“Growing, ripening, aging, dying – the passing of time is predestined inevitable.” – Simone de Beauvoir.
Our lives are given to us but with no specific manual on ‘how to live’. We spend a fortune time chasing almost every uncertain dream or a goal in life. With elevated hopes of being happy, we chase, pursue, only to realize we have thrown ourselves into a cause that does not befits us.
We are forced to work in jobs that we hate so much so as to make end meal, to pursue causes that we don’t derive and satisfaction neither do we get fulfilment from. And, what is happiness anyway? What is satisfaction? fulfilment? What is the purpose of our happiness? One may wonder.
We are forced to work in jobs that we hate so much so as to make end meal, to pursue causes that we don’t derive and satisfaction neither do we get fulfilment from. And, what is happiness anyway? What is satisfaction? fulfilment? What is the purpose of our happiness? One may wonder.
“On a tiny planet that has been racing towards oblivion for millions of years, we are born amid sorrow, we grow, we struggle, we blame, we suffer, we make others suffer, we cry out, we die, others die and news beings are born to begin the ‘senseless’ comedy over again” Ernesto Sabato in his famous writings, The Tunnel, once wrote. What a circus? There is a solution if old age is not to be an absurd parody of our former life, and, that is to go on pursuing ends that gives our existence a meaning- to devote to individuals, to groups or to causes, socially, politically, intellectually, or perhaps creative work. Or to jettison oneself to echelons of humanity and charitable works. To devote to works of environmental conservation, to sit by the park, to read, to write proses and poems…
Our lives have values so long as one attributes value to self, and to the lives of others, by means of love, compassion, friendship, humility, charity.