It is much talked about why we get sad and stuff. There are many theories, but often by just thinking about the things that do make us, personally, sad sometimes, it is most often the things we care most about. A cruel irony, but if you think about it, it just makes sense I reckon. It’s kinda how we only ever hurt the people we never would, but that’s for another time. What I wanted to talk about was something I hear a lot of, and I’m sure you too would hear it quite a bit, whether it be from other people, movies or songs. People always seem to say that we should ‘live like we are dying”, “live like it’s our last day on earth”, etc, etc.
I think I understand what they mean. It’s kinda like that quote that Ms. Steele told us once from that comedian about we drive a car to work for a bit to park it in a garage and then work for the day to pay off for that car and a house that we don’t have time to enjoy because we are working or something. Pretty smart overall. It reminds me of that other quote I like to bust out on people, about making sure you are working to live, not living to work.
But yeah, about living like you are dying I think what it is meant to say is, to let go of these useless things and really do the stuff we value in life. Like I mean, imagine for a moment you were dying. I’m sure you wouldn’t turn up to work or go to a uni lecture. I’m sure it’d be spent with the ones we care about, the ones we love. We should tell those that we love that we do, we should play all day and sleep only for the warmth it brings in the presence of others. And it seems so simple when you think about it, that life should in fact be lived like this. But as we know, it is a lot easier said than done.
We have to look to our future, we have to do all this boring stuff, like work and go uni lectures, so that we can prepare ourselves for our future life and for our future family and stuff. It is not only important, but necessary. We couldn’t just sit at home with the people we love all day, every day, and not do anything because we’d run out of money and stuff.
It reminds me in many ways, of heroes in movies. If you look at many of the characters in some good films, such as Jack (Leonardo Dicaprio) in Titanic, Jake Sully in Avatar or Batman. They all possess this charisma, this sort of freedom, that makes their character so appealing. They have no fear, and they do and chase after what and who they love. It is almost idyllic, yet highly believable. And I think the directors of these films are very clever in making these characters believable. They are able to create scenarios that differ from our normal life situations, so that these characters can exist.
Jack in Titanic is an orphaned ‘street rat’ who travels around the world basically alone, following the wind kinda thing. Jake Sully, too, has no family, having recently lost his brother, and to top it all off is paralysed from the waist down. Batman, once again, is orphaned, and the closest thing he has to family is his butler, Alfred. What I’m trying to say here is that the directors create characters that have nothing, no family, and that their freedom is born from their situation. It is the old case of having nothing to lose. We see this often in sport, where a player will play a blinder because it seems that his team is out of the game.
But that’s the thing. That’s why you don’t find people with that kinda freedom all over the world. Back in the real world, we have expectations and responsibilities to uphold and though it seems that I am saying they cramp us, they are all of course blessings. Family is probably the most beautiful thing in the world, and I don’t just mean blood relatives either. But what I’m getting at is that we can’t live life like we are dying, because at this moment, and hopefully for a while more, we aren’t dying. And that’s the end fact is that we can’t bum around because we have people we care about that we need to work for.
So what’s the deal then? How do we get that kinda freedom and carefree attitude to our life that seems to be entangled with happiness? “Deva’s Theory for Living Good” is that instead of living like we are dying, I reckon we have to live like everyone else is dying. OK I know this sounds crazy and a dumb thing to do, but I don’t mean it like you hope for everyone to die. That’s crazy. What I mean is, if you knew someone was dying you would of course treat them differently. You wouldn’t ceebz ever to go meet them or help them out where normally you might. Nothing would seem not worth it. But this shouldn’t be taken fully literally of course. I mean I think everyone would go absolutely crazy if everyone was too nice too each other and put everyone else in front of themselves. It would be weird. What I’m saying is that, we should take some things a little lighter, because we never know when our or someone else’s time will be up.
As people, we hold way too many grudges. Of course sometimes people and their actions hurt us, but often we get caught up in that pain and we don’t want to let it go. But if that person was, say, dying, then I’m sure much of the beef we are individually involved in would be solved easily. A small misunderstanding often destroys much more important things, and as people life is so much more enjoyable when we take unimportant things with a grain of salt. Forget your enemies is what I’m struggling to say here haha.
Another thing that often brings us sadness is failure. Honestly, if someone I loved was hurt, cricket would be the last thing on my mind, and to be honest maybe it should be like that most of the times. I’m not saying forget your dreams, of course not, but what I’m saying is that often we (well I’m just basing this on myself) prioritise a bit wrong.
And maybe if we were to treat life this way we would be more open and truthful. Too often we aren’t and I’m not hating or anything. I mean plenty of people hide the truth because they are afraid of hurting someone. Of course the intent is good, but I mean, personally, I’d rather know the truth regardless of what it is. I spose people’s preferences change on this one, but yeah.
I reckon my theory here is something we can do, because it is possible to live a normal life – preparing for the future and such – whilst being able to take full enjoyment from our interactions with others. Well I’m not sure if I’m wrong or right, but going on track record it isn’t looking good, but we’ll see. I think I struggled in bits to get across what I’m trying to say because it’s late so whatever haha. I think I had a lot more in mind when I was thinking of writing this, but I think I forgot some of it. I’ll chuck it up as I remember it. See you guys round some time.
