Life – A Gift from the Unknown
Why I see life as a gift from the Unknown, and how the thought that we are all “killing time” brought me peace and made me want to live more fully.
LIFE?
Life – A Gift from the Unknown
Life, as I understand it, is living for as long as the body has the energy to sustain itself. When it can no longer do so, it stops responding. Life ends, and the body begins to decompose.
Where did this energy come from? How did it take the form that I call my life? I do not know. I was inquisitive about these questions once. I am no longer inclined to spend much of my time trying to answer them. The chances of finding an answer I could be certain of seem remote to me. Some people may wish to spend a lifetime on that enquiry. That is entirely their choice.
On the scale of the universe, the time I am alive may count for very little. And yet, the briefest time available to the smallest living being is, for that being, all the time it has. My time may be barely noticeable in the bigger picture. To me, it is everything.
Seen from that bigger picture, whatever I do in my lifetime is a way of passing the time I have. I call it KILLING TIME. Since I came to see it this way, I have experienced tremendous peace. I can give myself fully to something without feeling that it has to mean something on the scale of the universe. It is enough that it makes sense to me and that I am willing to live with the consequences of choosing it.
I have made up my mind to regard the time I have as a gift from the Unknown. I want to live it to the hilt and do what I reasonably can to extend it. And whenever my time comes, I would like to be able to accept it without blinking.
This is my understanding of life. It may or may not make sense to you. It makes sense to me.
From time to time, I’ll write more about what is happening in my life, what I’m learning from it, and how far I’m able to live by this understanding.
— A SOL
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