“Life should fulfill me.”
Who asks what life expects from them?
Anyone?
Here I am stopped in my tracks by our town’s “Before I die…” public art installation. I am impressed, as you can tell. Seriously. Young people would appear to have dug deep to chalk up their hopes and dreams.
Walk the Camino
Travel the world
Make amends
Conquer all my fears
Take care of someone who doesn’t have a home
Etcetera…
Ignore “BBQ a cat” and “Have a light-sabre duel”, for the most part this anonymous wish list reveals the yearning for meaning.
“Before I die…” originated in New Orleans. It has since spread around the world, but the aspirations are similar:
See equality
Be completely myself
Understand why I’m here
Live for today
Etcetera…
Some of these dreams could be bumper stickers, but so what? I see no reason to believe that the responses are insincere. In fact, I feel as if I’m peering into the open heart of a generation.
Sigmund Freud would have us believe that we are victims of our instincts, trapped in orbits of sex, power, and survival. But look again—most of these confessions aren’t subject to that gravity field at all.
Expand my mind
Find my purpose
Understand death
Viktor Frankl (another Vienna psychiatrist) became convinced that the most human among us are concerned with something or someone beyond our conventional desires. He should know. He survived Auschwitz. Says Frankl:
“The more one forgets himself—by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love—the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself.”
In the concentration camps, Frankl noticed that the life force ebbed most quickly in those who lost all meaning to their lives. He tended his comrades, presenting them with a similar Before you die… challenge.
“Travel the world?” “Swim with dolphins?” Hardly. These men needed to find meaning in their suffering. But they had given up. Frankl knew they must not give up.
“We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life…”
Frankl asked them to turn the conventional wisdom about “meaning” on its head.
“We had to learn…that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.
We’re led to believe that we’re hopelessly caught in the gravity field of the material world. And then you stumble upon evidence of kids falling upwards.
What does life expect from us?
That we’ll grow up.
I don’t know about where you live, but I’m mighty encouraged by the kids in my neighbourhood.
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
From a friend, an amazing email telling me how this blog post reminded him of a years-old dream. As you’ll see, it is strikingly similar to Viktor Frankl’s enlightened “attitude shift” mentioned in the blog post.
With Donald Meuse’s permission, I’m editing his email and posting it here. In the dream, Mr. Meuse was one of a group of old men in Auschwitz:
“[We were] discussing the meaning of the evil that would claim us all…the meaningless of being. There was a lot of wringing of hands and questions about how the God of the Jews could allow this to happen.
“A person spoke up (me?) and turned the entire argument on its head with some simple observation about forgetting God and evil – and right or wrong – and learning to live in this one moment unafraid of the death that awaited us all.
“It had a lot to do with snatching a personal victory from evil. To believe that God was letting one down was a victory for the Evil.
“What seemed to be important amidst all this horror was that…the inevitability of death was inconsequential in comparison to how one went to the gas chamber. Grace in the face of evil.
“To die in a state of freedom from the manner of death was the answer to the inevitability of evil. Because we’re all going to die.
“Or that’s how I remember it all these years later.”
This could be a blog post itself. So feel free to comment on this post script as well.
Hi PJ,
Where is this? Gibsons?
Yes, right here in the lower village, on the water… just down the way from Smitties Oyster Bar.
Hi PJ! I hadn’t heard of the Before I die… art works. That’s pure art to my mind, art that requires audience participation and promotes original thought.
This week I had a similar moment of inspiration. One of the wonderful members of my group ‘Writing for Children’ has been advising me on arranging my first website. I was impressed with the story about herself she has on the first page of hers. It really drew me in. She said that the way she approached it was, she kept the mindset at all times, what would she want her grandchildren to know about her when she’s gone? Boy that struck me to my core. Brought tears to the old eyes no less! For some reason — maybe avoidance — I have never thought about my writing from that point of view before. It changed my whole outlook.
I went from thinking I’ll set my website up one day to I need to get this done now. You never know how long you’ve got. Boy that gives procrastination a kick in the pants huh?!
What a cool project. It should be in every neighborhood. I love that this is art that everyone can contribute to. Before I die, I want to create. Isn’t it lovely that this project gives everyone a chance to do that?
Yes, the blogocosmos is a fantastic mutual support system. So much so that it threatens our productivity as writers. And yet a writer today needs a web platform, without question. I see bloggers like Joe Bunting and Leo Babaouta working hard to find the right balance of writing/promotion/participation. It’s strikes me as a critical challenge… and I hope you can find it, Yvette, when you dive into the deep end of e-Life.
Yes, Callie… and I get the feeling that the contributors have liberated some stuck energy. These are secret desires they’re confessing to. Standing before these blackboards — there’s a feeling of massive and joyful energy. Such a simple idea. So healthy for the community. Maybe you can launch one in your neighbourhood. Click on the link in the blog post that connects to the New Orleans artist who invented this… her name is Candy Chang. Cheers.
Hi, P.J.
Wow, it seems the Muse visits you in different ways, sometimes even altering her spelling (Meuse) slightly. Mr. Meuse’s dream comes across as an extraordinary epiphany on the nature/problem/reality of Evil. Even Jesus, when pressed to the lumber, cried out ‘Father,why hast Thou forsaken me?’ I do not mean this in an ego stroking way, but I suspect Mr. Meuse to be a man of unusual spiritual fortitude to constellate or attract such a dream-vision into his psyche. Would heartily recommend a perusal of Stephen Batchelor’s book, “Living With the Devil: A Meditation on Good and Evil.” … a brilliant work for which Donald Meuse’s dream is apt prologue.
I love this question, “Who asks what life expects of them?” And especially appreciate the Viktor Frankl quotes. To me this describes the very beginning of real life, the willingness to respond to what life expects from us. Sometimes I question how I can know what that is, but then I am struck in moments by the certitude that my own whole body delight is a symptom of having met that expectation for a moment.
“My own whole body delight”… now that’s very interesting because it sounds like a drug rush, or the temporary sating of any addiction. They say that a person’s perceived lack of meaning can lead to addictions. So your au natural “body delight” would be what the addict clamours for. Too bad you can’t bottle it up, Rick. But as Viktor Frankl reminds us, “Meaning must be found and cannot be given.”
What a cool public art piece, I love it! And, in general, I’m SO impressed with the younger generations these days. They are far more together than I was at that age and it gives me great hope for the future.
The question “what does life expect from us” brings up an interesting point. I think that no one can answer incorrectly. I believe that life expects us to be true to ourselves. So what life expects from you is what you expect from yourself… and you’ll know because it’s whatever feels right.
Thanks, Leanna… sounds like you’re talking about our “conscience” guiding us — “whatever feels right”. Viktor Frankl, who wrote “Man’s Search for Meaning”, felt that the conscience was proof that humans have a deep-seated impulse toward self-transcendence. Drop back to the site again. I look forward to hearing more from you.