The Meaning of Life or, Have I Lived Too Long?

May 23, 2008

Have I lived too long? Is all the excitement, mystery, glory, and intensity that I experienced as a young person now to be just a dimming memory; a spark from my past whose light grows weak with time? Is the rest of my life to be a sedate acceptance of the inevitable dilution of a life well lived on the edge, full of tragedy, brief triumphs, and moments of wonder? Where or when does the mind age? The scene from behind my eyes remains the same. The feelings in my heart are the same. Although tempered by experience, the passion remains the same.

What is this thing called “age?” What does it really mean to mature? Do the histories and experiences of this life temper or enhance my judgments? What worth are they, really, these trials, if they inhibit the moment or deny an opportunity to experience life and all it has to offer?

The questions and quandaries that plagued me as a youth continue to haunt the recesses of my core expanded by tears and pain, causing alarms, discords, doubt, hesitancy, misgivings, cynicism, and on occasion, paranoia. How great it might be to be free again: to trust without doubt; to feel without reservation; to acknowledge without assessment; to love without fear; laugh with abandon, and experience with blind confidence. How great might it be to once again risk the pain, the anguish, the laughter, the ecstasy, and the marvel of it all without the dark cloak of guardianship presiding over my thoughts and processes?

Is this life only a continuum to protect and preserve the soul without the added flavor and colors that risk provides? Or is it for us to add, enhance, increase, and fulfill a destiny we once prescribed? May I choose not to doubt, but just to experience? May I choose to cast my fate to the wind and enjoy the moment with all of its peril and promise? May I choose now to love to the fullest, live as if there’s no tomorrow, trust in the stars, and enrich my experience with all of the colors of life’s palette into my rainbow of life? Or am I doomed by my own misgivings and wounds?

As I gaze into the mirror of my spirit, reflecting on these constructs, the message returns to me that I have never been bound except for those ties that are self-imposed. The restrictions on my essence are nothing more than harmless ghosts, whose painful quests are long since gone; the lesson learned the mind enriched.

The ties that bind me I choose to cast off. I pick the road less traveled to complete my journey in Technicolor, with all of the hazards and surprises, whatever they may be. I now know the answer to this thing called ‘old’ – it is to come to that place, with understanding, experience, and knowledge that I will always be free to choose my path and fill my cup. There are or never were shackles to my life except for those I chose to wear. I am free. I am alive.

“May I have this dance?”

“Dance as if no one is watching.”
“Sing as if no one is listening.”


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