Metaphysical Longing: The Flame That Drives the Human Spirit

21 April, 2026

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Exaudi Staff

Voices

13 September, 2025

3 min

Metaphysical Longing: The Flame That Drives the Human Spirit

When Philosophy, Passion, and Faith Converge to Reveal the Profound Meaning of Life

From birth—and, in some ways, before then—life surrounds us, penetrates us, and fills us to the point of rapture. Yes, during the first years of our existence, we limit ourselves to living and experiencing it. There comes a time when its seductive presence also forces us to consider it. But, although this is attractive, the task is not easy. Before us lies the immense panorama of the unapproachable in itself. How can we talk about life if it’s similar to having to narrate a movie whose beginning we haven’t seen, nor will we ever see its end, and of which, while we remain in the screening room, we don’t understand most of what we see on the screen?

The various scenes unfold before our eyes, some of the protagonists appear, we see their movements, we notice some of their actions, but what about the totality of the details, the intentions of the characters, each of the shots, how the various events intertwine…? And more significantly, how can we understand the inner workings that allow the material production of the film, its technical components, its complete script, what is in the creative mind of the director…? A whole unknown and endless world!

However, the desire to understand life is persistent. Especially when you’re sixteen years old and the philosophy subject you study in high school offers an endless catalog of proposals. This is what happened to me in 1969: it was the opening of my mind to a horizon of fascination in which everything had its answer. In 1971, when I began university studies in this subject, the desire to reflect on life grew in intensity, but a few years after completing this training period and already established professionally, I became aware of the impossibility of encompassing a full view of life from a philosophical perspective.

Back then—around 1982—the countless interpretations offered by this knowledge seemed unsatisfactory to me due to the inadequacy of their approaches. My mind, in its errant wanderings, jumped from one speculation to another, conveying “a” meaning to life. At best, in its eagerness to appease that existential restlessness, it managed to add several of these meanings together, but the effort was futile: deep within my spirit lay the need to find not “one” meaning—not even several—but “the” meaning.

It was essential for me to find the reason for being that makes all things what they are and that makes them authentic: anything else that didn’t have this characteristic seemed like a waste of time. At that juncture, I decided to follow the metaphysical yearning to seek the meeting point of all paths where the message of life appears, the one engraved in the heart of man, at the centre of all action, and in the most intimate particle of all that exists. Discovering this message would mean deciphering the key with which the universe is written, for its meaning lies not so much in being for its own sake as in the meaning of Life itself.

Thus, the meaning of our life, of each of us, would be given not as something separate, but as constituting the same trajectory of the meaning of totality in its unity with absolute existence. It would be, so to speak, a meaning within a broader meaning, or the conjunction of several concentric meanings. It would be the impetus to be in a transcendent, life-radiating reality. If this were not the case, if life did not lead to transcendence, it would lead nowhere.

Forty years ago, I discovered this need for God that is constitutively human. But, as its inevitability must be personally lived, from the moment He reveals Himself in the person of Christ and becomes incarnate in history, this need that humankind has for God is expressed in the need for the living Christ, who, as such, incites us to eternal life. I have dwelt in Him ever since. He alone is the perfect fulfilment of my youthful metaphysical longing. How could I forget Him?

Pedro Paricio. Give me three minutes.

Exaudi Staff

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