The Point

'"And what would you do," the Master said unto the multitude, "if God spoke directly to your face & said, 'I COMMAND THAT YOU BE HAPPY IN THE WORLD, AS LONG AS YOU LIVE.' What then?"'

I've always liked that quote. Liked the idea that we could live in such a way as to be truly happy. That that might even be the point.

But my answer to "What then?" is that I would fail. I cannot think how to be happy. I cannot think what I might want, or want to do. Life itself is not something I really want. I live for others' sakes, & because I know that someday, perhaps even someday soon, I will die without needing to take any actions of my own. It is inevitable, & I can wait.

I wonder, sometimes, if that is not the point. Perhaps, if people like Richard Bach are right, I chose this life. I sat down pre-life, flipping through a catalog, perhaps, & decided to try a life of emptiness, depression & despair, not really knowing what it would be like to live that life.

I don't think so, though. It doesn't explain the dream - that unimpressed Death judging me. Whatever I'm supposed to be doing, I'm not accomplishing it. Whatever your definition, your belief, about the meaning of this world, this existence, I'm failing. There are no great works to live on after me, I leave behind no offspring to carry my genes into the future, my life is not devoted to any deity or path to higher being, & I am not happy in the world. There will be no improvement, either to myself or to the world, by the life that I have lived. Whatever the point... I'm missing it.