The Dash

 Through out time there has been one thing always true, no matter how it happens we are all going to die sometime. there is no escaping it.

And the ways we die are varied, Sickness, War, Murder, Accident, etc we all are going to die. And, in the end, if we escape everything else, age is the final arbiter. No matter how lucky, healthy, safe, we have lived our lives, death comes for us all in the end. Old age is the final stop.

I remember reading a book some time ago, Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom, where Morrie, the man in the title, knew he was dying and knew, within a very small range of time, how much longer he had. And he said to Mitch, "Everybody knows they are going to die, but no one believes it".

That is a pretty profound statement.

And it is so true. Look at the society around us. Especially Western European American Society. We do all these things to prolong our lives and make no effort to prepare for after. We make wills and try to make an appearance of knowing, and then we destroy our planet with massive consumerism and pollution along with over population.

And to me that is totally selfish. And Fear driven. We know we are going to die, and we do things to insure that we are the last generation. Like we will live forever and be able to fix it later.

There is a story called the dash. In that story they talk about the two dates on a gravestone. The birth date and the death date.

And in between those two dates is a dash.

That dash is your entire life.

Now we humans are interesting creatures. We are the only species, that we know of, that create Meaning. And the way we do that is in Language. Without Language Meaning is impossible.

Think about it, a thing happens, and we create a Story about what happened and that story collapses into what happened and now that story is indistinguishable from what actually happened. And that story about what happens assigns the meanings of Good, Bad, or Indifferent

And thus we give our Lives Meaning.

The problem is that 99% of people go thru their lives on automatic pilot and create with no intention and thus most of the meaning given to their lives is in the negative. Because Creation without Active Intention is always into the Negative. And we live our lives in that spot.

A very few people go thru life living and creating with Active Intention. And those are the people who shake the world with their words and actions.

So now, we get back to the title of this little meanderment. We get back to the dash.

The las line of the story about the dash asks, "What does your dash say about you?"

I know for myself that I want my dash to say that I created a life worth living. That I was kind and considerate much more often than not. That I gave more to life than I took from it. That people found me a comfort to be around. That I gave of myself to others and did not take.

That is the Meaning that I want to give to my life.

So, What meaning do you want to give to your Life? What does your dash say about You?