purpose

Meaning of Life

Life is not magical, but it can be.

There are black holes the size of galaxies and the universe is infinite for all intent purposes. Light years are not only measurements of time but life times, of generations. Far more living things have gone extinct than are living today.

These are thoughts that ought to be comforting if not a little unnerving. But they serve to remind us that life is so much more than a miracle. It is a gift from a watchmaker, but a blind one. The worries that we have are about us, and they are important to us, but not as important as we like to think.

And while many around us are blind as the watchmaker itself to this underlying fact does not mean that we should give up on living a life of happiness and satisfaction. In fact, being happy and satisfied is based on the acceptance that the universe is infinite and meaningless…and we are part of it.

The Other Day

The other day I woke up and thought about what I had done with the past year. What had I filled my time with, and what had I taken time to do? One more year had passed and although the endless parade of days will continue, my days are numbered. The days that we take for granted are days wasted. The days that we do not choose are days that are chosen for us. What is so important today that I cannot take the time to do something memorable?

Every day is a chance to change, to experience, to remember that today means nothing in the grand scheme of things, but that today means everything to you and me. It could be that one that I decide to follow a dream, to take a chance, to stop taking what I’ve got for granted or to leave something behind for good. It could be the one that I decide to push my limits, or to read a book. Perhaps it is the day that I pack the bag and head off on an adventure? Whatever today is it will pass and be gone, wasted or not, lived or ignored.

Days are endless and arbitrary. They are meaningless chunks of possibility that we can let pass us by or capture and create meaning if just a moment at a time. “What will I do with today?” can be the most demanding question, the most important question that we ask ourselves. At the very least it deserves a thoughtful answer because he quality of our lives depend upon the answers we give. Because one more year will pass and although the endless parade of days will continue, our days are numbered. The days that we take for granted will be days wasted. The days that we do not choose are days that will be chosen for us and we will be left standing and wondering what we did the other day.

Life is Short

Camus once asked what will matter in a million years. There is another question that perhaps is more to the point, more personal: You might die today. What will you do? Such questions seem platitudinous, meaningless. However, they are actually the most important questions we can ask. It’s not true that we don’t care, that we are apathetic about such ideas, it is that we are not hardwired to think about philosophical concepts such as purpose, meaning, importance.

It is not true that we do not have time. Think about it. How do we not have time to live our lives to their fullest? It is not true that we have obligations. Think about it. The only obligation we have is to be the best that we can be to those that we love, to ourselves, to our societies, to each other. It is not true that we are not capable. Think about it. Human beings have the capacity to think beyond ourselves, to create, to imagine. Our intellect gives us the ability to be free.

Be happy. Stay healthy. Don’t waste your time being angry. Fight that inner-voice that beats you down at night when you wake up from a dream. Love yourself and don’t sell yourself short. Love life and try not to forget:

The universe is approximately 13.8 billion years old.

The earth is about 4.5 billion years old.

The average person lives for about seventy-two years.

What will you do with your 0.0000016% of the age of the earth?

Til’ Death Do Us Part

To look for meaning in life is a natural thing to do.  Most, it might be said, look to find meaning in their work or their family; perhaps, both.  It doesn’t really seem to matter, only that there is meaning in life.  We fight against a shallow existence, but often we find ourselves being the consumer of things rather than thought.

And this is where life takes us,especially when we are young.  But we get old, if we are fortunate, and it is in age that we find that the world cannot be fixed or saved; that we cannot fight the march of what we as a generation choose to call progress.  The wars continue to be fought, children born, people die.

There is injustice in the world now, as there always has been.

It is not that we get wiser as we get older (wisdom is a rarity).  It is just, maybe, that we get tired; that we realize that the world will not be fixed or saved; that our continuous fight is doing nothing but making us miserable; and in the end we die anyway.

This is not as gloomy as it may first seem.

There are choices that confront us, and if we take the time, we will be faced with choices that actually matter.  If fighting for justice, for wisdom, for progress makes us miserable, perhaps it is us that needs to be saved or fixed for the fight will always and forever be there; until death do us part.

Simple

Work is not complicated.  Today is not complicated.  We simply must do what must be done.  The morning was started with the dog and evolved to some carpentry.  The sun out, became more beautiful as the day slowly grew.  The wood cut, and lunch.

Out came the chicks; the sun would do them good.  Enjoying the sunny day the chicks played and slept, ate and drank.  Simple times; simple life.

The afternoon started slowly, the tractor in place and the chipper hooked up.  The brush awaited.  The chipper started and the chipping began.  One pile, and then another.  Almost Buddhist in its meditation: the brush goes in and chips come out.

The chips themselves simple in their creation.  They will start as hen house bedding, and the compost and then on into the garden to start the cycle again.  One day growing a tree that will be cut and used, even to its smallest branches.

The piles of chips, sitting in the sunshine, and a shovel.  The old trailer brought to life but first the hitch attached to the tractor.  The work is hard and the day is beautiful: both simple in their very nature.

The trailer full of chips and the stored for the winter.  The day is simple; work is not complicated.  As it should be; as it should be.

 

The List

list

Perhaps one of the most significant aspects of getting older is realizing that you are, actually, getting older and realizing the implications of age. This, I understand, is difficult to understand the younger one is. However, I think the lesson learned from this realization is important no matter what age we are. Consider…

One day you receive a letter in the mailbox addressed to you personally. The letter has no return address and is handwritten. You open the letter up anticipating the contents while at the same time nervous, excited, somehow knowing what the letter is. The envelope drops to the ground and you unfold the contents. It is a list. The list, you realize, is a list of your hopes and dreams, your goals and the expectations that you have developed over the course of your life. In short, it is your bucket list. You read the list a bit nervous, a bit excited, as you come across long forgotten dreams and current expectations that you realize you’ve never shared with anyone. You put the list in a drawer, bringing it out to entertain your friends on occasion: telling the story and reliving the moment at the mailbox. Years go by and the paper yellows but does not become brittle. One day you take the list out and realize to your horror that somehow the list is shorter. The thought, “I must be mistaken!” shoots through your mind. This cannot be; lists such as this do not become shorter. But, they do, and your realize this at the same time that you realize your hand is shaking. Instead of pulling out the list to entertain friends, you now hide the list in a box on a shelf in the closet. You cannot face looking at it anymore because you realize that throughout time you have not accomplished the goals, the dreams on the list. You realize that you are getting older, and the list is getting shorter. “How can this be?!” you think. “As I get older, I need to cross out the items on my list!” But you’ve crossed out only a few. The riddle weighs heavy and you reluctantly pull the box out with the list in it. You hesitantly open the box and carefully lay the list out on the table; you unfold the list slowly. You realize when you finally look down that items on the list are slowly fading, right before your eyes. You realize what the list is: it is a list of possible dreams, of possible goals, of possible expectations. It is a list of possibilities and as you grow older that list of possibilities fades.

Although it is difficult to understand and perhaps even more difficult to accept, the list of possibilities in life grows shorter as we grow older. I can only hope that we can realize what is possible and act upon those realizations. I have been told, and have come to believe, that the most difficult step is the first step. Take the first step towards your goals before the list is nothing but a blank and brittle memory.