Continued from http://wp.me/p54LT-3pJ
A couple tugs along a brawling toddler, embarrassed, shuffling by while a peaceful sleeping baby is pushed by in a pram the other way. Is life just a matter of making more life? That seems absurd. A guy struts by, humming the tune to the lyrics, “And man will live forevermore, because of Christmas Day.” The image of Christ’s face of bitter suffering surfaces in his mind. The man who supposedly died for all man out of love who died unjustly in great pain. Did he know the meaning of life? He was seen rising to heaven? Is there a heaven? Did he find the meaning of life there? He never really said. “God, if there is a God, save my soul, if I have a soul.” The agnostic’s prayer.
You never told me what I’m supposed to live for. To worship you? That seems so sad – because that means God is just another lonely person who created me out of loneliness. Does he know the meaning of life? Maybe man created God out of loneliness.
Depeche Mode’s song “Nothing” (from the album “Music for the Masses) suddenly comes to mind, for no particular reason he was aware of –
Sitting target
Sitting waiting
Anticipating
Nothing
Nothing
Life
Is full of surprises
It advertises
Nothing
Nothing
What am I trying to do
What am I trying to say
I’m not trying to tell you anything
You didn’t know
When you woke up today
Sitting target
Sitting praying
God is saying
Nothing
Nothing
Always
Knows the prospects
Learnt to expect
Nothing
Nothing
It resonated – somehow. I’m standing; not sitting. I’m anticipating – something, something…. whatever it is. Life is surprising me now, even as it advertises the strange ”nothingness“ behind ”everythingness”, from which there must be some meaning, I think.
Christmas Day a day for people to have some reason to come together? Loneliness is so sad. But now I feel just alone – not lonely. I don’t find the need for a girlfriend yet. And especially not now. How can I find the meaning of life by being in love? Lovers live for love – not life itself. Or is love their life? But is life just love? I just want to find myself – not that I need someone else.
The sun had set. Have I died? Some time ago, some part of me must have died. The Zephs of 3:45pm and 7:15pm are different. When will I really die? Still the people walk on by. They live each day as if they will never die. But we all will one day. What makes it worse is that we don’t know when that day will be.
Am I crazy to be standing here? Am I waiting for death himself? So what if man lives forevermore. I will stand forevermore, till I know life. Zeph, you are dying – but that doesn’t mean you should party on like the rest or lie down here to die. Because you are dying, you should really start living now. Why think you have time?
On your feet – you can’t but keep awake to become awake. This might be the night. The temptations don’t work well now – the girls, the music, the booze. No – not tonight; maybe never again.
This Christmas is like a strange dream. Life is like one too. Am I awakening little by little from it? A hiply dressed teenager stumbles by supported by friends. The night is still young but one is drunk already. How will he remember this Christmas? Does this happen to him a lot? How will he remember life at all? Life is already a dream, why get drunk and live a dreamier dream? Dreamers dreaming dreams in a dream.
How I want to wake up. Zeph, you have so many dreams. What do you truly want? You are so fickle! Do you want to fulfil your greatest, most worthwhile dream, or just be fickle and fulfil none? So what will it be?
I dream of waking from this dream. Not finding the perfect girl, having perfect kids, a perfect car, a perfect home and a perfect career. That would be a perfect dream. Even fulfilled, it is but a dream that I have to awake from when I die. I don’t want to die with my perfect dream lost. I cannot imagine the pain then.
I have absolutely no clue on how to find the meaning of life. What if life is really a hollow hullabaloo; a very much ado about nothing? Then I would have wasted my life searching for an answer that does not exist? But what choice do I have?
Life will never be the same again. I will live in hope, in search of finding the answer, even if to discover there is no answer. Only have I figured life out can I really live it. This figuring out is my life to live now. Maybe the meaning of life is what I make out of it. If so, may what I make of it be meaningful enough.
Continues at