"There is no permanence."
This quote means that everything in this world must eventually come to an end. Nothing lasts forever except for time. Time, coincidentally, is what causes everything to end, or die. Time transforms new to old, shiny to rusty, energetic to worn, fresh to stale.
As human beings we are scared of death and the end of everything we know and love. Eventually we must come to terms with the notion of death and impermanence and accept that everything must come to an end. Death is the natural part of the life cycle and it is the price every living thing pays for living.
Seldom does one generation think about the world ten generations later. Human beings abuse their world by doing what is easy: we consume ridiculous amounts of gasoline, paper, and other natural resources to satisfy the needs of "now." We do not think ahead of time what problems we could be causing for our relatives and the world in general by being so selfish. About half of the mature rain forests which once thrived have been felled in the selfish quest for resources to accommodate the growing population.
We must overcome our fear of death or we will be destined to be miserable our entire lives. Instead of waking up each day and contemplating how much time we may have left on earth, we must ask ourselves "How can I make the most out of today?" and ignore that we will eventually die. "Give in to love, or live in fear." This quote from the musical RENT can be applied to the notion of living everyday to its fullest. Many of the characters in RENT have AIDS and must learn to cope with the disease and overcome their fear of dying from it. Instead of sitting around and thinking about how they will die, the characters celebrate life and open their hearts in unexpected ways.
Similarly, we must open our hearts and love as much as we possibly can because, after all, life is about loving. Without love we are miserable. We all naturally feel the need to love and be loved. We are able to cope with the notion of death by loving. With love, we can overcome anything, even death. Even though a loved one may die, the time you and that person shared will live on in your memory and that is how he or she lives on forever. Knowing that you loved and that you were loved in return is worth the price of death.
We go through life following a very regulated path. From the time we are only a few years old we are told what we must do to have a "happy life": go to school, go to college, get a job, get married, have children. Is that really the key to happiness? Is that how we want to spend our one life? We don't think about these things when we are so young, we're just happy to have a path to follow. It is when we get older that we question this vision of the ideal life. We ask ourselves "what about what I want to do with my life?" and "what makes me happy?" The answer to these questions are the only things that will give us a sense of satisfaction and happiness in living. It is when we do not know what makes us happy when we turn to fame in desperation of being remembered forever. The fear that you will die without being remembered is one of the most common amongst human beings. Being remembered forever is, in a way, living forever.
After Enkidu's death, Gilgamesh becomes obsessed with finding eternal life since he is scared of dying. He is unable to find eternal life and lives out the rest of his days miserable. The ironic thing about Gilgamesh is that he did in fact live on through literature and accomplished his quest for eternal life.
The thing we must remember is that we must make the most of each day by loving and trying as many new things as possible. We must live in the moment and not think about the past or the future. This is how we will get full satisfaction out of life and, in a way, even cheat death.
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Now playing: Rufus Wainwright - Do I Disappoint You
via FoxyTunes
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