You can’t tell the depth of river by looking at it from the bank (unless its particularly shallow and clear). Only by diving in and feeling for the bottom can the true depth be determined. Of course, one always could tie a string to a weight and measure it, but this would only give you the depth in an abstract sense (you still wouldn’t have experienced the depth of the river; unless you’ve dove that deep before you have no real idea what its like to swim that deep) -- this is besides the point, however. The true depth of any words cannot be determined at a glance. The shallowest phrases can appear deeper than the oceans while the deepest essays show themselves as mere puddles. Dickens never saw himself as penning great English literature, he was writing for money. You can easily tell -- all those long, drawn out explanations and descriptions? He was being paid by a magazine per page; he was writing for money and paid for quantity. Surely, the quality was an afterthought (or he simply was that brilliant of a writer).
All the writings I did in high-school that I considered “deep” and “meaningful” I read now and find shallow and simplistic; the literary voice of my younger self beats the reader about the head with blunt, obvious metaphors yet still finds itself clever for finding a meaningful metaphor at all. The irony, of course, is that I find it utterly impossible to motivate my more mature, current voice to speak into the keyboard in a coherent fashion. I’m left writing first-person reflections on trivial topics, occasionally wandering towards deeper waters by never by any act of self-volition and never with any real purpose in mind. I find I’m able to extemporize on any number of supposedly deep topics, embracing issues from all sides and angles, yet feel no attachment to my work whatsoever. Rarely are the views I fiercely argue in public my own; I hold myself up as a knowledgeable figure (expert in my own mind, really) simply because I know a few facts and am certain of my oratory ability to convince those around me of the rightness of my stance.
A part of me longs to be a writer, to be able to express myself through powerful words, allegories so rich in meaning that entire classes could be taught on them while the casual reader will still be able to come away having related to the work and consider themselves better for having read it. I’ve always wanted to write the next “instant classic” or “great American novel”. I want to create characters that embody what everyman and everywoman sees in themself, that embody the struggles of self-definition, self-differentiation, and the needs to love, be loved, and belong. I dream of producing something great that will stand long after I am gone and provide entertainment, education, escape, and perhaps even enlightenment to those who deem it worthy of their time. Is not everyone sincerely afraid of one day being forgotten, of being deemed insignificant on the roles of history, of leaving behind no sign they ever were? Why else do we worry about family name’s dying out in the “last son” -- for if nothing else, we can leave behind our seed and name for the future, hoping they will flourish and grow (Abraham’s great nation...even the holy ones were worried about being forgotten by those yet to come).
People imbue their lives full of meaning with every breath they take. Our very capitalist society is based on the idea that consumption yields meaning, that we can purchase not a purely physical object but some meta-physical emotion, idea, image...or meaning. We define ourselves with our purchases and feel we have accomplished something by buying something. Job satisfaction is low when people feel they are producing nothing of value. Historically, religion flourishes as consumption declines, and the increase in consumption is invariably to a decline in religion. We focus on the afterlife only when forced to abandon hope in the currentlife, and retreat to the pastlife when futurelife holds nothing more for us. One of the greatest tragedies of aging is the loss of memory--the last retreat of the soul, into the depths of past experiences, is blocked utterly by an inability to recall the events of yesterday, much less 10 years ago.
The meaning of life is love; through relationships we make ourselves greater than the sums of our individual parts. If we live on in the memories of others, do we also somehow survive in others memories of those who remember us? Is it possible, generation by generation, to trace back to “Adam and Eve”, recreating the past from the present, all through memories? What happens to those lonely few whom no one remembers? What of those remembered only with animosity and hate? Is it more important to be remembered with love than to accomplish great deeds while living?
Depressing that with each passing year, I get closer and closer to the years of my life I long to be living yet proportionally am closer to the end of physical existence. My greatest nightmares as a child were never of monsters or falling. The most terrifying were those of nothingness, of dreaming I had died and now no longer existed. In some, I was able to think and reflect on life before my “death” but was so utterly alone...hell truly is an eternity alone (for even an eternity of torment with others offers the solace of shared misery). But the worse moments were those few endless moments right before sleep when I tried to contemplate the endlessness of eternity and infinity and found myself, for the shortest instant imaginable, able to place myself in the context of the infinite universe. Pure terror and helplessness...a sane person cannot begin to imagine how small and insignificant we are (LESS than insignificant, so much less it cannot be verbalized!) when compared to infinity. Our actions cannot possibly, by any stretch of the imagination, effect anything on an infinite scale worthy of being remembered. In those moments, I couldn’t help but feel God could not possibly care for me, for I was so far beneath Him as to be unnoticeable. Yet, unfathomably, my faith in God was only strengthen by this, and I find myself certain that I am living a meaningful life, that I have some destiny that I must accomplish (that I have chosen to accomplish).
“If we are meant to be forever, only then, let us be”. That, love, was my plea of faith. It is not a given, it is not easy, but it is certain that this is destiny. Destiny is not externally forced upon us or made to come about; we accept it and make it our own by embracing it.
I love you, forever and always. ^ ^
Posted by Viper37 at January 22, 2007 10:18 PM