I Want More Life
07/05/2012When health concerns strike friends in your age group, it always makes you think about your own mortality. For a lot of people, this is the impetus for the creation of bucket lists. If you’re like me, its time to sit down and do some serious contemplation about the meaning of my life and what Iʻm doing to ensure continuation. Just as importantly, I will obsessively reflect on what I have accomplished, what I havenʻt done, and what I have yet to accomplish. Although I love making lists, my goals are fluid and not goal-oriented so I refuse to robotically scratch them off a list.
I often wonder how people choose what goes on their lists. I hear about things like sky diving, rafting in the Grand Canyon, and hiking the Appalachian Trail and, while I can appreciate wanting to do these things, I just donʻt understand the significance. I seriously doubt anyone makes a list with only 3 things on it so, with a list of 20 items or more, how do they prioritize? Is the satisfaction merely in the scratching off so it makes no difference what order theyʻre done in?
I guess that the achievement is the thing that counts for me. The personal satisfaction in a job well done or in helping others. And even then, I can never scratch off something like gaining the trust of someone I respect because that trust is ongoing. Does this mean that I’ve set myself up for failure? Have I become a modern Sisyphus doomed to roll my boulder uphill just to see it slip and roll back to the bottom? Camus tells us that trying to make sense of the senseless is a waste of time. For me, it comes down to doing something for the sake of doing it well and deriving satisfaction from the effort.
If the people with bucket lists were doing their “tasks” for the pure joy of the accomplishment, I can see their point. However, if they do it merely to be able to cross something off their list before they die, that sounds like a waste of valuable time on this Earth to me. My goals are more interconnected and completing one task usually is a part of another. Life is one big circus and I just want to keep the show going as long as I can. To quote Roy Batty, “I want more life“.
So That's Life? 
It might come down to the notion of surviving vs. living. Let’s say I might live for a couple thousand years. Even assuming that I might have good health and be as functional as a typical middle aged man, how much of the time would I be simply surviving vs having a real life?
Even with family this is an issue. I have a couple nieces and nephews. One set are adults and the other are young kids. In the case of young kids they are 7 and 5. Fast forward 50 years. Those kids would be 57 and 55.
Fast forward another 50 years they are either very old or dead. Fast forward another 100 years, their grandchildren are either very old or dead.
In the context of skills, I might be really good at a job. Supremely good. At some point I wold burn out at the job. No matter how complicated or detailed, this would happen.
AT some point, boredom would make this an unhappy existence.
I think I must not have made myself clear! When I began with “in my age group”, maybe I should have made clear that I’m not an octogenarian. I’m not asking for immortality, just to be able to live long enough to achieve the things in life that I want.