Times like this, I feel like life is great. I guess the secret to happiness is getting a good start every morning. This can take the form of waking up at a reasonable hour, taking a good shower, having the perfect cup of coffee, having a good hair day, finding parking, wearing comfortable clothes, being on time. Imagine a morning when one or a combination of these factors do not happen. That’s the recipe for hell.
I’ve been contemplating over the last few days – what is the meaning of life? Aside from the ponderous reasons, of course. I mean, in its crudest, most simplified form, why do we get up in the mornings, and what are we interested in? What I have concluded is dull and disappointing. It’s to make money. More euphemistically, it’s to make a living, but that just translates into making money. We think up ways to make our lives meaningful, and more profitable, and that inevitably involves expense. I know nobody who is like Buddha, who can just chill on a deserted island somewhere with all the rations they’ll need, and simply exist with the lilting natural scenery and believe that it is enough just to see the sun rise and set every day. No, my typical friend would eventually yearn for a television so that they can watch just one more episode of “Friends” or “Joe Millionaire” or “TRL Live.” They would start to wonder how the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy eventually panned out; and if Maxis developed another expansion pack yet for “The Sims.” Then they would say, “I can’t eat these damned coconuts, I want a Zone bar,” or, “This water is intolerable, where is my Volvic?” Another friend would say, “The sun damage is destroying me – the first thing I’m going to do when I see land is make an appointment with my facialist and get some of this hair growth waxed.”
So then you say, well, if this friend did not know of the existence of entertainment, or gaming, or fad diets, or beauty treatments, then the yen for it would also not exist. And that is exactly the point. Our demands accumulate and accumulate, and there is now no possibility that we can truly strip ourselves of all the luxuries that are a part of normal life as we see it. You’d think that all you need to live is food, water, air, and shelter. And then after that, intangible necessities like companionship, love, and a few interests. But I know nobody, myself included, who can subsist merely with these elements. In fact, to make anybody to do so nowadays would be to unjustly deny them of their natural right to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness – in other words, the constitutional meaning of life. I can just see the whining now.
posted by Lucy Sloan @ 3:05 PM
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