The Real Question….
Where Do You Find the Meaning of Life?
Read that again!
The question is not—“WHAT is the
meaning of life.”
The question is “WHERE do you find
the meaning of life?”
The difference is that if you ask “what,” then you have to state an
objective value—of the mind.
If you ask
“where” do you find it—then you know subjectively—of the heart.
That may not sound like a big difference.
But if you settle for “what it may be,” then
the discussion is over.
Whereas—if I
know where to find the meaning of life—then, I am on a journey.
Got it?
Life is not a problem to solve in the present, it is a journey toward
ultimate meaning.
Here are two authors.
Which side of
the balance do you come down on?
Where
do you place the weight of your experience?
EXAMPLE 1:
Leo Buscaglia & The Fall of Freddie the Leaf
The theme is that Life is stronger
than individual lives which pass away.
Our joy comes from the moment of knowing we are a part of Life. Death is to be an accepted part of life in
the “fall season of death.” So Freddie
the leaf falls from the tree and has a momentary glimpse of the whole tree
before passing into nothingness.
Freddie asks his friend, Daniel:
"Then
what has been the reason for all of this? Why were we here at all if we only
have to fall and die?"
Daniel answered in his matter-of-fact way
,
"It's been about the sun and the moon. It's been about happy times
together. It's been about the shade and the old people and the children. It's
been about colors in Fall. It's been about seasons. Isn't that enough?"
What do you, the reader think—is that enough?
For many—it is enough to make your own
meaning in the present. The rest is “pie in the sky.”
When Freddie does fall from the tree, the
narrator repeats the great theme of enduring Life:
Freddie landed on a clump of snow. It
somehow felt soft and even warm. In this new position he was more comfortable
than he had ever been. He closed his eyes and fell asleep. He did not know that
Spring would follow Winter and that the snow would melt into water. He did not
know that what appeared to be his useless dried self would join with the water
and serve to make the tree stronger. Most of all, he did not know that there,
asleep in the tree and the ground, were already plans for new leaves in the
Spring.
EXAMPLE
2:William Blake & Auguries of Innocence
Notice how he moves out of the
natural world into the spiritual. He
does not stop in the physical realm, but journeys toward the ultimate. The same could be said of William Wordsworth
and Intimations of Immortality. The natural world leads to the spiritual,
ultimate one.
To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
So What Do You Think? Or Feel?
Remember the real question—not “what” but “where” do you find the meaning of life?
You can easily stop with Buscaglia and “Freddie” in the immediate world—we pass this way once,
are aware of Life, and that’s that—blunt but honest. Or, is there a sense in the natural world, a deeper
vision or intimation that we are going with Life on a journey. Not just passing away, but passing on….
Think of it, feel with it--every time you see the fall colors.
