Without seeming redundant, I find myself coming back to this topic again... The meaning of life - in particular, my own life. Make no mistake, I love what I do - love playing the violin, love using that gift to make people happy. I love being kind, and I love loving others, and seeing how happy it makes them - making the world a better place, in small ways. But I find I am still missing something. Some people have such a simplistic view of life that it irritates me. I always end the conversation feeling like I was a 'downer'. No doubt they hated that I basically shot down everything they said, in regards to how they get through life. What can I say? I'm a dreamer; I hate the mundane-ness of everyday life. I don't need to 'wake up to reality'.
Perhaps, instead, they need to wake up to a life beyond what the fickle eyes can see, and the fickle skin can touch. Such people have no imagination whatsoever - or, what they do have, is wasted on trying to make reality a different thing. I admire that, to a certain extent. It must be difficult - using such an unlimited resource as the imagination, corralled to function only within such a limited existence as this world's reality. Myself, I find reality to be riddled with frustrations, blocked roads, and a to-do list that never dies (really - have you ever thought about that? There's always something else to do.). So often I find myself hating all of the things I have to do. Day in and day out, we adults go to work (and if we're really lucky, we might enjoy it), get a paycheck, come home, cater to whatever the people in your life need/want, hopefully get someone to tell you they love you (and mean it), go to bed, and start the whole shebang over again the next morning. Work, the schedule, the to-do list... They are only a means of further organizing time - specifically, the time in which we plan to live. All I'm saying... is that there is so much more to life... than concentrating on getting check-marks.
Of course, reality does have some beautiful moments - and those are the moments I find myself reveling in long after they've happened. They are the things that inspire me to dream... To dream of what life could be, if only... Ah, if only.
Perhaps the best fiction writers in history thought the same way. For that is what fiction is - a way to explore what can never be real; to live in a world not our own, and to maybe - if only for a few moments - be someone else... Someone else completely different... Or maybe someone even more like ourselves than we are allowed to be in the day-to-day. Ultimately, I find that reality is what we make it - and mine entails a lot of time spent in the un-reality. That doesn't bother me; I don't know why it should bother anyone else. They say I am letting my life pass me by - but am I not also accomplishing many good things in the day-to-day?
I think life is often encapsulated in the desires that are greater than life - not the ones that fit within it. Have you never wished to be a hero? Someone that people remember, as being a person with great courage and heart? It's not the legacy that matters. It's that you made a real difference. In real life, you hold the door for someone, you compliment them, maybe even help them get through a difficult situation. And these are wonderful things - don't think I am belittling them with this talk of mine. But have you ever saved the world...? Ever saved someone's life - maybe thousands of lives...? Even if you're a doctor or someone in a position to do so, the glory is lacking. Blood, sweat and tears make reality what it is - painful... maddening... maybe even devastating.
'Reality', in my terms, is the pain of life; the things that make life mundane, painful, and difficult to live. Yet most people live as though this is all there is to life, end of story. They settle for thinking that 'this is all there is; thus, I should concentrate on getting through everything, and then I'll be all right'. What a waste. Why do such people claim to believe in God, and in Heaven, if this is how they talk and think and speak? Clearly, these people have lost sight of what is really real; not the life we see before us. But the life that is to come. I'm not a survivor. I don't believe in just gritting my teeth and getting through everything that comes my way. That's far too simple, and far too heart- and soul-killing. I live for the 'what could be'.
And even if it never comes to be in the next life, I don't feel my imagination has been wasted. Perhaps someday I'll write a great work of fiction - one that will resonate with people for centuries and generations to come; or maybe not. But somehow, I feel I was made for more than just 'surviving'. Because in my opinion, if you're 'surviving'... You're not really living.
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