Part Four: The Meaning of Life...
...what is Life really?
As best as I can see, Life is an unrelenting force. There is no Off button; only Go. We flip this or that switch in Nature, and the Motherboard just shifts to some alternate default mode, following a programming that we have absolutely no ability to decode. From the past to the future; from the inside, out; heaven, or hell—however we look at it— in our consciousness Life IS, and that's that. Infinitely.
It is said there are only two facts in Life: we are born and we die. But even that statement begs doubt. There appears to be only the Unknown; so perhaps Life IS the UNKNOWABLE. And there is a disarming beauty in that statement. Why then do we feel compelled to judge and change things, as if we could "do better?"
Dropping our hands to our sides in exasperation—on the basis of our perceived dubious circumstances—we ask in desperation:
...what then are we meant to do?
It seems we are all born with a deeply ingrained longing. It haunts us throughout our lives... though we can never really pin point what it is exactly that we want. We want, we want, we want... No, I don't think it's really Some thing to have...
It's as if we want to Be something... Something specific... but what? We seek something outside ourselves... and we scrape within... To no avail. Maybe instead it is a feeling that we seek?
Enigmatically, it could be very simply: Just To Be. At ease. Is that not when we feel the best? The most... free? Sitting, just sitting, like watching the sunset—without pangs of guilt. An Oriental poem that I memorized as a child comes to mind:
"Sitting quietly, doing nothing;
Spring comes, and the grass grows by itself."
(I regret I've forgotten who it's by... but how beautiful, peaceful, freeing!)
When we can close our eyes and just enjoy a moment truly, we feel...closest to creation...to God... to the fullness of Eternity. Asking nothing, just assimilating.
Yet most of the time, inside, we are so very ill-at-ease... Is that the flow of Life hounding us from within...? Momentum demanding constant change in all respects, but most importantly, I would suggest, in mental perspective. How sad it is that pure Appreciation is so pejoratively equated in our society with being idle, or worse, with "wasting time."
...why is Life so precious?
I think we instinctively feel that we do not belong to ourselves. We are quick to note, "I didn't ASK to be born!" (*To which my parents were just as quick to counter, How do you know? and indeed what recollection do we have of what happened before birth?) Yet at every moment, of every day, we have the distinct irritation of being pushed by forces that are not ours. We physically feel "discomfort" to greater or lesser extend at all times... it's that peculiar sensation of being alive. Pleasure of mind or body is always tainted by some kind of remorse, even if it's only our own ungrateful reflection that "it doesn't last."
Not belonging to ourselves parallels a wish for some external belonging that we tend to seek, which usually is associated with an urge to be of service to other. Sympathy and empathy are very human traits; but we seem to also fall into making undue comparisons among the lives of others. To assume that some lives are better than ours, is specious, as we do not know what burdens individuals really carry. Age-old fables wisely warn that trading lots with another usually brings us back to embrace our own sack of troubles. On the other side, pitying the fate of others can prove equally suspicious, as we do not know how they perceive their own lot. Indeed, hardship may be a source of strength, growth, personal satisfaction... however upsetting that may sound.
All of this touches on Pride and Vanity for sure; and even Envy, Avarice and Gluttony; not to mention Wrath and well... even Sloth, as we are so reluctant and slow to apply ourselves to deeper thought.
...is there a map or compass to lead us?
I suspect there is: and suggest that it is Us. Each of us individually knows what is fair... it's tattooed on our heart. We know how we would like to be treated. It goes beyond the Golden Rule even, to a more objective articulation (such as voiced by Immanuel Kant). Paraphrasing, the idea is to act so that the basis of your action might be applied as a Universal rule. Thus, Stealing is wrong not because what is stolen matters to us; but wrong because it leads to depravity and mistrust in any society as a whole... Lying is wrong, not because we care whether or not it is done to us, but because no one functions well in the tangles of deception.... even if it's just me deluding myself.
To be sure I don't know what The Meaning of Life is; and it would be awkward of me to presume what someone else's Purpose is; but I do, rightly or wrongly, have some sense in my own mind of how I perceive my human role in this ephemeral existence that we share. I'll note these reflections, in a few verses, as concluding thoughts:
ManKind
i am... God's Sidekick;
a Court Jester, the wizened Fool
a Valentine... Devil's Advocate...
a fallen Angel called upon
i am Eyes and Ears;
the persistent silent Question
the Audience that laughs... and sighs...
the Who echoing against the Dark
i'm with the I AM;
a Pinnochio that grows a heart
a Raison d'Etre... an After-thought...
the Life of the Party, giving Thanks for all we've got!
A Reflection
What a ridiculous question.
“Who is in control of your life?” Why does anyone have to be in control of my life? What does control even mean? And who says life should be controlled at all??
But by all means, let us debate the question. Bring on the pompous philosophies, my solipsistic scribblers; bring on the existential crises and self-affirming verse!
For I might be mistaken. Writing does help one think, help one untangle and re-tangle and stylize the skeins and chains of our much-beleaguered brains. By laboring over metaphors and using sibilant similes to pin abstraction to the corkboard of our pages, we might very well find all the answers we’ve been aching for.
So please, try to prove me wrong. Try and answer honestly, answer curiously, answer wonderingly. Attack the question, probe the question, laugh at the question! I don’t care what you do, as long as your words and pauses and your very punctuation all declare to the world that you have rejected banalities, trivialities, conventionalities.
Because even if you don’t find any answers, at least I’ll have found one for myself: for the few minutes (or few hours, I won’t judge) that you embrace this challenge, someone will indeed be in control of your life.
Me.
Happy writing.
Afterlife
My body was screaming.
What had I done?
Then I felt
warm
numb
sleepy.
The pain was gone.
I was gone.
In complete and total darkness.
I had known darkness, but this, this was real darkness, swallowing my entire being.
There I was for what felt like ages, in the dark womb. It smelled of dirt. Blood.
A light flickered somewhere off into the distant unknown. It was out as suddenly as it appeared. Then back again, becoming brighter and brighter, until it consumed me whole.
But what was me ?
The light filled me with warmth
and so much love. Like my mother's kiss. My father's hug.
I suddenly remembered. I am not my body.
I am the soul that dwells within.
A Certain Young Lady
What do you fear most? Perhaps its external like spiders, snakes, or clowns. Perhaps its internal like some unseen force within the human mind, or the rationality of a mind that lacks sanity. This is a character that I feel is externally creepy, but what makes her horrifying is the internal part. You cannot tell how she reaches the horrifying conclusions that she reaches, but you know the disgusting effect.
This character is from a short story that I have been playing around with and brainstorming, and though some aspects of the story tend to change, this character is constant.
Context, the protagonist of the story is a young husband who has been fighting with his young wife due to his fears of fatherhood and the anger over the changes he perceives as negative in his life and relationship with his wife. It is early on in the story when his internal struggles have been hinted at through an argument with his wife and some internal monologue that we meet... her (henceforth known as Jane, though the name is not final).
Jane is a college student on spring break with a rather large group of friends at a campsite in the mountains of Colorado. She is young, not much older than 20, roughly the same age as the protagonist's wife, and she is pregnant, very pregnant. She has wavy blonde hair, red shorts, white shirt, sunglasses- very typical for a college student, except this is a woman that looks like she could give birth any day. She seems to be happily enjoying the company of friends, but there is something off about her. A pregnant woman about to give birth should not be camping with what appears to be a frat and sorority camp-out. Nor should the uncomfortable amount of affection she has been receiving from several of the young men. Nor should she seem to demand the attention of the young women in the group. And they are quite strange, making strange animal noises and laughing. It's as if this group were a pack of dogs, and that Jane is matriarch.
Due to the pregnancy, Jane and the young husband's wife begin to converse upon the role of motherhood, the wife taking a stand against the recklessness that Jane is partaking in. During this conversation, we the audience learn that Jane seems to be quite level headed, and perhaps she is not the matriarch, but rather the prize of the whole group. But it is when Jane starts to describe her affinity for dogs and cats that the audience begins to feel something is extremely off with Jane. It is like a long lost perverse attraction for beastly things has been awoken within a regular college girl.
Much further into the story, after learning more about the husband's inner turmoil, and after the disappearance of the college kids and the family pooch does Jane's setup become relevant again. The husband discovers the group deep within the woods where he realizes that the college kids were in fact furry deviants who practice taboo lust within the forests. It is here that we see Jane again, and the deviants are around her as she give birth to a child. She lets out a weak gleeful laugh as she instructs the furries to do something that is gut sickening with both the dog that was stolen and the child that was just born. Unfortunately I will not discuss the details further, as it would spoil the entirety of the ending of my short story, but such is sufficient to describe the importance of Jane.
Though most of the themes of the story deal with the fear of dealing with people who have an alien belief and the dangers of seeking pleasure over responsibility, Jane represents a fear of change and parenthood. Here is a young woman that reminds him of his wife before she was married (not the animal part, just young and happy). It is when she give birth that she fully realizes her evil, and completely corrupts her child. Thematically, the protagonist is scared that his wife will change into a different person that doesn't love him and she will corrupt any children they have into despising him as well. Jane being the prize of the furries also could be thematic of the animalistic tendencies that humans sometimes prize while disguising them as sophisticated developments that should be treasured, such as violence or (in this case) sex.
In the end, I cannot say we will ever learn more about Jane's inner workings, as she is not the focus of the story. I can say that with the direction my story is going, I don't know if I want to know how Jane works. All I can say is that she is probably one of the more significant figures within my short story.
