If You Ask Questions Like These
I let one foot hover 300 ft above water. The other balanced on the ledge of a steel bridge, my hand gripped the cable behind me. The ones that look down don’t seem to jump. It’s the ones that look up that do. They look for answers first. My question was, what am I really living for. The question became important when I caught people avoiding it. In fact they go on to work, lunch, gym without thinking about it once. If I asked them, they were offended as if I said you have nothing to really live for. Even when I asked myself, my ego hurt.
I felt an extreme circumstance involving death might procure an intention in life—a mind frame that certain people have (opposed to the blank, empty faces at the office). The bridge was about putting one’s body in an environment where his priorities cannot matter, where a singular design becomes clear. Wealthy and praised almost made the cut for goals, but even these cannot reflect the value of one’s existence.
I wasn’t on a bridge (the bridges here are above traffic, not water). I imagined it, as psychologically straining as it sounds. But I had found the beginning of an answer. Behind the education and career I work for, there is a responsibility as a human being. With both arms and legs intact, strong back, and a brain that has immeasurable potential, for now I owe my life to use the materials given to me to their fullest extent. And though I don’t have any answers yet, I feel I am going towards its direction. If I had been walking in the dark, I’d found a flicker of a streetlamp in the distance.
Hello.
I like your site and wanted to know if you would be interested in exchanging blogroll links.
Thanks in advance
Existence is not only a commodity. Purpose, be it on God or another option you choose spiritually, will aid you in finding purpose.
For me my journey is to be a writer, Loving God and being a good human being. I am a Muslim person and being a good Muslim is a goal too for me: which means being good to others and being kind to others ^_^
Monetary satisfactions are frail as moist sand near the riverbank – meant to be washed away at any pleasurable wave of water. As Emily Bronte spoke its the rocks that are strong.
Your identity is an evolution of life ^_^
Angela, you have a beautiful soul and mind – MASHALLAH – May Allah Almighty stay by you always ^_^
Thank you for sharing your goals–your spiritual passion shines through.
How suiting that you bring up Emily Bronte, she’s a poet isn’t she? These are lovely words.
The journey to be a writer…you make is sound easy. But it’s your kind of confidence that one needs to endure.
Thanks for stopping by, Zarin!
Politics aside, there is a certain truth to the axiom that Donald Rumsfeld made laughable when he asserted that “There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. These are things we do not know we don’t know.”
The question of “what are we really living for?” reminds me of what most of us would privately acknowledge at face value as a “known unknown.” Something we should know, or would want to resolve, but probably don’t. At least not early in our lives when we have not sampled enough living to place a proper value on it.
But, I would venture that the question “what are we living for?” is really more of an “unknown unknown,” since I don’t think you can really appreciate the very nature of the question, and certainly not its relation to your own day-to-day existence, until you DO have that penultimate, circumspect event…a near death experience or the loss of someone close to you. Something that truly imposes a new perspective on life. Very rare are those who grow up from an early age with such a perspective (perhaps those are the ones we call “old souls”).
Rumsfeld’s use of “unknown unknowns” may have been an elusive and arrogant attempt to skirt the question. But ultimately, when asked to answer a question which so many of us do not yet truly comprehend, what other option is there?
One thing that is a “known known,” in my opinion, is that the thoughtful piece above was written with weight and grace by one such “old soul.” Very ruminative, heedful and elegantly worded piece, Angela.
Dear Tim,
This was a learning experience for me. I’ve never heard of Donald Rumsfeld but I believe he’s served in Congress. “There are things we do not know we don’t know”–an interesting idea to grapple with!
I’m going to have to agree that the question, “what are we really living for” can be categorized as an “unknown unknown” beyond its’ surface interpretation (because as you say “we cannot appreciate the nature of the question”). Another way I thought of describing this was that one must go about dissecting the definition of the words in their own singular way first. For example, what “living” might mean. Which is a life journey in itself until a particular life-changing/moving experience.
Thanks for stopping by Tim and also for contributing to the piece in your own way. Your insightful ideas continue to inspire readers around you.
I’ve heard that in some tribal cultures
There will come a wise person
To speak to the soul
of the child in the womb
The child is asked
why it has chosen to take birth
What is its reason
for coming into this world
Sometimes this is all
Other times further dialog ensues
concerning the reasons and rhymes
of this new life coming towards birth
Years later when the child
Is starting to understand life
the wise person will approach the child
and begin a dialog
or more accurately
return to the dialog
that started when the child
was still in the womb
This was not done for me
It does not sound like it was done for you
Still something in you longs to know
Why you are here
What gives meaning to your life
Why keep going
And many more
Good questions all.
I believe that the answers
always lie within
there are different ways
of finding why we are here
Meditation quites the mind
but it can also help find answers
Dreams too
Can aid our search
Standing on the bridge
waiting to jump
looking for answers
This is the knife’s edge way
Cutting through
to the center
Going to the heart
See who you really are
Then see if you can
look even deeper
There is always more
to see and know.
Yamabuki
Dear Yamabuki,
I believe you’ve found my site through the Cha Literary Journal contributions. Am I right?
I assume so because I see that you follow Tammy Ho very closely. I found that your comment is a post directly from your blog for March 6th. As it pertains to my post, I will not remove it. But I’m going to have to ask you to refrain from pasting your posts as comments on my page.
I like to reserve the comments page as a place for less obfuscation–where people can come to clarify ideas (mine or their own). Also, pasting your posts on my comments page is a form of publication which I cannot allow. This is a blog, not a literary journal or magazine.
Thank you for your understanding,
Angela
loved it
thanks for stopping by