Live

I’ve never really gotten why two people will go and sign a marriage contract. I mean, what’s the use of signing the contract and then, several years and kids later, after having tired of the other’s kinks and faults, after having gotten wind of the other’s secret vices and hitherto unknown bad habits, those same two people will suddenly wake up and realize that they hate each other’s guts and that they can’t stand one another.

Then, what either or both of them will do is look for happiness somewhere else, probably scarring their children emotionally in the process.

It happens to most everyone; everyone knows it. It’s like people have been handed a formula for disaster, but they go ahead and go through the process anyway.


And yet, having said all that- when, as in the movies, the hero will cross enemy lines and, braving the enemy, bullets whizzing by, with reckless disregard as to his own safety, rescue the one he loves- I’ll still go and shed a tear over it.


I’ll borrow a line from Flyboys (James Franco)- though the line is more an aphorism than it is an original, “You go and find your own meaning in war.” So with life.

When all of it seems senseless, the reality being that we are really only marching to our deaths, what we do is define what life is and what it should be about, to avoid pulling the trigger on our heads. Life is love. Or life is service. Or life is living.

Sigh.

For centuries, men have tried to figure out what life is. And yet the answer to that riddle, of what the meaning of life is, is as countless as there have been those of us who have lived and are living on this planet. We’re supposed to figure things out for ourselves and live.

Requiem. Have a meaningful life.