A simple grave.
The end of life.
So, what is life about if this is the result?

Life has meaning.
But, it's up to us to each find our own meaning.

It might seem that life's meaning/purpose is simply to live.

But, what about suffering?

There is some suffering that's so extreme and some lives that have so little pleasure to balance out the suffering ........ What about those lives?

Of course, I'm just one of those people that's horrified at suffering. My suffering has been almost exclusively in my head and largely of my own making (a result of living in fear & horror).
OK. So maybe I should focus on what I know ........ my own life, my own kind and level of suffering, my own experiences.

I can't remember who said ...... 'The brave dies only once. The coward dies a thousand deaths.' Whoever said it, it is true.

So, who am I to consider the suffering of others and the meaning of their lives. I can only deal with what I know for myself. So let's stop dying a thousand deaths and start learning to live ...... including to live in the knowledge of my ONE death.




We get so pressured to 'accomplish' something with our lives. But, accomplish what?

Several years ago I was thinking about this need to accomplish. I felt so pressured to be successful, to accomplish something with my life. But, nothing seemed enough. Nothing short of becoming a doctor or lawyer, although preferrably a Supreme Court judge or President or ........ Jesus.

Nothing seemed enough.

But, then I wondered about why. I imagine what it would matter in 100 years, or 200.

Eventually, no one short of Presidents and such will be remembered. And even they will only be remembered in a very limited way. As a bunch of impersonal statistics.

So, even if I did become a doctor or lawyer (anything but the most famous), I would eventually be forgotten. So, what's the point?

There is the good we do in/with our lives, of course. But, that doesn't require status or worldly accomplishment.

Then there's our children and grandchildren. They will remember us.

But, only to a point.

I will become a memory. Then a distant memory. After a few generations, even my name will be forgotten (except for maybe a name written on a family tree). And, eventually, even any record of my name will be lost ........ as if I had never existed.




So, this is it ....... right here ....... right now.

Now what?

There's the pleasure we get in life, and there's the good we do in our lives.

I have done very little with my life so far. At least, in a worldly sense. I have raised children. That's about it. They're some pretty wonderful kids. But, they're grown now. They don't need me anymore. Not in any really serious way.



At this point, the best thing I can do for them is to be a good example in order to avoid being a really bad example and causing them psychological damage. In other words, the best thing I can do for them now is to learn to be happy and to not drag them down.

What will be left of me?

I will live on IN my children.

Just as I feel that I am a part of my mother and my grandmother (and my father, etc.). I am also part of my children.
Of course, that also applies to the fact that all life is related. And I really do FEEL that relationship sometimes. When I read about the first oxygen-based life forms, I feel something inside that says it's a part of who I am. This is my ancestor, whose spirit lives on in me.

All this awareness that all is one, that all is connected and conscious, the awareness of the eternal .......... All this tends to distract me overly from the here and now, from the business of living my own, one, personal life.

In the meantime, .
life goes
. on



So, here we are. Back to the here and now.