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When you reach the end of your journey, will you be able to look back on a life well lived?
by Marcelo Gleiser
http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2012/02/01/146157261/the-mayan-apocalypse-and-the-meaning-of-life?sc=fb&cc=fp
Two days ago I listened to a lecture on the Mayan “prediction” of the apocalypse, which millions believe will take place on 21 December 2012. The lecturer was one of the world’s foremost experts in archaeoastronomy, Prof. Anthony Aveni, from Colgate University.
According to Aveni, the scant Mayan documentation that can be interpreted as saying anything about the end of the world should be seen not as predicting an apocalyptic end but a rebirth, which always happens at the end of a calendric cycle. Although to most people it will either be a blow up or a bliss out, the reality is much tamer than that.
I actually addressed the Mayan end-of-days fallacy in some detail in a past post here at 13.7 and don’t want to belabor the theme.
However, while Aveni was explaining why a planetary alignment won’t do anything to us — “did you know that Venus contributes only 1/500th of an inch to earthly tides?”— ditto with solar flares or an alignment with the galactic center, common phenomena without much to fear, he also asked why do people of all ages, past and present, have such a fixation with ideas of the end, and why this is particularly acute in America.
Here we circle back to Haque’s question of what makes a life meaningful, and we see that fears of the end are often related to fears of having lived a meaningless life.
Haque’s focus on meaningfulness seems to rely on legacy. At the risk of oversimplifying his remarks, his point is that people spend too much of their lives in trivialities and thus feel trapped in an empty existence when, instead, they should be investing their time in generating something that “stands the test of time,” “the test of excellence,” and the “test of you.”
We are creatures bound by time, and our awareness of this simple and ruthless truth feeds some our best and worst deeds. Most of us fear the lack of control that we have when it comes to the passage of time. So we find ways to stay on, even if we are no longer present in body. We only truly disappear when people stop remembering us.
(What do you know of your great-great-grandparents? Add extra “greats” as needed.)
However, there need not be anything elitist about the nature of this legacy. It’s not all about getting a Nobel prize or composing a symphony or writing a poem that will be read hundreds of years from now. Raising a good family, creating a recipe that goes down from generation to generation, making someone’s life better, inspiring young students, all should count as a legacy. I’m sure you have your own examples.
The issue that muddles this discussion is the matter of value. What has value to me may not to you and vice-versa. What is meaningful to me may not be to you, and vice-versa. So, it’s quite difficult to come up with universals of meaningfulness and say this is what makes a life worth living.
To a certain extent, if we have good health, the next most important thing is probably freedom. And, in my view, to be truly free is to be able to choose to what or whom you will commit. It could be a family recipe book, a new theorem, or a life of devotion to the poor.
In any case, a life that was well-lived would never be long enough. This, perhaps, is the essence of the human predicament. We all struggle to find our own way out of it.
The Expressionists View
I read this article very early one morning when I was having trouble sleeping, and I was really simply amazed at what the author described as a meaningful life…having good health or creating a cookbook…really WOW! I need to state that again: WOW! That is a meaningful life? That’s kind of sad.
I guess I think of those who struggled with health issues all of their lives and yet accomplished much or others who were not creative cooks yet went on to impact the world around them. I feel there is a giant hole in this article that the author does not see, much like a giant elephant in the room that no one notices.
What makes the idea of the world ending in 2012 so riveting to people; what makes life worth living? What is life all about even? These are questions that man, religion, philosophy, the arts and sciences have been wrestling with since the beginning of our being.
So…What is a life well lived? I feel the author never really answered it or even gave a view but danced around the question in a typical post-modern fashion with the hip “it doesn’t really matter” attitude.
Here’s some of my thoughts and expressions.
The Westminster Catechism asks the question: What is the chief end of man? and answers it: Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.
That sort of transforms the whole question and places it into another level of experience and meaning. We are now no longer the center of the universe but a created being with a purpose…a very important and unique purpose. 2 Timothy 1:8-10 (HCSB) has Paul explaining to his young mentor Timothy that God has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began. This has now been made evident through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who has abolished death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.
I guess the meaning of life or a well-lived life can only be brought into focus through the way we view the world which, of course, is daily changing through our experiences, relationships and personal revelations of life. What then is our guide, our mile marker/signpost to lead us through this fog of life? What is not changing but is true? I guess for me, instead of playing ping pong over the abyss, I have placed my trust in Jesus Christ and allow His word, the Bible, to guide me as long as I am willing to humble myself, listen, and learn. I hope that example that I try to lead, as flawed as I am, can be a life worth lived that leads to an eternal existence.
To look at a modernist view from the mid-twentieth century, Dylan Thomas poetically exhorts us to passionately live life that makes an impact
DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
.
In a parting thought Paul states to the believers in Philippians, ” …work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who is working in you, enabling you both to desire and to work out His good purpose.” Philippians 2:11-13
