On Loss
You are going to lose everything you love.
I’m not just being morbid. It is inescapable fact that much of the time we simply overlook. Well, take a minute just to think about it right now. All of your loved ones will die or leave, all of your possessions will be lost or crumble to dust. It is not a question of ‘if,’ but rather of ‘how’ and ‘when.’ Eventually everything will be gone.
Contrary to first impressions, this is not all that depressing a concept.
When you think about this general principle of loss, there are a couple of different tacks that you could take in response. First is to live with a sort of nihilistic malaise, wholly depressed by the idea that since working for anything is in the big picture a guaranteed failure, there is no point to doing anything at all. In surrender to such a state one drifts along through life, dynamism extracted from their soul through the burden of a lost cause.
The second option is to fight on the field that can be carried. That is to say, look at the short picture. While it is true that everything will end in loss, that does not mean that such a loss must construe failure. A failure is simply an inability to achieve a set of predetermined goals. Thus, you can only fail if you hope in the first place to hold on to everything. That, however, is not the only thing that you can shoot for.
While I often hesitate to quote pop culture in serious context for fear of losing credibility, I will now do so and hope that you reading this will bear with me. There is a popular TV show in which one of the characters, going through a tough spiritual time, eventually has an epiphany regarding the meaning of his life. The quote, as he explains it (and this may not be a hundred percent accurate as I do not have the script or DVD in front of me) is, “If there’s no greater purpose, no divine plan that we have to work for, than the simplest act of kindness is the greatest thing in the world.”
This sentiment is easily adapted to a sense of loss. If one surrenders the hope of holding on to everything that you would wish to (as only makes sense since any attempt at fulfilling that hope is doomed to defeat), then you are left with a life that is not about holding on to it, but by exploring ‘it’ while you have it. This is a far cry from the depressing, nihilistic view of things. Rather than caring about nothing because your care will in the end amount to nothing, your pursuits cannot help but be flooded by every bit of joy and rapture that you can conjure up. Every moment that you have in any given place, all the people, things, and experiences that are there, everything becomes a single effort to absorb as much of it as you can. You do not retreat from it and cease to care, but rather fill every minute with meaning and profound love and laughter, because at any moment you may lose the opportunity to do so.
I have a very dear friend who I was recently forced to part ways with. I fear that I may never see them again. Not a day goes by that I do not hurt because of it, that longing for an absent friend. I mean that literally: not a day goes by. I would very much like to have the power to reunite us, to set things right, but I cannot. This is a cycle that has and will continue to be repeated throughout my life, and throughout your lives as well, with the last cycle ending on the day I die.
Depressing? Not so. We each have a very finite time with each of the people we care about. We can extend it if we wish, but not forever. Either by design or fate they will be removed from our lives. So what do we do with this time, then? This very finite, all too short amount of time?
Everything that we can.
I’m not just being morbid. It is inescapable fact that much of the time we simply overlook. Well, take a minute just to think about it right now. All of your loved ones will die or leave, all of your possessions will be lost or crumble to dust. It is not a question of ‘if,’ but rather of ‘how’ and ‘when.’ Eventually everything will be gone.
Contrary to first impressions, this is not all that depressing a concept.
When you think about this general principle of loss, there are a couple of different tacks that you could take in response. First is to live with a sort of nihilistic malaise, wholly depressed by the idea that since working for anything is in the big picture a guaranteed failure, there is no point to doing anything at all. In surrender to such a state one drifts along through life, dynamism extracted from their soul through the burden of a lost cause.
The second option is to fight on the field that can be carried. That is to say, look at the short picture. While it is true that everything will end in loss, that does not mean that such a loss must construe failure. A failure is simply an inability to achieve a set of predetermined goals. Thus, you can only fail if you hope in the first place to hold on to everything. That, however, is not the only thing that you can shoot for.
While I often hesitate to quote pop culture in serious context for fear of losing credibility, I will now do so and hope that you reading this will bear with me. There is a popular TV show in which one of the characters, going through a tough spiritual time, eventually has an epiphany regarding the meaning of his life. The quote, as he explains it (and this may not be a hundred percent accurate as I do not have the script or DVD in front of me) is, “If there’s no greater purpose, no divine plan that we have to work for, than the simplest act of kindness is the greatest thing in the world.”
This sentiment is easily adapted to a sense of loss. If one surrenders the hope of holding on to everything that you would wish to (as only makes sense since any attempt at fulfilling that hope is doomed to defeat), then you are left with a life that is not about holding on to it, but by exploring ‘it’ while you have it. This is a far cry from the depressing, nihilistic view of things. Rather than caring about nothing because your care will in the end amount to nothing, your pursuits cannot help but be flooded by every bit of joy and rapture that you can conjure up. Every moment that you have in any given place, all the people, things, and experiences that are there, everything becomes a single effort to absorb as much of it as you can. You do not retreat from it and cease to care, but rather fill every minute with meaning and profound love and laughter, because at any moment you may lose the opportunity to do so.
I have a very dear friend who I was recently forced to part ways with. I fear that I may never see them again. Not a day goes by that I do not hurt because of it, that longing for an absent friend. I mean that literally: not a day goes by. I would very much like to have the power to reunite us, to set things right, but I cannot. This is a cycle that has and will continue to be repeated throughout my life, and throughout your lives as well, with the last cycle ending on the day I die.
Depressing? Not so. We each have a very finite time with each of the people we care about. We can extend it if we wish, but not forever. Either by design or fate they will be removed from our lives. So what do we do with this time, then? This very finite, all too short amount of time?
Everything that we can.
posted by Will Jones at 8:25 AM
1 comments
