Making sense of life with a Theory of Everything:

Each of us has a "Black Box" where everything important we don't understand is put.   Our "Theory of Everything" makes sense of life and for most of us it is our religion.   If all the wild loose ends of life and death and the unknown can be fenced or boxed into one word or belief, we can get on with our daily business.   The kicker is the value we put on the black box.    Do we give it a spin that there is a future with a better life beyond this one, that we can treat others as we wish they would treat us,  or that mankind is ever improving and smarter?  Do we see nihilism and justification to put ourselves always first?

Life is too short and we are too puny, however connected we are to the universe to grasp it all.  We have to take a shortcut and that shortcut is to bundle up what we don't understand into a single "Black Box".  For some, the unknown is like the edge of the world, "Here there be dragons" and for others its the promise of redemption, seeing loved ones, having a reason to do good in this life.

A Black Box:  A system whose inputs and outputs can be observed without any knowledge or understanding of its internal workings.   Some of us believe we have revealed knowledge about what lies beyond and others of us do not.