It's that time of year again (Feb 5th) when one must celebrate another momentous heave-ho towards the edge of darkness. Does it scare me? Does death scare me? Nope. I had been dead for millions of years before I was born without the least inconvenience to my person. So when I am gone it will be the same as it was before. Death is merely the absence of existence. We forget that existence is the exception not the rule in the universe. Unexistence is everywhere more common. Just look about you! On the buses in the morning as you head for work. On the trains. In the supermarkets. On TV. On the radio. Nobody's really alive. Not in the way we think we are. We merely stumble along like the contestants in Supermarket Sweep. The trolley represents the things we accrue on our journey, the aisle the superhighway of our lives, and the till? The till is the final reckoning - judgment day! But there is no final reckoning in the theistic vein. It is our own internal reckoning that we must battle with - did we live a good life? Did we do what we set out to do?
The easiest and simplest way of knowing what kind of life you have lived is to ask yourself a simple question: If I die today, as in right now, how will I feel about it? Living a good life is about perspective to a large extent. Perspective is being able to see your life within the context of all existences. And to see all existences; or to see as many as possible, one must possess empathy, a love for books and of course a disposition for quality travel! Empathy is important because it allows you to experience vicariously - in second hand -what others experience for real. The road that is empathy free leads to evil. Evil is not committed deliberately - It is a side-affect. It is committed when people don't care. And people don't care when they lack empathy. Books are great because they beat a path into other lives and seed empathy. And travel, when conducted without the comfort of tour-groups, state sponsored guides, and when done alone, is the ultimate perspective defining ruler.
'Man is the measure of all things' said Protagoras in circa 450 BC. By this he meant we measure all in comparison to ourselves (and what is relevant here), we measure all things with what we know. Expand what you know and that ruler of perspective will grow longer, will go back in the past farther, and stretch further ahead into the future. The important thing to remember is that a sense of perspective needs a bedrock. And that bedrock; that secure foundation, comes from science. A good understanding of the history of life on earth, its age, how it arose, what it actually is; and on a more cosmic level, an appreciation of the cosmos is a prerequisite, nay is essential, for a truer sense of perspective. Upon this scientific bedrock one can then start building a secure home from the strong bricks and beams of philosophy.
When you master and acquire such a sweeping sense of perspective you begin to see yourself in relation to everything, and only then will you have acquired what few achieve - a supreme indifference to the cosmic lottery. And not only that but an almost spiritual togetherness that can only come from those who know.
And then, and only then, will you have finally arrived.
But then you will be amongst the lucky few. For most don't even get to leave...
