I wonder sometimes why people don’t think life is worth living. As a Christian, I see it worth living because of its great end, because of the afterlife. I see it worth living because I’m fighting for something, and I know in advance that the battle is as good as done. But that’s me. And to an extent, I’m wrapped up in my own Christian worldview, and have a difficulty understanding the world views of others when I come into one on one contact with them. It’s easy enough to define a worldview, or to name a worldview and list all the things that people believe, but people are themselves are much more complex than that. Sometimes you find them to be a whole mix of things.
The point is, I never expect to hear from people that life isn’t worth living, unless they tell me right up front they’re an Atheist. In my mind, the question is always “Why isn’t life worth living?” and the answer is: “Because you have nothing to live for, nothing lasting.” It’s nothing personal against Atheists, it would just make much more sense for them to say it than for a Christian.
But now here’s the point. If you feel that life isn’t worth living, find the life that is. There is only one, because the life worth living is the one that takes everything away and then gives you something back after the end. It’s the Life that deprives you even of your clothes and your body, your personal belongings, your family, the people you’ve loved, leaving your bare, shivering soul that is laying its eyes on this Life, and embracing it, and finally living it to the full. O, yes, I am an idealist, and this all sounds very idealistic, because it’s true idealism. The grimier life gets, the harder it gets, the bloodier, the more painful, that makes this Life more worth living than ever before. It gives you hope, and hope has never been like a beacon, or a light, in my experience. It has always been a desperate prayer, and faith that the prayer will be answered. Because in my darkest moments, there is only one way to look, and that is forwards, and forwards has always been black. There never was any light. Hope was desperate clinging, but knowledge and faith that there was something to cling to. We know when we live a nightmare of a life at times, that that life is not lasting, but the Life worth living is what we fight for, and it will come later, and last forever, and never give us the blackness or pain.
The Life worth living has love, and righteous anger, and hope, and faith, and self-sacrifice, and virtue. It is peaceful, and does not seek a quarrel, yet it is a war-filled life, battling against the forces that seek to push it down to the ground. But it will come out victorious.
But there have been those times, in the physical life, where you may have gotten up early in the morning and walked in your bare feet, and felt the cold dew on the grass sink into your skin. Or you may have stayed up late, and listened to the humming of nature, or heard that one bird that sang clearly and wouldn’t let your mind rest, its song was so beautiful. There may have been someone you loved, someone who loved you back who made your work seem light just because of the thought of them. There may have been a day where it rained and ruined your plans, so you sat with a cup of coffee, and felt the pulsing, trembling life pass around the world. And if you have experienced anything like this at all, hasn’t it made you feel like perhaps there is something, something in this life that has given you grace to be alive and enjoy it all?
Be like Henry David Thoreau, and suck out all the marrow of life. Find out what it is really is, and live it. Don’t waste your time. You’re alive now, and you might as well find out why you are so.
Carpe Diem 