What is the meaning of a good life?
What is life but a series of events strung together by glimpses of pain and suffering?
Why must we suffer as humans? Why must we feel pain? Why? Why!
The answer isn’t so simple. It’s a conundrum for science and scholars alike. The religious are comfortable with their answers while the common man goes about his day wondering… always wondering. Why!?
What answer is there for him, the solitary man? The one no one sees, toiling in his labor of love only to find emptiness and occasional belonging. How does one suffer correctly, you might ask? That’s a valid question worthy of investigation.
You are a man. An adult with responsibilities, desires, and vices. You are at the epitome of humanity. You have reached the cradle of civilization, power, greed, wealth, and loneliness. How is it that you are still alive yet feel like you are just starting, when your progenitors for millions of years were wrapping up their existence? Their humanity had crescendoed: kids born, hunting done, fields planted, legacy ensured. "Where am I?" you ask. "Where is my progeny and legacy?"
The answer is clear in your mind. You don’t deserve them. You don’t deserve what your ancestors achieved. They went through real pain and suffering. They didn’t have indoor plumbing, for Christ’s sake. How could they not just get on with their life and live it? There was nothing else to do but live and live fully. No time for penance or pedantic pessimism.
Survival is the common theme of our humanity throughout all generations. "Where is my will to survive?" you ask. "Where is my get-on-with-it-ness?"
It lies in the definition of your “good life.” Your definition has shifted from that of your progenitors. Is that evolution with new mediums of living or a sad excuse to not be human? To try to be something higher and loftier, something more “thoughtful”?
The end is near. Yes, the end of this article, but also the end of my excuses. The end of the era of chasing the ‘good’ life. You are good, whether you believe it or not. In the same way your highway robbery great-great-great-great-uncle was good. Human and fatally flawed by your desire to survive.
So how will you move forward with this fatal flaw in mind? Will it take you toward cynicism and grief, the green jade of envy, or the gentle waterfalls of adulthood? You are able to choose because you are human. Isn’t that a neat feature? The ability to choose your friends and sometimes your family. The ability to choose water or wine. You are the chooser of your soul. What it will be and what it won’t.
This is for you, to decide. The road to take is yours and the joke is whichever you choose will lead to the “Good” life.
Do you hear that voice? I love you, buddy. Do you hear it growing louder? That is me… you… me… inside and all around. You, my friend, are not alone but forever lonely. Because you choose.
What is this evolution you say? How does it serve? Fuck it, dude. Don’t choose then. Keep analyzing… it doesn’t matter because it all leads to the good life… your life. The only life that matters… to you.
You are a man and that is good enough. Be proud… be loud… be an asshole. You are, and nothing can change that. You are a phoenix, you are a jewel, you are… so be. Whatever that means, you choose.
Still don’t believe me? Then look up at the sky and choose not to see blue. I dare you…
LIFE—what does it stand for? Can you name its three pillars? I dare you. I dare you to write it down in ink.
Yours truly,
The Thoughtful Gent