Life

What is life? The simple, yet mind-bogglingly complex question. Life is like a broken record: seasons come and go, civilizations rise and fall, some live and some die; now and again, and again.

What is life, but a culmination of daily routines and habits? We get up, we bath, we eat, we work, we play, we sleep. Over and over again, yet it’s a song we never grow weary of. It’s as if life is a preoccupation of shuffling routines and habits around to create an illusion for ourselves: one of variation and busyness.

What is life, but a permanently temporary state of being? If we don’t live forever, do we die forever? So much in life remains unanswered; and from our humanly point of view, the only thing permanent in life is death.

What is life, but a fuel gauge with Fs on both ends? You are full of life when you’re born and as you grow up, you’re told that you have a full life ahead of you. You use it up for the length of your lifetime as if it will never run out, and lose it when it’s still full. When you die, you either lose a full life, or a life lived to the fullest.

Mind-boggling seems to be an understatement. There is a way to keep things simple though. Take things back to the simplicity of childbirth: the one command that a newborn baby follows is LIVE! It enters this world with an inherent will to live. It doesn’t care much about life’s mysteries. We can learn a lot from newborns.

Life’s mysteries are fascinating and its realities are captivating. Life is the only thing we understand by not understanding. If you ponder on it too much, you’ll end up baffled. If you wonder some, and ignore some, life is wholesome. Life is the best thing we get without asking, and we hold on to it by letting go.

Yet life gets more and more complicated as we grow up. Days become schedules and years become salaries, earnings and profits. Where does the simplicity go? Does it get swallowed up by intellect as we grow? Is this complex mess of activity what we call life?

It’s so easy to sway from that simple command followed by a newborn baby: live. It is personally beneficial to slow things down and live. Live each moment aware of the bigger picture; aware of the simple things in life, because it’s so easy to lose your way.