Jean Henri Fabre was a French naturalist who, fascinated by the sight of processional caterpillars marching in a long unbroken line, each one touching the one in front of it, decided to try an experiment to see if they would keep walking in an aimless circle. So, he captured enough caterpillars to encircle the rim of a flowerpot, linked them nose to posterior and started them walking in the closed circle. For days they went round and round on an endless march to nowhere until they starved to death.
That seems to be the story of many of our lives – a march that leads to nowhere. We need to stop for long enough to ask ourselves those two questions that have always been basic to a meaningful life: why am I here? And where am I going? It often causes people to start to look upwards for an answer.