What Does Life Want From Me?

 Reading Rabbi Jonathan Sacks "Judaism's Life Changing Ideas" I was inspired to ask a question that he posed, through the work of Viktor Frankl who survived Auschwitz and who turned his experiences there to create a new form of psychotherapy based on man's search for meaning.

"His view was that we should never ask, “What do I want from life?” but always, “What does life want from me?”"

Woman's and Man's search for meaning  is upstaged by family needs. The task of caring for one another is really what life most wants from us all even though it is not mentioned in the main cultural arguments.

The shallow commerce of our hyped up consumer society is best revealed in Chris Hedges article "Faces of Pain, Faces of Hope.

"Popular culture celebrates those who wallow in power, wealth and self-obsession and perpetuates the lie that if you work hard and are clever you too can become a “success,” perhaps landing on “American Idol” or “Shark Tank.” ... The vast disparity between the glittering world that people watch and the bleak world they inhabit creates a collective schizophrenia that manifests itself in our diseases of despair—suicides, addictions, mass shootings, hate crimes and depression. Our oppressors have skillfully acculturated us to blame ourselves for our oppression."

What would this world want from me? Hope for a better world?

Hedges writes "Hope means walking away from the illusion that you will be the next Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Kim Kardashian." 

Most of us who are older than 40 have already learned this. So I know that life does not want  another self-absorbed  "famous" ego. I know the celebrity cult is as man made as Halloween Candy. I have learned that "the maniacal creation of a persona" is more than just irrelevant - it is toxic. Like all the other devices that tell us we are powerless and that meaning can only come through a certain kind of power.

Reading Hedges reveals to me the despotic power of capitalism gives no value to your life or mine.

Reading Sacks reminds me that I have work to do for the sake of life and that loving life, nurturing the wounded, listening to the lost, expressing gratitude for those who have cared for me - is the only thing worth living for. 

Mary Oliver's "Wild Geese" reminds me that the only power I have is one flight.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.