p00frog

What is life but a series of chronological events that lead up to the single most fateful, and ironically last, moment of our existence?

There are a couple of things I have learned in the short time that I have had lungs to breathe and a brain that even lends me to think on these things to learn: and that is that every material thing is not intended to serve to make us happy. The American motto, dream and creed is essentially summed up in 4 words, "the pursuit of happiness". And sadly, this pursuit of happiness can also coincide with our pursuit of "stuff". But what is happiness?

Too often we confuse it with fun.
Fun = smiling
Happy = smiling
So, we incorrectly mislabel fun and think, maybe not consciously, that those two terms are interchangeable.

Sure, the jet ski in the middle of summer on Joe Pool Lake is fun. But it isn't the source of my happiness. And if it was, does that mean my happiness ends when the fun goes away?

It's in those moments between lying down for bed and falling asleep that we discover whether or not we are truly happy. Maybe this is why we can't fall asleep unless the radio or television is on. Because in the quiet place is when we are forced to come to grips with who we are. This is the sad reality of our culture: we are all about going and all about noise, but very little self-actualization, if any, is able to take place within the buzz that is the American dream. We have raped ourselves of individual self, and replaced it with a pre-packaged idea of what life should look like. If we were to base life on strictly commercials, life looks like skinny models that eat McDonalds that take medicine to help them sleep at night because they have trouble solving their genital itching problems.

I'm so glad that advertisements are not a true reflection of life.

In Ecclesiastes, Solomon says that the same fate comes to us all – death. Whether you are white, black, yellow, red, blue, fat, skinny, rich, poor…in the end, we all die. So when you think of it in that light, material things seem of little consequence in the end.

Anne Bradstreet reiterates this idea in her poem, Here Follows Some Verses Upon the Burning of Our House, "A Prise so vast as is unknown, Yet, by his Gift, is made thine own. Ther's wealth enough, I need no more; Farewell my Pelf, farewell my Store. The world no longer let me Love, My hope and Treasure lyes Above." Everything under the sun is temporary. Despite the treasures man may obtain , despite the status he may acquire – the same end comes to us all; death. From dust we were formed, to dust we shall return. As Bradstreet said, Adieu, Adieu – all is vanity.