“I think of life as a good book. The further you get into it, the more it begins to make sense”
To wonder too openly, or intensely, about the meaning of life sounds like a peculiar, ill-fated, and unintentionally comedic pastime. It isn’t anything an ordinary mortal should be doing or would get very far by doing. A select few might be equipped to take on the task and discover the answer in their own lives, but such ambition isn’t for most of us. Meaningful lives are for extraordinary people: great saints, artists, scholars, scientists, doctors, activists, explorers, national leaders. If ever we did discover the meaning, it would we suspect in any case be incomprehensible, perhaps written in Latin or in computer code. It wouldn’t be anything that could orient or illuminate our activities. Without always acknowledging it, we are in the background, operating with a remarkably ungenerous perspective on the meaning of life.
Life is beautiful. Life is the most precious gift of God. Life is a treasure of jewels whose worth is immeasurable. But sometimes life just doesn’t make sense, it just doesn’t. We want it to make sense, we force it to make sense, we threaten it to make sense but sometimes it just doesn’t. And it’s a giant bummer, it is not a place you want to be. It looks all cheerful but it’s an abyss of nothingness and we are in it. Life shows all its colors and shades which may be dark and bright. The dark shades of life make us realize the depth of life because life is just not just a bed of roses. As it is rightly said, “The stream would have no song if it wouldn’t have rocks in its beds”.
But sometimes, it is alright to not be alright. It is fine if life doesn’t make sense. Just because it doesn’t make sense to you doesn’t mean it’s senseless. Just because you are not in a place to understand the value of something doesn’t mean it is not valuable. Our life becomes like that at times, somedays we are just not in the right space emotionally or mentally to make sense out of life. It is a dry spell sometimes and we slap on a giant grin and go through life but as we go, we realize that most of the giant smiles you see around are the makeup to cover the nothingness of their lives. You are not alone in this journey. Sure, life doesn’t make sense at today or tomorrow but maybe the day after it just might. But until it makes sense, it is just easier to just trust the creator and move forward and oh yeah keep up that smile. Putting on a smile is not always faking it, sometimes it is all we have to give to the world and if we can do that, life gets better for someone else, even if it doesn’t for you.
“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance”