I am human. I share many elements of my nature with other beings on this planet. I laugh, I cry, I aspire to things, hope for things, wish for things, work for things. No different than it is for others, I am the amalgam of what I brought into this world interacting with all the stuff that has been incorporated into me through all the years since I got here.
We don’t get through life without having things stirring around inside our heads. In my head, there have always been issues struggling to get out. I long to express them, if only to myself. Gabby to a fault, I have no trouble vomiting it all out.
But getting it right inside my head before I spit it out is the wise thing to do. I must understand what it is that’s itching, burning, stuck in my craw, before I bring it into the light of day. This process can take some time, even years, even a lifetime.
Part of the issue for me is that I am driven to share my thoughts with others. I have illusions of grandeur. I really believe it matters if my ideas are shared. I believe the ideas can change people’s lives, as they have changed mine. Ultimately, though, it is up to others to make that judgment.
We have the daily issues that are urgent, demanding our focused attention in the now. These things come back to the surface when we have the luxury of time for contemplation. Are we on the right track? The decisions we are making about our careers, our partners, our children – are they the right ones for the people concerned? Such questions rise to the surface like a bad penny. We mostly shove them away again and again, not prepared to confront them. Sometimes, they are just too challenging, disturbing the bases on which we live.
If we are fortunate, we get to enjoy our share of the wonderful things in life that give us pleasure. Something as mundane as a good meal, or even a crust of bread when we are very hungry, a glass of cold, clear water when we are very thirsty. How about realizing the achievement of a goal that we have dreamed of for a long time? How about when something that is very painful stops hurting? Isn’t that a joy and a relief?
Holding a newborn in your arms, sensing the potential of new life, how about that? How about when you feel communion with another creature, human or animal, that takes you out of yourself to a union with them? That can alleviate, at least for a while, the essential loneliness that is our fate as human beings.
So, with all the pleasures and pain we are heir to, with all the wonders and horrors arrayed before our eyes and flooding into our minds, is our function only existential, is that why we are here, simply to live? Can we find some comfort and purpose in the belief in a deity that has concern for us personally? Or are we simply another life form improbably trial-and-errored successfully on this one planet out of countless more in the cosmos. The mind reels with the possibilities if we abandon our human-centred hypothesis of a caring life-force paying attention to our minuscule spot in our galaxy.
I had such simple goals when I was younger. I was going to sacrifice myself to achieve something much larger, greater, than myself. Martyrdom was my method, blood and sweat cast upon the dry soil, watering it so that flowers would bloom. So many die for no purpose. My sacrifice would have a purpose, I thought. Wasn’t that a worthy price to pay for the gift of life? Thankfully, I grew up!
Still, surely life must have a purpose beyond just breathing in and out, shouldn’t it? Is it just to be a matter of surviving? Should it be? Don’t we have a responsibility to do something about improving the world around us? These were the thoughts in my head as a young man. So many other men and women have left something behind – invention, industry, music, art, literature, leadership. We read about them. Surely, we ourselves can make a mark upon the wall of time like they did, can’t we?
I went off, like Don Quixote, to do battle, trying to subdue all the windmills I came across for the betterment of my fellow man, and to make my mark, of course. I am looking back now, very much closer to the end of my journey than to my beginning. It is not too soon to assess the results of my crusade. I did all the ordinary things, worked at several jobs I believe contained value, got married, had children. All of these were important in their way. But have they built an immortal edifice to my passage on this earth?
I face my life partner and my children and tell them that my aspirations were elsewhere and essentially were for naught. How much of the attention that I owed to them was spent on pursuing my ego-driven drive to find the building blocks of the Giza-like edifice I was determined to construct? And how ironic! My only long-term claims to fame and immortality reside in the lives I was privileged to be a part of. All my vaunted achievements with which I had consoled myself, labeling them as being worthy of merit, have vanished like dust scattered by the wind.
I retain my nostalgia for those breathless instants at the barricades. I am one of the lucky ones. I believe I have left something worthwhile behind.
Max Roytenberg is a Vancouver-based poet, writer and blogger. His book Hero in My Own Eyes: Tripping a Life Fantastic is available from Amazon and other online booksellers.