Saw an early thirty year old with metastatic colon cancer today.
I see a dozen tragedies a week. But this dude was younger than me.
Enjoy life. It doesn’t last forever.
Discussion
I think about these situations a lot.
When I think someone very ill is younger than me, it assumes import on the 1st face of growth - personal physical increase in time and space. And in that facet - I will likely outgrow him or her.
But the other faces of growth I think make us human are
- mental / intellectual (growth in knowledge)
- Social / emotional (growth in friends / family / social contacts)
- spiritual (non physical)
Growth in any of these facets is life worth saving / preserving. But while the 1st facet is the required foundation for all the others, it’s also the only face of growth that has to end at death.
You work 8 hours to live 4.
You work 6 days to enjoy 1.
You work 8 hours to eat in 15 minutes.
You work 8 hours to sleep 5.
You work all year just to take a week or two vacation.
You work all your life to retire in old age,
And contemplate only your last breaths.
Eventually you realize that life is nothing but a parody of yourself practicing for your own oblivion.
We have become so accustomed to material and social slavery that we no longer see the chains.
Life is a short journey, live it! Collect memories, not material things!
Amen to that
