I always listen when people talk and I don’t mind taking note of their discussions even when traveling.

That isn’t to say I haven’t had my share of conversation, even if it means putting aside a good book, an interesting magazine, or my computer.

One of my most memorable dialogues was on a train ride from Chicago to San Antonio where I had the pleasure to dine with a fellow passenger that turned out to be a young physicist.

Sitting across the table, the young woman said she’d picked Texas for a winter vacation to celebrate her graduation.

She was curious about what I did, so in turn, I asked her a question.

“So, tell me,” I asked, not expecting an answer, “Does God really exist.”

“Of course He does,” she replied.

“But how could you possibly know?” I questioned.

“I mean, there’s no evidence to prove his existence and certainly no one in existence could prove He exists at all.”

“Well, you exist, don’t you?” she responded. “And as far as I can tell, you certainly have no doubts of your being here at all. So if you’re here, why shouldn’t He?”

It turns out, as she said, that most of us don’t really exist at all.

It seems our bodies are in a constant state of fluctuation - coming in and out of existence - and the reality we perceive to be true doesn’t exist at all.

That’s because, as she put it, the space between atoms is so expansive that the particles within the atoms slide in and out of existence. Here one millisecond and gone another.

We reside, as she explained, in an illusion where nothing is real.

“There are no people and no universe. The only thing in existence,” as she put it, “is the illusion that we are here at all.”

As noted columnist Ken Korczak explains, “We’ve only been tricked into thinking (we exist),” at all, as weird as this may sound.

For a while, we talked about this, ultimately coming to the conclusion that if nothing exists, then all the problems we face aren’t there either.

“So everything that happens to me, my problems, my good fortunes, my successes and failures are all a part of my own reality?” I asked. “I’m only an illusion?”

“Yes,” she said.

“You basically create your own reality. So if you’re rich or poor, are happy or unhappy, then that’s the reality you’ve created. If things go bad, you have only yourself to blame.”

“So we’ve been tricked,” I responded.

“I mean, if we don’t exist at all, then why worry about anything.”

“Because,” as she stated, “the reality you’ve created will still be there.”

As it turns out, the young woman is not the only physicist in my world.

For years, the quantum theory and modern physics proposed by the mathematicians and physicists have been promoted by my dad, in a wood-framed home just a few blocks down the road.

His motto, “Don’t worry ‘bout it,” envelops the same ideas in layman’s terms.

So if you’re unsure if God exists, be assured that in the greatest time of knowledge, the greatest minds seem to indicate that God, wherever

He may be, is out there somewhere.

We can’t see him because in our reality, touching God would be an impossibility.

Still, it’s better to exist, even as an illusion, than not to exist at all.

Life is, after all, what you make of it.

Happy New Year!