If I spend one more minute trying to answer that blerrie question no one’s really been able to answer since… hmm… err… Let’s see, I think it’s almost FOREVER to the day now, I will have the contemplative part of my brain surgically removed. What is life? Or, what is the purpose of life? For crying out loud, in the name of all things defining sanity! I’ve come to the point where I think answering that question – let alone asking it – is irrelevant. To answer that question about your own life you’d have to figure out why God made the human race (if you’re religious or spiritual), or why things exist at all.
I don’t know about you but after women, politics, and my 9-to-5 I barely have the brain power or time between ad breaks to give it proper thought. However, while washing the dishes today, I think I figured out how to live life to the fullest (even if you don’t know what life is for).
I believe that we’re all different which makes us all the same (I’m an individual… just like you). The universe is made up of extremes – hot and cold, leaders and followers etc etc. We all have the potential to be anything from a saint to a serial killer. All of us. So with these things in mind, how does one live life to the fullest? Whenever I hear this, I think of bungee jumping, approaching women, travelling the world or doing something that could get me arrested, but these all seem really trivial. Getting laid may seem at the top of your list when you’re not getting laid. But in the larger scheme of things, a five-second orgasm after a five-minute encounter, on which you spent five hours and a R500 bill working to get doesn’t strike me as one of those things that flash before your eyes in your final moments.
So if you consider the two points; that we are all different, and that we have the potential to be anything, how do we then make the most of the time we have here on earth before we go to heaven or hell, before you’re reincarnated or before you get your 72 virgins? It finally dawned upon me that being you is how. Now I don’t believe who you are cast in stone. We can change, but I do believe we choose to be who we are. We all have character traits that make us who we are. I’m talking about core character traits that we base our life decisions on and that make the foundation of how we react to our world. Take, for instance, a poet. Being a poet is who she is. It’s a core character trait, which even she can’t deny. She doesn’t know why she’s a poet or when she became a poet. She just is. How does she live life to the fullest?
We humans are social creatures. Solitude would render us insane. Just look at Van Gogh. He lived alone, and half his ear went missing. I, for one, am not claiming that he did it to himself… I’m just saying he lived alone. As social creatures, we feel the need to express ourselves and expressing yourself goes beyond having our say. It means showing the world who we are. To be heard, seen, acknowledged and appreciated because you do you and you do you bloody well. So when the poet writes, publishes or performs her craft, she is living that part of her life to the fullest. But humans are complex creatures so our poet isn’t just a poet she’s also really good at meeting new people, she’s very curious by nature, she’s loving, she’s short tempered and she puts out… a lot. OK, scrap the last one.
So our poet also spends her life travelling to meet new people, she reads voraciously to satisfy her curiosity, and she practises to be patient with people because she knows that her temper doesn’t add anything good to her human experience. Living to the fullest is, for me, a sharing thing. It means all of us giving the best of us
If you’re a doctor, be the best doctor you can be.
If you’re a lover, love like only you can love.
If you’re an artist, paint from your heart, sing from your soul, and write from the most earnest aching of your being.
If you’re a nymphomaniac, you need to talk to someone – preferably me.
This could all be BS; foolish philosophies, a lunatic’s logic or pseudo-psychology. It could just be me.
Writer: Loyiso Madinga