The expiration of life
Why quality of life should command our attention.
Thought
Life expires. unlike a can of vegetables with a fairly certain shelf life, our lives from birth have no guarantees for duration. All that we do know is that all of us; every person we now know and love will die.
I think it is incredible the things we have learned and are able to do to prolong life. But I wonder if our endless search for cures to extend it and postpone the inevitable lulls us into living lackluster lives.
When I see how many people report that life is lonely, unhappy, or unfulfilling, surely the cures we should be seeking for are those that make our lives vibrant, joyful and meaningful whether we live to the age of 18 or 81.
So obsessed are we with conquering mother nature, that we fundamentally fail to love, admire, and appreciate her. Perhaps this is just one way that we try to gain the whole world but in pursuit lose our own souls. What are we profited if we gain another ten years of life expectancy only to live it miserably?
I am not about to offer any suggestions for how to make life good. I am simply observing the absurdity of mankind to abandon regard for the quality of life in an ever constant pursuit of quantity.
One example I see of this is all the media campaigns, walks to fundraise, and celebrity endorsement to end Alzheimers. I am not suggesting we ought not to explore possible solutions. I am suggesting however that rather than finding a cure for Alzheimers (quantity), would it not be far better and useful to find a cure for anger instead (quality).
Even if we discovered how to live for eternity on our own without God, would we even want to if our lives and our cultures remained in their current conditions? To live as an eternally unhappy, unfulfilled and lonely being is not a pleasant thought, perhaps that is the literal definition of hell. Heaven; eternal life, must have less to do with the quantity and far more to do with the quality of such a life.
Perhaps the flaming sword to guard the tree of life and prevent us living forever in our sins is the greatest gift of mercy in the universe. The only way to the tree now is with Jesus Christ, and our going there with Him means that when we do partake of it, we have first been transformed into someone who would want to live forever.
Quote.
You cannot go on ‘seeing through’ things for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond it is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too? It is no use trying to ‘see through’ first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To ‘see through’ all things is the same as not to see.
- C.S. Lewis (The Abolition of Man, p.81)
Idea.
Often the big moments of life are the result of many small ones compounded together. What is something small we can do today that might have positive results in the future?