Undeniably, the tired phrase had previously befallen my ears countless times. Still, scrolling the incessant facebook 'news feed,' I run across a 'friend's' deeply philosophical proclamation. Urging fellow humans to relax casually into the comforts of the world, he boldly asserts, "Don't take life so seriously; no one gets out alive anyway." Deep, I know. I may have, indeed, 'de-friended' this facebook connection that instant. In doing some pseudo-online-investigation, I located 2 highly unreliable sources indicating the source of said quote as one Frank Arduini, a name completely unfamiliar to myself. Essentially, the origin matters little (although the hermeneutical context could reveal so very much).
During my investigation, I happened upon many similar statements, frequently from historically famous literary voices. Apparently, Oscar Wilde quipped, "Life is too important to be taken seriously." While vacillating throughout his life, Mark Twain was also known to criticism the seriousness and striving toward transcendence in life.
Why has this banal phrase become so popular as a decry of the youth? Unearthing pain and failure, is engaging life in an attitude of fortitude and purpose, perhaps, too discomforting, too far from the comfortable couch of the suburban home and TiVo for most to justify? I wonder aloud, then, are you urging me toward relaxing-in-life due to your care for my wellbeing, or are you simply attempting to persuade yourself that your passive endurance of the mundane is how one should live? That is, does your neighbor's passionate striving and struggling through life discomfort you?
The question is "why not?", why not engage life in manner of sincerity and resolve? Rebutting with the wise words of, "because no one gets out alive" arises as a paradoxical fallacy. Whether through a Divine act of soul-on-earth or the absurd randomness of human's evolving from a mere accidental universe, one must recognize the blessedness shimmering through our unfathomable opportunity to live as humans, to simply be alive, a circumstance for which we have no answer. Simply, it is because we fail to attain immortality (at least here, in any form of which we know) that life surfaces as meaningful, as ultimately important.
Consider a scene from the gloriously existential program Six Feet Under: Making funeral preparations for a recently widowed women, Nate is posed a question of life-and-death. Wrought and void of meaning in life, the widow inquires, "Why does God make life so short?" Pausing momentarily, but surprisingly unnerved, Nate replies thoughtfully and brimming with sincerity, "I think, to make it special." That is, if immortal, one surrenders the urgency toward living. Forever possessing more time, one can always-and-ever "do it tomorrow." Mortality, as one of my mentors proclaimed, is God's greatest gift.
Contemplating in joy and wonder the vastness and possibility that is life , I readily acknowledge that there remains too much I wish to do given the brevity of life. So, then, I challenge you, why not take life seriously? Let us discontinue our pathologizing of individuals for being "stressed out" or "workaholics" or "never stopping to rest," if this is truly the manner in which they meaningfully wish to engage life. Why should I relax in life when there is so much to do? I respond, don't make me feel bad for engaging life just because you feel bad for disengaging from it, as it flies by your living room window with saddening rapidity. Take it seriously; go get it.
Sadly, I fear, that many people will find out on their death beds that they have never really lived and by then, it will be too late. I believe that if we want to know how to live, we first have to decide how we want to die. For me, I don't want to die with regrets. So when my son-in-law asks me to go to a country bar with him knowing that I detest country music, I go; simply so that I don't find myself on my death bed wondering if I shouldn't have gone!! LOL I work very hard not to hurt another human being so that I do not have that regret resting on my soul. I knew I wanted to leave this world knowing that my children could take care of themselves, so I raised them accordingly and two of them have college educations. We think too linelar in this world. Sometimes, you have to start at the end and work your way backwards.
ReplyDeleteWell put, well put, and thank you! I agree and would add that there is a tendency to avoid that which is scary or discomforting...that life should NOT be about discomforting oneself. Unfortunately, though, real living often only comes at the hand of risking oneself into life.
ReplyDeleteThanks again for reading...