A couple of days ago on my way home, I happened to listen in on parts of a conversation between two elderly people behind me. I say conversation, it was mostly the older man sharing some of his observations on life. There were three main conclusions that he had come to that I heard. There was his theory on a long marriage, his theory on a reason for life (or not death) and one that is fairly hard to simplify.
His theory on a long marriage is that after about 40 years, you and your wife or husband are the same person; you love her/him the same as you love yourself. This is why he says that after a long marriage, you very rarely see a divorce.
His reason for not being dead is that he still has dreams. Without dreams, he says, you're dead. There has to be something that keeps you wanting to be alive, and that thing is positive hopes for the future, no matter how good or bad it is now.
These are both moderately interesting and to some they may be profound thoughts. The next one is even better.
Following on from his dreams, he says that if he were to experience one moment of perfect joy, one moment of profound happiness (my paraphrase, his words were closer to a moment that he wanted to have extended infinitely), that he would like to be destroyed at that moment. As an interesting aside, this is close to the deal made to Faust by Mephistopheles in the poem by Goethe, the difference is that Faust at that moment gave his soul to the devil. Now as far as I can read it there are two major reasons that you would want this.
Firstly and most simply, you want to go out on a high point. What he wants is to do is die at the highest point of his life; a bit of a downer some might say, but what could be better than having the last thing that you know being perfection (or as close as you can perceive it). This is something that many people don't think about in their interpretation of death. If death is an end, then the moments leading up to it don't really matter. But enough of that semi-morbidity.
The second reason is slightly different, but definitely related. If you have a moment of perfect happiness, then everything after that will be less than second best: the best meals will taste like tofu, the most awesome music will sound like a three year old on the violin, the best literature will read like a Hansard and the greatest joy will feel like a pale imitation of sadness. If nothing can match it, then what is the point of anything else?
His theory on a long marriage is that after about 40 years, you and your wife or husband are the same person; you love her/him the same as you love yourself. This is why he says that after a long marriage, you very rarely see a divorce.
His reason for not being dead is that he still has dreams. Without dreams, he says, you're dead. There has to be something that keeps you wanting to be alive, and that thing is positive hopes for the future, no matter how good or bad it is now.
These are both moderately interesting and to some they may be profound thoughts. The next one is even better.
Following on from his dreams, he says that if he were to experience one moment of perfect joy, one moment of profound happiness (my paraphrase, his words were closer to a moment that he wanted to have extended infinitely), that he would like to be destroyed at that moment. As an interesting aside, this is close to the deal made to Faust by Mephistopheles in the poem by Goethe, the difference is that Faust at that moment gave his soul to the devil. Now as far as I can read it there are two major reasons that you would want this.
Firstly and most simply, you want to go out on a high point. What he wants is to do is die at the highest point of his life; a bit of a downer some might say, but what could be better than having the last thing that you know being perfection (or as close as you can perceive it). This is something that many people don't think about in their interpretation of death. If death is an end, then the moments leading up to it don't really matter. But enough of that semi-morbidity.
The second reason is slightly different, but definitely related. If you have a moment of perfect happiness, then everything after that will be less than second best: the best meals will taste like tofu, the most awesome music will sound like a three year old on the violin, the best literature will read like a Hansard and the greatest joy will feel like a pale imitation of sadness. If nothing can match it, then what is the point of anything else?
No comments:
Post a Comment