John Paul Sartre says, "everything
has been figured out, except how to live."
So perhaps the better question is not
what are we to do with death, but what
are we to do with life?
Life exists in individual moments, and it is up to us
to make sure that those moments are
vast, interconnected and grand.
To make a masterpiece out of life.
One that we would willingly live again and again
for all of eternity.
This is what we could strive for.
And I love this idea.
This idea of aestheticing our lives,
of italicizing our experience, of turning
our story into THE story.
Of seeing the universal in the specific.
Sort of aligning ourselves with the archetype of the hero's
journey.
Of trying to see a departure from the ordinary
in every single instance.
A chance to learn something new.
A chance to leverage obstacles and learn from them,
and meet people along the way that can teach us something.
It's what the movie Eat, Pray, Love
talks about-- quest physics.
The physics of the quest.
If you believe, and you're willing to step out
of your comfort zone, life will begin
at the edge of your comfort zone.
If you're able to treat what seems like despair, what
seems like hardship as an opportunity
to reinvent yourself and to transcend your own limitations,
as David Johnson says, "the world is full of clues,
and you can read your way though it."
If you're able to turn your life into an art piece,
if you're able to turn your narrative into THE narrative,
then you become that hero.
You become the god of your own life.
It's the archetype in every film.
It is the Joseph Campbell hero's journey, and that's just rad.
That's just a cool idea.