Life In A Lifetime

Not that I am turning into a philosopher, but how else to express my life? Nothing about my life is particularly interesting, except the stuff I think and my thoughts on the things that others think. Existentialist thought tends to boils down reality into logical mush like "man is an island" or "perception is the only reality we can realize." But at times, such thought can be helpful to crystalize the inner desires that we have, and so I utilize what little I know to help me understand my own life.

One existentialist thought revolves around the desperate attempt to capture life in a lifetime. It is almost cruel to think of all the things that people have experienced or seen or felt, and not having the opportunity to have those things for yourself. In my own life, I've often felt this desperation to do or see more, and so I resonate this thought.

More eloquent individuals than me have expressed in fewer words what I am trying to say, but the meaning is the same: we are given a mind that can think of the infinite, and yet our poor bodies have not the time or resources to come close. Some have called this "despair", but I think this is far too defeatist.

I am a romantic, and not just in the episodic duality between lovers, but in the emotive sense of having idealist visions of the perfect song, summer sunset, or the patient snow taking its time to cover all the dirt of the world in silence. So it is with a sense of sadness that I think of the people that have come and gone never to tell their stories to me, their memories of the perfect day or night, speechless witnesses to an idyllic scene.

We are forced into this world without choice, thrust into competition from the moment we are born- could there be a more harsh taskmaster than a laissez faire economy that indifferently crushes as much hope as it creates? Sink or swim, we adapt and learn, but we rarely pause to see. And what is this life but a series of pushes toward self-reliance and the promise of something greater. It is ironic that the "greater" is all around us, and too often we of ignorant minds fail to grasp this truth. There probably should be balance in this, and I'm not sure where I fall on the scale. It is too bad that the mundane world of work and living is far less interesting than the infinite reaches of memory and the mind's eye.

Many summers ago, my friends and I were trespassing on a private beach on that little jut of New Hampshire land that actually touches the ocean. The ground was rapidly cooling from the then-hours ago departure of the the hardworking Sun, but the soft whooshing ocean waters was loathe yet to give up its warmth. We were disappointed at the shyness of the full moon to make its debut on the cloudless midnight blue stage, but we took off our shoes and strolled along the water's edge anyway.

There wasn't much to talk about, and it wasn't worth spoiling the mood with idle chatter. And it became impossible to say anything, as we looked down at our naked feet and saw hundreds of lumninescent sparks dancing with the sea shells. I could not decide which was more beautiful, the purple to blue sky imprinted with its silent stars, or the navy blue water singing its lullaby with its lumniscence. I heard a sharp cry of surprise or pain, and I was shaken out of my reverie. My eyes followed my friend's hand stretched out to the horizon, and I saw something I don't think I'll ever see again: a fireball orange moon as large as a quarter of the sky rising over the ocean horizon. The brilliance of the moon pushed out over the rippling ocean, leaving orange stepping stones from the beach to the thin line that separated sky from water. I think that if I were braver, I would have tried to walk to the moon that was just beyond my fingertips.

No, I don't despair at life. God's gift so cherished cannot elicit rage or pity. I do hold sadness though, as I dream of the lives and places I will never see.

CS Lewis wrote, "When we are such as He can love without impediment, we shall in fact be happy." The impediment in my life is time, and perhaps we were not meant to be happy in such a way, at least not until we kneel before the Infinite One and cast our mortality aside. I may not be able to capture life in a lifetime, but I am certain that my world is better off knowing the Sadness than being ignorant of it all.

-David