Monday open thread: Between Two Worlds
Like death.
Yesterday, if you read the comments, was a day for my family. Our mother was rushed to the emergency room when my brother tried to wake her up to feed her breakfast, and she was unresponsive. She eventually woke up at the hospital, and as far as the doctors can figure out there was nothing wrong with her.
Although we are grateful, it was a sudden reminder that death haunts us at every turn. It was a reminder to not waste a moment with those you love. The universe is a cruel and unforgiving creature, and can turn on you at any moment—not out of malice, but merely because of the way the machine is built.
But the universe's uncaring nature is far from a reason to despair. If anything, this nature is even more reason to create meaning for your life. It's even more of a reason to squeeze out every bit of joy and purpose out of a life which otherwise may seem meaningless.
Well-intentioned people have often asked how I can find sense in a life in which I don't believe in God. I speak only for myself: I define my life by what I bring to it. I find meaning by what I do in the world, by how much solace I can bring to those with whom I interact, by how I impact even people with whom I have just a passing encounter. Of course, the irony is that this is the message of all the great religious traditions. This is why I find perversions of the messages of the sages like Jesus so disgusting; why I find people like Joel Osteen to be nothing but apostates, as they've replaced the God of love with Mammon, no matter how many biblical verses they may quote.
I watched this report last week, and I'm still ruminating on it. Like Suleika Jaouad, I've been struggling with survivor's guilt for, well, a long time. My life is the life of love which I had always wanted for myself. I have a career which fulfills me; a wife whom I love utterly; family and friends who enrich me and strengthen. Why me? What did I do to deserve such bounty? And the answer is: sheer luck. Which makes me even more determined to mine and extract meaning out of my life. Living a life of service is, at least for me, how I ensure that I make a difference in this world.
This is why I don't understand people like Donald Trump. I don't understand people whose only goal in life is to aggrandize themselves, who feel they have to squash anyone in their path on the off-chance they might get hurt or be denied their whims. For such people I feel many emotions, but ultimately I feel pity, a pity that they've wasted their lives on things which don't matter. Whether or not you believe in a divinity, such a life is squandering the most precious gift given to us: The ability to draw in breath, to think, to feel, to be a better human.
I hope that I'm always more like Suleika. Questioning rarely leads to an answer; but it often leads to many little answers, which, taken together, impart a sort of understanding. It's the best we mere mortals can achieve. It'll do.