1 a comment
2 two statements 3 notions what you might like to do 2 two statements statement #1 The point of living is to live. To increase, to add to, life. statement #A The point of living is to live; to increase, to add to, Life. My proposal: statement #A says more, means more, is more, than statement #1. The words of both statements are the same and they are presented in the same order. Punctuation and capitalization changes make the two sentences in #1 one sentence, #A. The meaning of the words deepen. The strength of the ideas the words carry, the breadth of thought the reader is invited to, is raised. #1 The point of living is to live. The first sentence of #1 implies a rather basic and usual pronouncement/ opinion: we are alive because we are alive, and that is our purpose, to be alive. Take what is given you, what is, because what is is what you have got. Continued existence is the most important, only, really, point of life. #1 To increase, to add to, life. An outgrowth of living for our species as a whole, and probably also for most of us as individuals, is an urge to continue our species. It is why, I think, that for most people, sex is pleasurable, and evolutionarily designed to be so; and why parents (most parents) grow attached to and would "do anything" for their children. Even if/ when/ because doing so costs them dearly. To increase, to add to, life. The second sentence of #1 refers not only to causing there to be more humans on the planet but also suggests that making more, adding more human life, adds to life as a whole. If we are thinking about #1 from only the perspective of the human species, or, even more narrowly, from the perspective of a single human being, and I would guess either being a likely/ usual perspective of we human readers, then the increase, to add to, life sounds like our (humans) taking over the whole planet (the world, which is, pretty much, for us, the whole of our inhabited universe). Which we have, pretty much, done, as a species. We continue to multiply in number; to mine for/ find/ create more resources from ever-more difficult and problematic places to get them. We squeeze out more from the resources we have while continually, and simultaneously, discarding those "extra," those not of immediate or obvious value or need. We waste resources which are currently inconvenient. Meanwhile, we keep on taking over more and more acreage, more land from the wild. If we do not at some point put a stop to ourselves, we're headed to being a Coruscant. We are indeed, thereby, in a fashion, already and increasingly adding to life. To human life, anyway. As for the rest, as for the other species and types of life? Those that we currently like, those that are fashionable and profitable, we breed extensively and/ or protect; the others, by and large, we consider incidental, decorative, and essentially unnecessary. We keep examples of the latter, the decorative, in increasingly smaller protected spots. We allow some/ many of the "incidental" species to die off. We are winning this game, that is to say, domineering it. We are, so far anyway, as a species, satisfying both sentences of statement #1. Noble creatures we are, as the idea of nobility is typically assigned to those who rule. The point of living is to live. To increase, to add to, life. If that is what we believe, if that is what you believe, what our purpose (self assigned/ chosen) then why not do more of it? Why not do ever more and increasingly of the same? Why not pump up the volume to eleven, and then twelve, then fifteen? Then louder still? We can, and are. Applying these thoughts to the species as a whole then naturally leads to applying to us as individuals. Why not enjoy our specific lives to the maximum, why not use our own personal pleasure as the only yardstick of purpose and life? Why not accumulate as much as we can in terms of goods, homes, money and power, and pass them to our children? Not to children in general so much but to our own particular offspring, regardless of their contribution to the whole. Why not? Why not have as many kids as we ourselves can; and use and then discard other humans, the "lesser humans," in unnecessary and/ or toilsome labor, in wars; and as subject to experiments; why not disregard humans who are non-productive in the ways we want them to be productive, along the way? Humans are a species of winners and winners need to lead the way is the thinking. Rather obvious, right? Winners need to gather and control as many resources as they can if only to show the losers their, "the," way. We have, I think, at least from the bombastic perspective of we USAers, satisfied both. Both the living and increasing measures/ requirements of statement #1. We have understood and carried out our assignment. We live. We increase our life in terms of material possessions and collection of experiences as we are able while be alive. What else is there to do in life but more of it? Now we get to statement #A. The point of living is to live; to increase, to add to, Life. This is the second, the more mature, the wiser, the better option, I think. #A has the same words and word order as #1 with one change in punctuation and another in capitalization. #A uses the same words, the same materials, as #1. It continues to acknowledge that we are happy with being human, want and have a purpose. #A is not meant to imply for us as a species or as individuals not to live. We still intend, want, to keep going with our species; we still want for our individual lives to get better. #A also shows, however, also revels in, our connection with so much more. #1, the one most of us or at least society as a whole seems to operate under, presents a human, here-and-now-and-only sort of stand, we are the ones who are solely important, me and my kids; one which says I take care of myself and mine; add by me doing all the things I can and want, using everything, everyone, or anything I can, side effects and future generations, except for my offspring and kind, be damned. The second takes a broader, exquisite, and complex view. One, which I will put out here now, requires more work from us. More active and productive use of our conscious activity. "The point of living is to live; to increase, to add to, Life." Your eye, of course, I am going to guess, saw the capital L in Life. As well it might. #A, with that change in capitalization, with the additional effort of holding down the shift key with my left pinky while concurrently typing the "L" key on the keyboard with my right hand's fourth finger, ties live with a bigger picture. Ties live with Life. #A sees not only from a human standpoint, an individual human's or human-in-its-broadest-sense, humanity, standpoint; not only from a specific, narrow life view; but from a Life perspective. I am a big fan of science fiction and of science fantasy. I write about, on the page titled more, the first movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Iron Man. Here let me give a nod to Star Trek. In the movie Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, a movie with the original cast (TOS), (spoilers ahead!), the daughter of the Chancellor of the Klingon Empire makes an especially insightful comment. She says, paraphrasing here loosely and for clarity's sake, that we who are human always see or at least always tend to see life only from our human species' perspective. (24:03–26) I add: as if there is not, even here on our own little planet earth, much more than just the human species in play. I lived in Northern California at the writing of an early draft of this page, in a suburb of Sacramento. We had had increasingly more severe fires in the area, and throughout the state, and on the whole West Coast of the United States, in the previous few years than in years past. That year was especially bad. I lived in a small city, a suburban town, where the fires did not directly strike, thankfully. Nevertheless, we were greatly affected. Our air quality, for weeks and weeks, was terrible. Indoor living was suggested for all; by those able and wise, practiced. The air quality in our area is usually good. We typically do not live with readily countable particulates entering our lungs with our every breath as happens, sadly, in many cities and areas around the country and world. But we did not escape the catastrophe unscathed. I mention the advent of the fires, the smoke, because they are an apt symbol of a greater truth: we humans, and all species, are all connected. What happens in one place, to one people, to one person, has reverberations elsewhere. (I believe separation is an illusion maintained to try to slough off responsibility: we are indeed our brother's keeper.) We are interconnected with other human beings, of all kinds; and also, importantly, wouldn't be alive without them, with the other animals, and with the plants. All part of one organism. All living on one blue and green globe. All part of one Life. We would be smarter to live like it. contents an introduction an introduction two an introduction three 1 a comment 2 two statements 3 notions what you might like to do more |
