Futile
Because I received so much feedback – both in comments and in e-mails – on my post futile, which I published at my own blog and linked to from here, I have decided to publish it here in its entirety.
We are all wondering sometimes about the usefulness of what we do. Man’s greatest fear is not death, it’s being useless. It’s being forgotten after death.
Thus, all of us try to become immortal in one way or another. Some by starting a family and others by doing work they consider to be important; work that lasts. Again others do both.
Religion. Some argue this is the function of religion: to provide men, no matter how unimportant they are, with the idea, perhaps with the myth, that they are immortal. That what they do now is not useless because – in the end – it results in an eternally lasting afterlife.
Isn’t it the nightmare of every single one of us that, when we’re laying on our death bed and when we look back at the life we lived, the things we did, we realize that we actually did nothing? That we did nothing that lasts beyond the seventy-something years we are allowed to spend on this earth?
We had fun, yes, we laughed, we cried, but in essence we wasted it. We realize that within a couple of years after we die, no one will remember us.
Isn’t that a fear we all share?
Considering that, agreeing with that, it’s quite remarkable that, despite this inner fear, this deepest fear we all share, the far majority – 99.999% – of the people who are living today, and who died before today, live and have lived their lives in mediocrity, in uselessness.
The far majority of people are and will be forgotten.
The only possible explanation for this is, that this fear is so deep, so big, so powerful, that we choose not to pay attention to it unless we absolutely must. Unless we cannot escape this frightening thoughts.
And that time has come… when we’re about to die, when it’s – ironically enough – too little, too late.
The average tombstone says “Name: DB. DD.”, but might as well say “Who cares?” Who cares who’s burried here? Who cares about what the deceased did? I know this: his life was most likely completely useless.
What did the deceased add to this world? What remarkable think did this person accomplish? How did the deceased leave his mark on the world?
My answer to these questions: he didn’t.
Should I care about when that person was born? Should I care about when that person died? 19th century, 20th century, 1990, 1920 — it’s all the same to me.
All of it doesn’t matter.
Is this post inspiring? Is this post hopeful and positive? Does this post lift you up?
No it does not. It’s not meant to.
Art lifts up. Art inspires. Art, therefore, is useful.
This post does not. This post merely describes thoughts that bother me every now and then. This post merely describes a fear… a fear deep down inside of me, that when I look back at my life when I’m 70-something years old I realize that my life has been wasted.
Perhaps.
3 Responses to “Futile”
Why do maniacs do the things they do? They want attention.
I tried to say something earlier (in praising the mediocre) in an oblique way, that I’ll try to address more directly.
I sense a value judgment here, as if one could measure the value of a life by its immortality factor – how wide the impact of that life is and how widely remembered it is. To survive at all costs, even beyong death, I see as more of a biologically based urge of the ego (the sense of self) rather than a measure of value.
The meaning of one’s life is different, in that it is based in the present, your life as you’re living it. Sometimes there is meaning in the mere feeling of ‘I’m glad to be alive to witness this sunset”. Sometimes there is meaning in making a child laugh with glee. Sometimes there is meaning in helping lots of other people. Sometimes there is great meaning in just having made it through another day.
Each person has to choose the meaning they can find or create in his life of today, and each person will benefit (or not) from their choices.
To worry about immortality takes attention away from actually living.
One of the greatest of sonnets and poems:
Archaic Torso of Apollo
by Rainer Maria Rilke
Translated by Stephen Mitchell
We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,
gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.
Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast’s fur:
would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.
Archaischer Torso Apollos
Wir kannten nicht sein unerhörtes Haupt,
darin die Augenäpfel reiften. Aber
sein Torso glüht noch wie ein Kandelaber,
in dem sein Schauen, nur zurückgeschraubt,
sich hält und glänzt. Sonst könnte nicht der Bug
der Brust dich blenden, und im leisen Drehen
der Lenden könnte nicht ein Lächeln gehen
zu jener Mitte, die die Zeugung trug.
Sonst stünde dieser Stein enstellt und kurz
unter der Shultern durchsichtigem Sturz
und flimmerte nicht so wie Raubtierfelle;
und brächte nicht aus allen seinen Rändern
aus wie ein Stern: denn da ist keine Stelle,
die dich nicht sieht. Du mußt dein Leben ändern.