The Farce We Call Life

Do you own anything in life? If you answer yes, what is it that you own? The house that you own will eventually fall apart and be torn down. The car you drive will eventually break down and have to be scrapped. Everything that is tangible will eventually disintegrate. What we own is nothing but material belonging to Mother Nature that we use while we are alive. Everything in life is borrowed. You come into this world naked, and you depart it pretty much the same way. Everything you think you own is assigned to you on a temporary basis. Ownership, then, is nothing but the privilege of using something for a while. It doesn't matter what you have accumulated or how much of it. Life is too short to attach yourself to things of absolute insignificance. In my opinion, how you live your life and what you accomplish are what benefit humanity and your own soul.

The most difficult aspect of life is not hard work or career development but relationships with people. If you were the only person left alive on Earth, you can no longer experience good vs. evil--eventhough good and evil thoughts are within you. You can only experience good or evil thoughts when others are present. Traits such as jealousy, hatred, envy, obstinacy, stinginess, love, compassion, generosity, and devotion would be meaningless in the absence of other people. Life would then be cold and impersonal. How can you experience love if you don't have someone to love?

People enter your life at many levels. There are those whom you don't care to know well, there are those whom you would like to know but who could care less about knowing you, and there are those who associate with you to some degree but about whose ulterior motives you have no idea. Then you have your family, and what comes with it ranges anywhere from love to hatred, from respect to ridicule and intimidation. Finally, you have intimate relationships, with their joys, betrayals and heartaches.

If you trust people, you are most likely damned, and if you don't trust people, you are also damned. It is a puzzle! Some people receive pleasure from harming others, while others receive pleasure from helping and giving to others. I cannot understand how some people harm others and go on living their lives as if nothing has happened. I could not sleep at night knowing I had wronged someone. So how do you avoid hurting people, whether on purpose or otherwise?

You can avoid people altogether, but living all alone can be a killer. You can compromise, but are you willing to violate your principles for the sake of pleasing others? If you compromise, you may become surrounded with people; otherwise, you may live and die a lonely person. You are the only one who can make the choice. It is tough no matter what you select, and if you have the least amount of conscience, eventually your choice will come back to haunt you.

People pretend to be what they are not. They put on different acts for a business, social, or religious setting. It may take a lifetime to know someone's true nature. And if they are really good at pretending, you may never know. When you pretend, you are deceiving others. More important, you are violating the most sacred of all things - your own self. So why not stop pretending, and simply be yourself?