Seeking a ‘Before’

We live in a world obsessed with beginnings. Every story we tell demands an origin. Every question of meaning, every quest for truth, circles back to this: What came before? Before the universe, before life, before us.

But why do we seek a ‘before’? Perhaps because time is the lens through which we make sense of existence. To us, everything has a cause, a first step, a seed. So we project this pattern onto the cosmos, expecting that even infinity should have a doorway we can open.

Maybe it’s not the answer we want, but the comfort. To know there was a moment, however mysterious, when something—or Someone—chose for us to be. To imagine purpose in a beginning is to imagine purpose in ourselves.

And yet, the deeper question lurks: If there was a before, what came before that? Each answer births another question, and the chain runs toward the unimaginable—toward nothing, or toward something that simply is.

Perhaps we seek a ‘before’ because we cannot bear the weight of timelessness. The idea that there was no beginning feels like a betrayal of our narrative-driven minds. But what if eternity does not start or end? What if the search for ‘before’ is a mirror, reflecting our need for meaning rather than the universe’s need for order?

Maybe there is no ‘before.’ Maybe there is only being. And in learning to live with that, we might find a freedom greater than any origin story.