How can attending such events not make one think about the way they've spent their life? It seems that no matter what we do in life we will always have regrets, disappointments, sorrow, and loss. I also know that we can never be completely satisfied and content with what we've done in life regardless of how well we've lived it and what we've accomplished. Human nature seems to dictate that longing for more and better and different is an innate part of our make-up. Realizing the distance from where we would ideally like to be tends to make us strive to be better people, to work harder, to remedy those less-than-perfect relationships. The saying goes, " the older we get, the wiser we get." I suppose it's true. Our life experiences increase dramatically with each pasing year and we cannot help but learn from these experiences.
No one really knows why we have been put on this Earth. Some rely on faith to explain it but faith is just that, faith. It asks us to trust in the intangible, grasp what cannot be held. The solid, tangible, absolute, irrefutable reason we are here may never be revealed although many of us hope it will be when our lives end. Until then we make due with what we know and what we know is the sum total of everything and everyone one we've encountered, the resultant interactions with them and our impressions of these events.
A brief story:
A child is born, grows up in poverty, hungry most of his young life. Avoiding disease and mayhem is a constant battle in his world. By some miracle, he makes it to adulthood. He scrapes together enough money to extract himself from his dire circumstances. He manages to make it out of this dismal environment and moves to a distant place where he makes a financial success of his life, finds a companion and lives comfortably. He eventually grows old, falls ill and on his death bed is asked, do you have any regrets?
He thinks a long time and replies, "I have several regrets: I regret being born where I was born but I had no choice about that and I learned to adapt. I wish I didn't have to do the things I did to get out of there but what else was I to do? It was a hard-scrabble life and I escaped it with my body intact. I regret the deception that got me here in the first place but if I had been honest about my origins I would have never made it here. I regret making money from other people's weaknesses but it was what I was good at from an early age and I am very accomplished at what I do. I regret deceiving my companion of all these years in thinking I was a different person than who I am but fortunately they will never know all that exists inside my head and they are the happier for it. Finally I regret not using the knowledge I possessed to make the world an even better place. "
Did this man become a hustler, a drug dealer, a preacher or a politician? I suppose he could be any of these things or any of us. Don't you think? His resourcefulness and tenacity led him to his final station in life and he learned his path through experience. The knowledge is inside of us all. We cannot help ourselves but to learn. It's up to us what we do with it and how we live our lives. Older and wiser, for better or for worse?
© 2009 Paul Caracciolo. Reproduction in whole or in part is strictly prohibited.
