On the occasion of my 38th Birthday (don't make me have to explain the numbering system), I started this here blog.
I am told I have a gift for writing. I believe those voices, but as far as the you're concerned, it's up to you to decide. I imagine I should have some kind of purpose to this blog, but so far, I believe there is just the slightest feel of the question, why even have a life? Why live? Why press on regardless, whether or not there is a (G)od?
So, just over 20 years ago, I asked a student teacher, "What is the meaning of life?" It was an off-the-cuff question, not really asking for a response, but if I got one, a good one, I'd be able to go home happy. She said, "To survive." Why do I remember that, given it was not an answer I was looking for... well, you know, you ask someone with presumably more life experience than you, and you expect some bizarre analogy comparing life to a box of chocolates or a game of marbles, and you get an answer that is basically self-defining, the old Reflexive Quality of Equality: a = a. Thanks for nothing, I thought, but damn that woman, it stuck with me for over 20 years now, and I remember it especially when someone asks me why do we suffer in life so much? They, in turn, thank me by attempting suicide.
Strangely, and maybe it's a symptom of our times, this pondering the meaning of life (or, "Life," as it were) doesn't keep me up at night. Trying to win at Civilization III keeps me up late, but not all night. Not when I have to work in the morning.
Once I read the book of Ecclesiastes on a Friday after we'd just sent a batch of summer camp kids home from Bible camp. It is, of course, good to actually know the subject one is trying to teach.
I started with Ecclesiastes because I was vaguely familiar with it. Dad read it to me, the "for every thing there is a season" passage, as it was playing on the radio in the form of "Turn, Turn, Turn" by the Byrds.
That Friday, I felt like someone had finally told me the punchline to the joke of life: "It doesn't matter." Get it? People, thousands, millions of people die everyday, and it doesn't matter what they did in life: criminals, the poor, the rich, street vendors, executives, housewives, athletes, babies... We all have the same end, so why worry about who has it better than the others?
I argued with a friend over this very issue: he argued that at least people like, say, Achilles are remembered for their famous deeds, even if they might be just a bit embellished. I replied, "Yeah, but he's still dead, isn't he? He's been dead so long, his remains can't even be reliably carbon-14 dated. In fact, most of his remaining carbon atoms have been recycled more than a dozen times, during which they spent most of their time as animal dung. Being famous in life does you no good whatsoever after you're dead."
So, what's the point? The question comes and goes, and sometimes it makes me laugh out loud, making the dude with the over-active shockwave generator in the car next to me look, and if he has half a consciousness, wonders what the Hell is so funny. If he has some consciousness, he thinks I'm listening to some "fuggin' hilarious" CD. If he's your average human, he just stares ahead, thinking "At least my stereo is bigger than his."
Sometimes the question depresses me even more than I already am, but I'm spared by the thought, "If life itself is pointless, why bother dying?"
I'm not all doom and gloom. Honest. If I were, do you think I'd be married? With a child who likes to make me say, "Ouch!" With two dogs?
Someday, I may do everyone a favor and get a zoloft prescription, but I think I'd miss what I consider the "real" me too much. Then I'd probably feel too good to blog.
I wonder what would have happened if Hemingway and VanGogh would have taken something to lighten their moods... Hallmark, I imagine, would have a veritable gold mine of material from uncle Ernie, and VanGogh would probably have been the greatest glurge artist of all time... BUT he would had died with BOTH ears, and Hemingway would have just died of natural causes. Huh. And maybe Margaux and Mariel might have turned out a bit differently, too...
Welcome.
I am told I have a gift for writing. I believe those voices, but as far as the you're concerned, it's up to you to decide. I imagine I should have some kind of purpose to this blog, but so far, I believe there is just the slightest feel of the question, why even have a life? Why live? Why press on regardless, whether or not there is a (G)od?
So, just over 20 years ago, I asked a student teacher, "What is the meaning of life?" It was an off-the-cuff question, not really asking for a response, but if I got one, a good one, I'd be able to go home happy. She said, "To survive." Why do I remember that, given it was not an answer I was looking for... well, you know, you ask someone with presumably more life experience than you, and you expect some bizarre analogy comparing life to a box of chocolates or a game of marbles, and you get an answer that is basically self-defining, the old Reflexive Quality of Equality: a = a. Thanks for nothing, I thought, but damn that woman, it stuck with me for over 20 years now, and I remember it especially when someone asks me why do we suffer in life so much? They, in turn, thank me by attempting suicide.
Strangely, and maybe it's a symptom of our times, this pondering the meaning of life (or, "Life," as it were) doesn't keep me up at night. Trying to win at Civilization III keeps me up late, but not all night. Not when I have to work in the morning.
Once I read the book of Ecclesiastes on a Friday after we'd just sent a batch of summer camp kids home from Bible camp. It is, of course, good to actually know the subject one is trying to teach.
I started with Ecclesiastes because I was vaguely familiar with it. Dad read it to me, the "for every thing there is a season" passage, as it was playing on the radio in the form of "Turn, Turn, Turn" by the Byrds.
That Friday, I felt like someone had finally told me the punchline to the joke of life: "It doesn't matter." Get it? People, thousands, millions of people die everyday, and it doesn't matter what they did in life: criminals, the poor, the rich, street vendors, executives, housewives, athletes, babies... We all have the same end, so why worry about who has it better than the others?
I argued with a friend over this very issue: he argued that at least people like, say, Achilles are remembered for their famous deeds, even if they might be just a bit embellished. I replied, "Yeah, but he's still dead, isn't he? He's been dead so long, his remains can't even be reliably carbon-14 dated. In fact, most of his remaining carbon atoms have been recycled more than a dozen times, during which they spent most of their time as animal dung. Being famous in life does you no good whatsoever after you're dead."
So, what's the point? The question comes and goes, and sometimes it makes me laugh out loud, making the dude with the over-active shockwave generator in the car next to me look, and if he has half a consciousness, wonders what the Hell is so funny. If he has some consciousness, he thinks I'm listening to some "fuggin' hilarious" CD. If he's your average human, he just stares ahead, thinking "At least my stereo is bigger than his."
Sometimes the question depresses me even more than I already am, but I'm spared by the thought, "If life itself is pointless, why bother dying?"
I'm not all doom and gloom. Honest. If I were, do you think I'd be married? With a child who likes to make me say, "Ouch!" With two dogs?
Someday, I may do everyone a favor and get a zoloft prescription, but I think I'd miss what I consider the "real" me too much. Then I'd probably feel too good to blog.
I wonder what would have happened if Hemingway and VanGogh would have taken something to lighten their moods... Hallmark, I imagine, would have a veritable gold mine of material from uncle Ernie, and VanGogh would probably have been the greatest glurge artist of all time... BUT he would had died with BOTH ears, and Hemingway would have just died of natural causes. Huh. And maybe Margaux and Mariel might have turned out a bit differently, too...
Welcome.
posted by Wildcard at 1:16 PM
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