  An egg contains the complete blueprint for the individual.  This forces seemingly mindless chemicals to  combine and intertwine so that a new life can finally emerge, be it a man or a mouse. The Universe pursues its own blueprint, and one day......?

But important as religion, science and philosophy may be, they are only aspects of life, not life itself.  Life is for living.  Humour, joy, comradeship, sadness and the challenge of adversity are the ingredients of all lives, but the proportions vary.  A baby's smile, calm after the storm, the taste of a newly plucked apple, a kind act - these are the nectar of existence.  And then  the footlights again grow dim.