Life
Created | Updated Mar 23, 2002
Life
Opinion by Roger Brown
"Life,"said Marvin (The Paranoid Android: The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy) "don't talk to me about life."
Just what is this thing we call `life'?
That question, which myriad philosophers have commented on, comes to me more frequently now because each time I've run across chums from childhood and high school I stop for a moment of reflection: Look at how we turned out!
Just how did I expect us to turn out?
I didn't, I wasn't even thinking about it. I was just going along, watching everyone else, and wondering why nothing was happening to me.
Those that wait for life to happen to them, or who start doing a job because it's the only thing going, and then stay at it, usually wake up one day and realise that somewhere along the line we missed something... something that wasn't included in the owner's manual that should've come with our bodies.
The one we can never find. (Why is it never in the glove-box where it belongs?) After `Proper Care And Maintenance' is the `How It's Done' bit: the one that tells us how to get `life' right so problems are minimised and pleasure is maximised. The one that's individually suited to us.
I'm sensitive to this now because I've often claimed an existence, not a life, and am in the process of switching over.
Life to me means being actively involved in my world. Fulfilling myself in whatever way I feel fits me, experiencing all my thoughts and feelings. Being open to new ideas and having flexibility enough to change when need be, either from outside stimuli or from inner choice. (I start thinking of Kipling's poem If right about now.)
I spent ten years learning that and I still fall a lot. I've met a lot of other people that are learning it too.
During those years I was looking around and seeing many people `doing life'. This is what I called `The Programme', and what John Mellencamp once called "White picket fences for you and me.": doing just enough to sate the inner needs, keeping the unspeakable at bay for another day: Get married, buy a house, have children, and 9-5 it. Holiday once a year and the rest would take care of itself. It was enough to find a lover, not the `right' lover. Children were sometimes planned, many times not. There may have been unspoken expectations between the partners of these relationships that would sour if they went unmet.
There was something about this pattern that I didn't like. Something that never felt whole, or complete. `The Programme' didn't excite me as it struck me as so damned ordinary. A passionate fan of science fiction, my surroundings never measured up to the exciting, dynamic places I went to in my reading imagination. (Mind you, in my condition, I was never really invited to join `the Programme' in the first place....) Ironically, this is just `The Programme' that my friends felt I was best suited for.
Those that run away, or who don't seek answers so much as grudgingly change when provoked, spend a lot of time drinking or chasing around or doing drugs ...anything to escape the inexplicable boredom and sameness, because deep down, there's a feeling of inadequacy, of missing something, and not knowing what. It's really easy to get caught in the grind and bogged down to the point where not only can we not see the forest for the trees, we can't see the trees for the shrubbery. I was like that last winter (a year ago) while I was commuting. Took the wisdom and perspective of some close friends to keep me on track.
But I always felt there was an `out', even when I didn't know what it was, or where to find it. I kept looking, and found...many of them.
They were all inside: wants and dreams that'd lain forgotten: the sailing, flying, Scuba diving, writing great works, walking on the moon. And the newer ones: photography, cycling the world, cooking, rock-climbing, horseback riding.
And now I'm wanting to do them all, at once. I know that's not possible, and as I've wanted to do them since childhood, I'm very much a child in beginning them.
The funny part is that as much as we're all striving to be individuals (well, some of us are), we're all so damned similar under the skin. Sting sang it well: "We share the same biology, regardless of ideology".
I've thought a lot about that expression `settle down'. It usually means someone who's eschewed the `wild' life of being single in favour of `domesticity' or `The Programme'. For some, this is as constricting as being trapped in a poor attitude; those that feel constricted aren't making conscious choices.
Richard Bach said "Argue for your limitations and sure enough, they're yours."
I think it was on Gabereau some years ago I heard tell of a couple who brought their children with them on all their global treks. Hiking, camping, canoeing, wherever they went, so did the children, one of whom was an infant. They simply accommodated the children's needs and went off together. I don't think they ever `settled down'.
How many of you are doing what you see everyone else doing, even if it doesn't fit you?
"The opposite of courage in this society isn't cowardice, it's conformity." - Rollo May
How many people are following their own dreams, consciously choosing as you go?
Anaïs Nin said "Life expands or contracts, according to one's courage."
There aren't any rules for this activity called `life', and like our parents, we're just mucking in and making it up as we go along (though there are people who make claims and attract followers; anyone who follows, as far as I'm concerned, isn't living). How we respond is based upon our characters and our conditioning...and very often it takes several goes at `life' before we get it the way we want it. This is especially true in the high-speed world we've created, where youth is worshipped and the insight, wisdom, and maturity of age is if not reviled, then certainly pushed back as being `dated'. It very often takes the distance of age and wisdom to recognise insights that youth is still experiencing and cannot know.
I sometimes wonder if, as Douglas Adams reported: "There is a theory that states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
"There is another theory which states that this has already happened."
Opinion by Roger Brown
"Life,"said Marvin (The Paranoid Android: The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy) "don't talk to me about life."
Just what is this thing we call `life'?
That question, which myriad philosophers have commented on, comes to me more frequently now because each time I've run across chums from childhood and high school I stop for a moment of reflection: Look at how we turned out!
Just how did I expect us to turn out?
I didn't, I wasn't even thinking about it. I was just going along, watching everyone else, and wondering why nothing was happening to me.
Those that wait for life to happen to them, or who start doing a job because it's the only thing going, and then stay at it, usually wake up one day and realise that somewhere along the line we missed something... something that wasn't included in the owner's manual that should've come with our bodies.
The one we can never find. (Why is it never in the glove-box where it belongs?) After `Proper Care And Maintenance' is the `How It's Done' bit: the one that tells us how to get `life' right so problems are minimised and pleasure is maximised. The one that's individually suited to us.
I'm sensitive to this now because I've often claimed an existence, not a life, and am in the process of switching over.
Life to me means being actively involved in my world. Fulfilling myself in whatever way I feel fits me, experiencing all my thoughts and feelings. Being open to new ideas and having flexibility enough to change when need be, either from outside stimuli or from inner choice. (I start thinking of Kipling's poem If right about now.)
I spent ten years learning that and I still fall a lot. I've met a lot of other people that are learning it too.
During those years I was looking around and seeing many people `doing life'. This is what I called `The Programme', and what John Mellencamp once called "White picket fences for you and me.": doing just enough to sate the inner needs, keeping the unspeakable at bay for another day: Get married, buy a house, have children, and 9-5 it. Holiday once a year and the rest would take care of itself. It was enough to find a lover, not the `right' lover. Children were sometimes planned, many times not. There may have been unspoken expectations between the partners of these relationships that would sour if they went unmet.
There was something about this pattern that I didn't like. Something that never felt whole, or complete. `The Programme' didn't excite me as it struck me as so damned ordinary. A passionate fan of science fiction, my surroundings never measured up to the exciting, dynamic places I went to in my reading imagination. (Mind you, in my condition, I was never really invited to join `the Programme' in the first place....) Ironically, this is just `The Programme' that my friends felt I was best suited for.
Those that run away, or who don't seek answers so much as grudgingly change when provoked, spend a lot of time drinking or chasing around or doing drugs ...anything to escape the inexplicable boredom and sameness, because deep down, there's a feeling of inadequacy, of missing something, and not knowing what. It's really easy to get caught in the grind and bogged down to the point where not only can we not see the forest for the trees, we can't see the trees for the shrubbery. I was like that last winter (a year ago) while I was commuting. Took the wisdom and perspective of some close friends to keep me on track.
But I always felt there was an `out', even when I didn't know what it was, or where to find it. I kept looking, and found...many of them.
They were all inside: wants and dreams that'd lain forgotten: the sailing, flying, Scuba diving, writing great works, walking on the moon. And the newer ones: photography, cycling the world, cooking, rock-climbing, horseback riding.
And now I'm wanting to do them all, at once. I know that's not possible, and as I've wanted to do them since childhood, I'm very much a child in beginning them.
The funny part is that as much as we're all striving to be individuals (well, some of us are), we're all so damned similar under the skin. Sting sang it well: "We share the same biology, regardless of ideology".
I've thought a lot about that expression `settle down'. It usually means someone who's eschewed the `wild' life of being single in favour of `domesticity' or `The Programme'. For some, this is as constricting as being trapped in a poor attitude; those that feel constricted aren't making conscious choices.
Richard Bach said "Argue for your limitations and sure enough, they're yours."
I think it was on Gabereau some years ago I heard tell of a couple who brought their children with them on all their global treks. Hiking, camping, canoeing, wherever they went, so did the children, one of whom was an infant. They simply accommodated the children's needs and went off together. I don't think they ever `settled down'.
How many of you are doing what you see everyone else doing, even if it doesn't fit you?
"The opposite of courage in this society isn't cowardice, it's conformity." - Rollo May
How many people are following their own dreams, consciously choosing as you go?
Anaïs Nin said "Life expands or contracts, according to one's courage."
There aren't any rules for this activity called `life', and like our parents, we're just mucking in and making it up as we go along (though there are people who make claims and attract followers; anyone who follows, as far as I'm concerned, isn't living). How we respond is based upon our characters and our conditioning...and very often it takes several goes at `life' before we get it the way we want it. This is especially true in the high-speed world we've created, where youth is worshipped and the insight, wisdom, and maturity of age is if not reviled, then certainly pushed back as being `dated'. It very often takes the distance of age and wisdom to recognise insights that youth is still experiencing and cannot know.
I sometimes wonder if, as Douglas Adams reported: "There is a theory that states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
"There is another theory which states that this has already happened."
