Why Anything?

Why is there something rather than nothing?

-Bede Rundle (and, as Mircion has correctly pointed out, many others:)

Possibly the greatest philosophical question of all time...Why anything? Why you? Why the illimitable universe? Why the diminutive atom? Why is there a rose in this great garden? and all "the dearest freshness deep down things"? (GM Hopkins) Why do you see? Beauty? and, each morning, "Dawn's rose fingers touch the sky"? (Homer) Why do you hear? the poetry of Music? and the music of Poetry? Sound? the Voices of one another? the Wind? Why do we feel in our hearts? Hope? and, at moments, are sent into "boundless vistas of light"? (Tolstoy) Why Family? Friends? Memories? History? Pain? Why this searching in our minds and this longing in our hearts? Why are we not unintelligent beasts? wandering about in darkness - ignorant even of our own ignorance? Why not nothing?

From what root did all this life spring from? (The Thin Red Line)