How Do We Measure Life?

I don't know about you guys, but I love Existential day above all others. Granted, I can't get any real work done on these days because I spend most of the time just sitting in my room pondering the question. That's why these "impossible" questions are so much fun to think about. There's no real answer, and yet we search for one.

We try and find that one answer that applies to all of us as one, but the thing is, that can't be done. At least not in the world we live in today. The only real answer you can discover by digging deeper is one for yourself. That's it. And it's beautiful. I mean, the way you perceive the world and your place in it is the most important, right? Once you realize that, there's that tiniest taste of pure inner peace. It's like a drug, or eating potato chips. Once you get that initial taste, you'll want more and more. Luckily, inner peace can be achieved without narcotics or fatty foods. Just sit and think for awhile. Close the curtains on the rest of the chaotic world around you and you'll find the answer. It's not an easy task. You'll feel lost most of the way, but the key is to keep moving. You will find the path. And maybe it'll be somewhere you least expect it, but you'll know it when you see it. 

There's no point in sitting and waiting for inner peace. You have to go looking for it. And, I know I've said to sit and think, but just because you're not doing anything physically, mentally you can be hundreds of miles from your seat. Everyone these days is obsessed with moving out further and stretching ourselves out into the greater universe, and that's all great. I'm all for that. Sign me up for first in line to Mars, but it's easy to stretch further away from what we know. Stretch far enough and you may forget about who you are altogether. That's why we must search inside of ourselves just as much as we search the stars. We won't get very far out there if we're stuck arguing here. Close your eyes, take slow breaths, and find that little piece of calmness before replying to that other party screaming at you. Honestly, just take the high road. No one likes hearing that, but if you don't give that other person the reaction they're looking for, then - more often than not - they'll get bored of you and walk away. Good. Who needs someone like that in their life? Pay attention to the toxicity in your life and cut those ties. You'll thank yourself later when you do.

Okay, that was a lot of random babbling for reasons I don't even know. I guess I'm feeling very calm this morning as I write today's blog. Which is good since it's Existential day. Maybe I'll be able to function a little after finishing this (if I ever get to the question at hand).

Alright, enough babbling. Here's the question for today:

How Do We Measure life?

The grandfather of Existentialist thought, Soren Kierkegaard once wrote;

"Life is a thing that has to be lived forward, but can only be understood backwards." 

This means that, your life is not going to make a god damn bit of sense in the moments of living it, it is only after we have lived through our situations that we can come to see them for what they are and we can come to value and gauge the meaning of them in our lives. And that is part of knowing how to measure your life. Recognizing that in some moments it is not going to add up to much until you can look back on it.

But that is not the whole of it, so let’s try to be aphoristic with another measure of life.

Life is measured in moments. No. That’s too hallmark. Life is measured in stages. No. That’s too generic. Life is measured in time. No. That’s too technical. Life is measured in stages of the moments in time. Borderline philosophical, but utter bullshit. Life is measured to the accuracy with which we have the capacity to calculate. There we go. That is reasonably philosophical and cryptic enough to sound wise.

Let me explain. The way that we can measure our lives – that we can set the currency of our lives on the scales of the money lender – is if we know what each coin is worth. And that’s what you need to get clear about in order to properly measure the depth, the breadth and the weight of your life. 

 This means you have to understand what’s important to you and spend your precious time and energy on pursuing that thing. And sometimes that can mean following a dream to the exclusion of all other things. Pushing so hard towards some goal that you refuse to look away for fear it might vanish. If that’s you, then you measure your life by how hard you pursued that dream. Not if you catch it, but how hard you work for it. We can’t always control the catching, but we sure as hell can control our effort towards it.

But, to come back to Kierkegaard, the final weight of our life is only going to be measured after we already know how far we have come. I know we want to be able to measure how far we have to go to get to some state of mind or some ideal life or some perfect situation, but we will never know the full dimensions of that thing until it is behind us and we have moved on to measuring other future things. So, the best we can do is live forward and let the measuring come after.

This means finding those “truths that you can live and die for” as Kierkegaard so desperately sought and giving them out into the world. Those great, meaningful, extraordinary things that you are capable of need someone to birth them into the world. You are the only one who can give them life. So, until we get to the point of having most of your living in the rear view mirror, we measure our lives by how deeply we live them.

We measure our lives by the leaps of faith taken in the directions of dreams. We measure our lives by the bounds of relationships that we have been able to foster and grow. We measure our lives by the miles of roads we have put under our feet and the reams of paper we have devoured in the pursuit of intellectual things. When we measure our life that way the final measurements we take at the end are going to be absolute and square and will fit us to perfection.

In short, I am not accountable to any other definition about the meaning of life and who I should be and what my life adds up to and that is a heavy, beautiful burden that I want to hold close and wear with pride. I hope you decide to do the same and not shy away from these existential questions and see in them the power to take responsibility of your life and give it everything it needs to matter.

I'll see you all tomorrow.

Buh-bye.