We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us. – Charles Bukowski

We are here to witness the creation and abet it. We are here to notice each thing so each thing gets noticed. Together we notice not only each mountain shadow and each stone on the beach but, especially, we notice the beautiful faces and complex natures of each other. We are here to bring to consciousness the beauty and power that are around us and to praise the people who are here with us. We witness our generation and our times. We watch the weather. Otherwise, creation would be playing to an empty house.

According to the second law of thermodynamics, things fall apart. Structures disintegrate. Buckminster Fuller hinted at a reason we are here: By creating things, by thinking up new combinations, we counteract this flow of entropy. We make new structures, new wholeness, so the universe comes out even. A shepherd on a hilltop who looks at a mess of stars and thinks, ‘There’s a hunter, a plow, a fish,’ is making mental connections that have as much real force in the universe as the very fires in those stars themselves. – Annie Dillard

Ancient religion and modern science agree: we are here to give praise. Or, to slightly tip the expression, to pay attention. Without us, the physicists who have espoused the anthropic principle tell us, the universe would be unwitnessed, and in a real sense not there at all. It exists, incredibly, for us. This formulation (knowing what we know of the universe’s ghastly extent) is more incredible, to our sense of things, than the Old Testament hypothesis of a God willing to suffer, coddle, instruct, and even (in the Book of Job) to debate with men, in order to realize the meager benefit of worship, of praise for His Creation. What we beyond doubt do have is our instinctive intellectual curiosity about the universe from the quasars down to the quarks, our wonder at existence itself, and an occasional surge of sheer blind gratitude for being here. – John Updike

No why. Just here. – John Cage

So, what are your thoughts? What’s the meaning of life?

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I found this image online recently — wish I could remember where! — and it was captioned with

This is how I feel when I breathe.

For some reason, that really, really moved me.

I need to remember to breathe. It’s amazing how often I forget.

I was driving in the middle of nowhere, and had to stop. (For gas? Pee break? I’m not sure why.) It was the middle of nowhere, but it was right outside of Los Angeles – so it wasn’t really far. No clue if that matters.

I stop in a junk store, a white elephant, filled with weird, colorful, cheap crap. The walls are white, but they’re hard to see through all the precariously balanced tchotchkes. While I’m walking through the store, I see my father. Not corporeally; he’s a ghost. He doesn’t say anything to me, but I see him clearly as he drifts through the shop.

I leave because I have to go home, and on my way out, I start seeing people from my past that I had conflict with. Some are specific, some are amalgamations of people I knew. When I talk to them, they seem… brighter? Unburdened. Kinder. They radiate light, but not in a literal way.

I leave, but keep coming back to this town because I want to see my dad, even if I can’t communicate with him. (The in-between times are fuzzy.) Whenever I go into the junk shop, I see him, and the more I go into the shop, the more I see other spirits of people I love that have passed away.

The rest of the town is filling up with more people from my past, and they’re all – how do I explain this? – they’re becoming their perfected selves. Something about the town burns away the hardness around their souls, the cynicism, selfishness, bitterness, and all the residue of hurt, and they’re their best selves as long as they’re there. I wonder if I am, too.

In the dream, there was one person in particular that I reconnected with. He registered in the dream as someone I was friends with in high school, or at least during my teenage years, but is someone I’ve never actually met. Eventually, he became very forthcoming about the nature of this weird town. Something about the town burns away the hardness around their souls, the cynicism, selfishness, bitterness, and all the residue of hurt, and they’re their best selves as long as they’re there. On this plot of land, nothing has ever died, and no act of violence has ever been committed.

And then I woke up.

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Related and unrelated:

There’s a street very close to my house whose houses butt right up against a cemetery. The houses there are… different. Almost all of them have a quirky quality to them: some are painted bright, sherbet colors, the retaining walls and fences are wavy and whimsical, and most of the properties are covered – COVERED! – in… stuff. There are houses whose yards are overflowing with potted plants, and others that are piled ground to roof with ceramic figurines and holiday lights all year round. There’s an almost offertory quality to the gardens filled with Stuff that has fascinated me since the day we moved in, and I’ve spent a lot of time daydreaming about what compels an entire community of people living with a cemetery in their backyard to ornament their homes like this. Is it a subconscious drive to pay tribute to the spirits? Is it an impulse to keep the spirits at bay? Do the bright colors and whimsical statues bring comfort to the dead?

It occurred to me upon waking that the store in my dream – the white-walled junk store where the ghost drift – was filled with things I’d seen on this street.

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Like many other kids of the 70’s, my first introduction to Edward Gorey came by way of PBS’ Mystery! I wasn’t much into mysteries at the time, but I loved the intro so much that whenever my parents were about to watch the show, my mom and dad would call me into the room so I could watch the Gorey opening sequence with them.

Good childhood memories.

My emotional connection to this is incredibly strong, and (as silly as it may seem) it’s one of the Pivotal Things that helped shape the woman I am today. When I see it, when I hear the music — it reminds me of how much my parents loved me. Memories of comfort — of being safe, feeling loved, and being inspired — are all inextricably entwined for me with this one little animation.

What are your strongest positive childhood memories?

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I read about Kirtan Kriya, and it seemed like this meditation might help me get my head on straight. Can’t hurt, amirite? I gave it a shot tonight, and… so far, so good. We’ll see how I feel after eight weeks of chanting!

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