IMRWS - 18
Created | Updated Sep 11, 2002
'The aim of life is to live, and to leave means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.'
Henry Miller.
I was flipping through some documents at work and noticed this little flip of intelligence scribbled on some long lost, forlorn piece of yellow sticky paper. You know the type, the ones that curl up on the ends to reveal a once-sticky surface but now has been covered with dust and what look like hairs from small headed beasts. I have no idea what conspired on the scribblers mind when he wrote this, or even who this individual was. But the scrap of post-it note was rescued from the oblivion of my desk draw... sorry to say that important phone number or report that is three days overdue didn't have the same fortune.
I have no idea of the context of this sentence in its original state, nor am I too familiar with Henry Miller's work per se. These few words of scribble, I would like to say, really appeal to me. The aim of life... that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, has to be one of the many important questions that people search for. I mean, we all want to know what our life means and what is our purpose for being. I know I do. At some point, we all drift a little towards shores we shouldn't - or never before couldn't - get to. The more prophetic use these philosophical ideals to try to unravel that which we all search for. Buddha said all life was suffering, Miller beer is the high life, Life is a garden - dig it. I know these are probably ridiculous comparisons, and probably have no similarities whatsoever; it just kinda fit the conversational stream. Faulkner called it the stream of consciousness... You know the whole lack of punctuation and the... anyway I have digressed.
Let's examine the first premise. The aim of life is to be aware. Well, Mr Miller, what exactly were you trying to say to use with that little piece of knowledge. Aren't we all aware? Don't we all go day to day being aware? NO. ... NOPE... NIET... NON... NEGATIVE GHOSTRIDER THE PATTERN IS CLEAR. We don't go day to day being aware, and perhaps in those instances, according to MR. Miller, we don't really live. I mean John Lennon did say that 'Life is what happens when we are making plans'. But alas, in all honesty we all go through portions, though some bigger than others, where we simple exist. Sometimes if someone were to ask us 'Are you alive or did you forget that you died?' and, when pressed for a response, we wouldn't know what to say. Haven't you ever, reader, gone through a whole day and when it was over, after you had taken that last shower or drank that last beer, wondered just what in the heck you did that day. Haven't you ever, reader, awoke one morning and felt like that was the day, the day when you did something or received something or became something, and once the opportunity arose you had 'responsibilities' and couldn't be bothered with that which was not 'responsible?'
What does it mean to be aware, though? It's more than just being knowledgeable about your surroundings. It's more than just being awake and knowing anything. And you reader, are probably wondering where I am going with this whole aware thing, so lets let me get on with it. TO be aware, to the author, is to know how grass flows in the wind. To understand how a cloud brings wind or rain with it. When you talk to someone to look into a person's eyes and realise the true person that is speaking and not just some disgruntled or fake façade that comes with the physical. Being aware is just a series of instances really. For surely, we cannot be aware all the time, the sensations would overwhelm us and turn us, not into realists, but surrealists. Unawareness may indeed be a way to protect us mentally. Just once reader, when you drive home from work, concentrate on how the steering wheel feels, or when you tilt your hand upwards when you have it out your window how it lifts. Just for once, reader, when buying that random grocery at the gas station, ask the clerk how he/she is doing and for once become interested. Being aware is to be there. I know that sounds like some sort of Zen riddle, but if you just look at the words for themselves its true. To be aware is to be in that moment and no where else.
We all bring the pressures of life and work and love home with us in our lives. We all live in that moment of each day that we want to be most important. We get, in our way, brainwashed to think that what may - in the long run - be unimportant, is the most important. Who cares whether or not the PowerPoint presentation isn't ready when you sit down to dinner with your wife and children? Who cares? I hope you don't. Being aware, being alive, means to let go and live for what life gives you. Work to live, not live to work. And when the pressures of the day come home, when you are home be at home. Work is work. Life is life. Love is love. Each of which has its own awareness. And each of which needs to be taken for it and it alone.
Alright, now onto the next part... joyously. Mr Miller might have been touching on the fact that people aren't always happy with the cards they have been dealt. At times all of us go through unhappy spells, or at least less happy than usual. But really, if life is living, why live it unhappy. After all, we only face ourselves when we look in the mirror. Joyously is easy... just be happy ... thank you Mr Miller... we didn't realise that.
Okay, onto my favourite... drunkenly. Now those of you readers that have ever met me know by now that the temptations of the bottle are slightly more than I can resist. But did Mr Miller really refer to drunken in the alcohol vein or in the vein of that which life gives us that propels us forward without any regard and that which we embrace. Ever heard of being drunk on life? Did Mr Miller mean that? I don't know. But first let's just assume Mr. Miller meant the alcohol portion. Lots and lots of chemical help can release us from reality. It can make us look at that which is what makes us feel good. It, in some ways, reduces us to the most basic of human conditions, and perhaps that is where life is. Often, we go too far down the road of life only to stop at a roadblock rather than finding a way through. With those of us that drink, we begin to pursue life with a reckless abandon. And, when the night is over, some of us don't care; all we know is that we lived in that moment and that is all that matters.
Now, let's assume Mr Miller did not mean alcohol-induced reality. Being in love with life... drunk on the essence... I don't even pretend to understand that one. But surely there are those that do. But where does it go from there? I don't know? Perhaps you, the reader, can help the author with that.
OK. Now onto my final point. Serenely and divinely aware. Here is where the transcendental comes into play. Whether or not one believes in a God or not, this applies to all of us. There is a transcendental state regardless of sacred beliefs. And once we get to know that which is beyond us, we can never understand that which is within us.
So to you my fair reader, I wish you Godspeed and I do so look forward to hearing from you.
