I used to be dead. That’s right, I was a zombie, the walking dead. I went through the motions – ate (when we had food), went to school, walked around, but inside? Nothing. Abused for years and living in utter poverty I retreated inside until nothing was left outside. My eyes were vacant, portals through which images came through and sunk into the recesses of my mind. And what images too. My best friend – raped. Another friend – raped. I tried once to love a pet, and my parent killed him to teach me a lesson on loving anyone other than her. “You need to learn," she told me.
There is a lot to learn.
When you’re dead, life is easier. Pain doesn’t matter anymore. Suicide, the medias portrayal of suicide involving razors and slit wrists and taking tons of pills, was never an option. I think I would have had to admit I was alive to feel a pull towards taking my own life. Of course, my friends and I did, in hindsight, try to kill ourselves in multiple ways. One of them involved lying down in the middle of the busiest street in our town – on the hill part – at midnight. We got up after a car ran over either our jacket or hair. I forget which.
I think the first step in the search for the meaning of life is to recognize you are alive to begin with. I also believe that’s the hardest step, as well as the answer.
It’s only recently I’ve come to realize that I am alive. Most days I feel like a five year old as I navigate relationships in this confusing world. I’ve been away from my family for a while now, and live a pretty darn good life – nice home, good job, and some friends. Best of all – there are no threats of daily violence and no need to hide myself. Of course, now I’m much more acutely aware of the zombies around me, those beaten down by time and circumstance.
So what makes me uniquely capable of ruminating on the meaning of life? I suppose because I have risen from death and can experience and fully appreciate what I’ve gained in doing so.
I remember God and the dialogues about meaning. My mother was big on looking good in the community so she’d bring her bruised (“oh, they’re just clumsy") children to church every Sunday, leave us there and then drive the elderly and invalid to the services smiling her Cheshire cat smile.
“The meaning of life is God," the minister would say. “We live our lives to glorify God. All of our actions reflect on He, the creator. There is no ‘I’ in heavenly, only HE. That is our purpose in life. God gives us meaning."
Only thing was, there is an ‘I’ in religion, two in fact. Plus, this minister was the same one who glorified my parent as an upstanding member of our community. He gave her a Sunday School class, gave her some special church lady pins. These dichotomies entered my pupil and embedded themselves in the recesses of my mind. Then, when I finally started to act, to not be content shuffling my feet and moaning, my limp arms outstretched, the same minister told me that I was sinning against God. When I began to ask questions, to do so was against God.
To many, the meaning of life remains God and I’m not here to dispute that.
In college I turned to Eastern studies and read many texts, among them The Bhagavad-Gita - Krishna’s counsel with Arjuna. One passage in particular stuck out:
Perform necessary action; It is more powerful than inaction’ Without action you even fail To sustain your own body. (The Third Teaching, paragraph 8)
Action. Life is action, and Krishna, which to me was just another one of the many names for God, praises the necessary actions of life. Without action we are dead and if we are dead without having done anything, is there meaning?
Which is what leads me to the meaning of life – Life itself is the meaning. Action. It’s a lot harder than it seems. The ability to act as necessary?
How many people do you know that, when seeing a bruised and beaten child come into church would stand up and question the parent’s assertion of, “clumsy brat?" I knew none. How many people can stand up to even speak for themselves, for their rights? There always needs to be one person, one who is truly alive enough to recognize that this isn’t the life they were meant to live, and thus stand up and act – perform the necessary action – to reclaim and better life. To give meaning to their actions.
As I mentioned earlier, it is so easy to die. Why do you think slavery was accepted for so long (and still is in many places)? Why do you think we needed the civil rights movements of the sixties to finally raise up the status of blacks, women, homosexuals, and so many others? Because it is too easy to get in the mindset that only certain people are given the gift of life.
Everyone here on this planet, everyone reading my words has the right to give their life meaning by actually living it. I now take one day at a time; the future and past are just ways to trap our mind out of the ‘now’ and keep us from performing the actions we need to do. My past is a part of me, and may help drive my actions, but if I was to allow myself to stay in it then how could I listen to the child who tells me her father comes to her bed at night and then take action by going straight to the social worker at the school?
But I’m not talking about just the actions to help others, although those are certainly necessary actions. I’m also talking about the ones to help yourself. To just take today and go outside and say, “I am alive and thus there is meaning," is a wonderful thing. To realize what the ‘now’ is like, to recognize colors. I finally see color. It’s amazing the things you don’t realize exist until you take the time to actually look around you. The vibrant blues of the sky (okay, now they’re gray as a storm is coming through), the birds around you, the sound of your feet as they step down on each square of pavement, or the sound of my friends wheelchair as it goes through gravel. These are the things that are important, that prove life, and thus imbue it with meaning.
Victorya has been teaching a workshop to adults wishing to enter graduate school for over 2 years. She has taught classes to students ranging in age from 4 to 55. She is also an abuse survivor which has driven her passions to help those who may fall into the 'victim' mentality. This has led her to work in Pediatric cancer for sometime, as well as in inner city schools. She chronicles her path to find herself on her blog, http://victoryachasegoestotherapy.blogspot.com
» left by Avis Ward(9,013) Avis Ward (1 year 1 day ago.)
Victorya, a very good article. I agree with you on: "To just take today and go outside and say, “I am alive and thus there is meaning," is a wonderful thing." Life is about action! Inactivity leads to atrophy. Even our muscles will atrophy if there's no activity/action! Thank you for sharing. Respond to this comment
» left by Victorya Chase(126) (364 days 11 hours ago.)
Thanks Avis! Life is a hard thing to understand, too often in searching for meaning we miss that it's right there in our daily actions. Respond to this comment
» left by Anonymous (1 year ago.)
Fantastic article! You put so much into such a short piece. I pray for your continued survival and most importantly, your continued success in living! Keep on creating life through the actions that you are presently taking! God Be with You! Respond to this comment
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