Off Topic
This morning, twitter alerted me to the news that eight people had been shot in downtown Orlando.
Obviously, this news was shocking and bizarre. And, of course, sad.
It was particularly sad for me to read about it because something similar, if not even more horrific, had happened the day before.
There’s a lot of ways a blog post about this incident could pan out. We could discuss gun control, mental health, a distressed economy or some permutation of them.
But, really, the only thing that keeps playing in my head has to do with how the people who walked into the Gateway Center’s eighth floor had no clue of what an incredibly bad Friday they were about to have.
It’s a pretty trite perspective, I know, but that’s all I can seem to think about.
Being human is so … hard, isn’t it?
Animals and plants have it easy. Nourishment, shelter and reproduction. There are no complicated nuances. Any complications generally arise as the result of our complications bleeding over into their efficient existence.
But us humans? We’re complicated creatures.
I keep wondering about the two people who have been reported dead.
Who were they?
And, my God, why them?
Why not you? Or me?
I don’t mean that it should have been me or you, I mean, it could have been me or you. Easily.
We lock our doors, look both ways before we cross the street, take our vitamins, eat right… and we think that this is going to make a huge difference. The truth is that it makes only a little difference.
I’m wondering about those two people… reports are preliminary right now, so we don’t know anything about them.
I’ve got these sappy movie scenes playing out in my head.
Like, a pretty, middle aged woman slams the door shut and makes sure she mutters, “Jerk” in earshot before she gets in her car, pointedly refusing to say good bye to her husband after the argument they just had about who was going to take their son to soccer practice… or maybe she got in the car, put the keys in the ignition, sighed deeply and then went back in the house and yelled, “Hey, I’m mad, but I love you, OK?”
Some single twenty something guy stumbles into the kitchen, makes some coffee and then trudges out of the door feeling a slightly numbed despair as he realizes he hates his crap job… or did he jump out of bed and greet the morning with joy and purpose, knowing that whatever he was going to do today was really going to mean something to him?
And, let me get really morbid and ask, what words spin in one’s head as they lay on the floor bleeding to death because of someone else’s complete madness?
“This can’t be happening… is this really happening… I’m not done here…Oh, God, is this really happ…. “
The End?
I would imagine that it would play out that way. I don’t think in a situation like that most people are evaluating whether they’ve lived a good and meaningful life. I would imagine you cling to the hope that this is not it.
There has to be more. Please let there be more.
I don’t know about you, but I’m done living for that last moment as of right now.
It gets bantered about quite a bit, this idea of “When I die, I want to know that my life meant something.” I figure we spend the majority of our time and energy trying not to die, so I imagine in that moment, I’m going to be too scared to make sense of anything.
The fact is that every single moment in our lives means something. Every single second, actually, and we consciously choose what each of those seconds mean.
Or whether they don’t mean anything at all.
In the end, we are not who we are in the last moment of our lives.
We are who we are right now.
It’s not “When I die, I want my life to have meant something.”
It’s, “As I live, I’m making this moment mean something.”
Stumble it!
Tags: death, gateway center, meaning, mortality, orlando, shooting
November 6th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
A line from one of my favorite movies, The Shawshank Redemption, is a pretty impressive revelation along these same lines… “time to get busy living, or get busy dying.” If we’re always living to make our moments count, it gives our lives meaning and purpose.
Such perspective is a a lot more useful if it’s experienced before the last moment of our lives. Thanks for the reminder.
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Faiqa Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
@Dave2, I love that movie, and I distinctly remember that quote from it.
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November 6th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
I think of these exact same things. It was the major theme running through my head after 9/11. It is every single time I hear of almost any tragic death.
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Faiqa Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
@Finn, Right, I don’t remember thinking that right after 9/11, but when I think of 9/11 now, I do. If that makes sense.
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November 6th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
I’m trying to reconcile “I want to be somebody” with what that phrase typically means. “I want to be somebody” is usually seen as an incomplete sentence meaning “I want to be somebody famous.” But who? And why? We all start out wanting to be noteworthy to the world at large but as I’ve gotten older, “I just want to be somebody special to everyone I meet. I just want to be.” And that’s what I’m trying to do, trying to come to terms with. That while I live, I am something special to my children and my husband. And that gives me peace.
Beautiful, thoughtful post, darlin’.
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Faiqa Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
@Coal Miner’s Granddaughter, Me, too. And, oh? You are *definitely* somebody to me.
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November 6th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
Working on this very thing, every day. Well mostly every day. I procrastinate a lot. And I like to have fun. I like to live life. Meaning and purpose are all fine and dandy but fart jokes are also necessary. Make sense?
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Faiqa Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
@Karen Sugarpants, Who says having fun is not meaningful? It’s deeply meaningful and extremely important. As are fart jokes.
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November 6th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
I look at my kids and wonder if what is important to me, is important to them. Am I teaching them properly. I wonder if I were to die today, would they be able to go? Would they be proud?
Maybe its because I see so much senseless crap at the hospital, but I have been a lot more “today is what we focus on”.
What a great post.
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Faiqa Reply:
November 7th, 2009 at 11:57 pm
@Becky, Somehow, my reply to you about this got eaten by Wordpress. For me, my kids are the catalyst to live in the moment. I have no idea how long we have together and I’m not wasting a single moment of it.
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November 7th, 2009 at 1:14 am
This is definitely something I try to live, daily. I try to be “in the moment” as much as possible and love on my kid as much as possible, because I think about morbid stuff like this far too often. I want her to know how MUCH I love her and how HARD I love her all the time. (And the other people in my life, of course.)
So AfrickingabsolutelyMEN!
xo
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Faiqa Reply:
November 7th, 2009 at 10:40 am
@Sybil Law, This comes up with me regarding my daughter, too… I’ve seen (and, yes, actually been on the rare occasion) a parent go crazy over a spilled cup of juice, and I think, “hey, it’s juice”, please don’t make your child feel clumsy and stupid over a stupid stain in the carpet. I mean, I’m not overly permissive, but… Why ruin a moment with your kid by being angry?
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November 7th, 2009 at 7:50 am
Another awesome entry.
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Faiqa Reply:
November 7th, 2009 at 10:40 am
@Robin, Thank you!
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November 7th, 2009 at 11:44 am
When I wrote my post about “there’s only this” a few weeks back, I was thinking the same thing. Life should be lived the best it can be each day. Sometimes our “best” may seem boring and trivial but if we don’t think it is? Then it’s not.
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Faiqa Reply:
November 7th, 2009 at 11:59 pm
@Hilly, It truly is about our own perspective… that’s powerful and a little intimidating.
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November 7th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
27 1/2 years ago when my brother was killed at 19 years old, I wondered this a lot…and really tried to make sense of why good people are taken…really tried to ‘make my life *count*’……really.tried. and got upset with myself when I couldn’t make sense, or when my life WASN’T counting (any more than anyone else’s). It got exhausting. Life is life. The good, the bad, and everything in between, and living it means something different for everyone. All we can do is live our own lives to the best of our ablility, and have faith that we did our best and it wasn’t in vain. Know that it could end for any reason at any time. Let those you love, know that you love them. Life is short whether you live to be 19, or 95….enjoy the ride.
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Faiqa Reply:
November 8th, 2009 at 12:00 am
@Tug, Yes. Exactly.
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November 8th, 2009 at 2:48 am
That is awful about the shooting. There must have been such fear and sadness in the minds of the victims. My heart goes out to their families and friends.
Living in the moment is very important. It keeps regret at bay. It makes each day seem worthwhile. And for those of us who occasionally suffer from the blues, it makes it easier not to panic and beat ourselves up.
My son is very Buddhist in the way he regards life. I don’t really know where he got it from but his attitude is ‘Do something kind every day and it will have been a good day.’ The acts of kindness he engages in can be as minor as picking a plastic bag out of the river or smiling at an old person in the street. But he does them. Consistently. I have tried it myself and it does put the day in a different light. Who knew my son would end up teaching me? He is a wise old man at 13.
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Faiqa Reply:
November 9th, 2009 at 8:40 pm
@Selma, That is absolutely amazing for 13 year old… well, for 113 old even.
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November 8th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Faiqa, once again I love your post. I learned to live my life to its fullest when my Dad died of sudden heart attack at 57 years of age. It completely changed my perspective for life. We should enjoy each and every moment of life to its fullest.
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Faiqa Reply:
November 9th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
@Deepa Agrawal, Thanks Deepa.. it’s sad that the loss of someone usually sparks this kind of change. Nevertheless, this reiterates my belief that within each ending in life there is always a beginning.
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November 9th, 2009 at 8:28 pm
Hi. Thank you for an insightful post.
We must live our life fully and righteously because we’ll just never know when we are going to die.
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Faiqa Reply:
November 9th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
@Ocean Girl, Thanks for your comment… BTW, the name of your website is one of my absolute favorite songs!
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November 9th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
Thanks for your comment… BTW, the name of your website is one of my absolute favorite songs!
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November 10th, 2009 at 2:18 am
I have tried to live my life with the outlook that if I were to die that day, my friends and family would be able to look and see that I had lived a fulfilling and happy life. It was true when I was 18, and it still holds true today. I have had some mishaps along the way, but overall life on this rock floating through space has been wonderful. There’s still a lot left on my “to do” list, but my “completed” list is extensive and satisfying.
*Serve my country – check
*See America – check
*Experience life – check
*Career that I love – check
*Happily married with kids – check and check
*Enrich my life by continual learning and curiosity – check
*Find great people from around the world and all walks of life and learn from their stories – I check that one nearly every day
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November 14th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Goosebumps!
This is what I, too, have been aiming to do with my life.
Some things are so trivial and people sweat the small stuff… I am an offender of that, too. My aunt even got me a book titled “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff” for Xmas a few years back. Nothing like a hint, right?
Ha.
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November 18th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
To quote The Crow: “Nothing is trivial.”
Beautiful post, Faiqa. You made me cry, too.
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