Schwartz - Why am I alive?

Reflection

Each of us is born as if awoken from a blissful sleep into what first appears as a nightmare: a bewildering and terrifying existence of warring governments, exploitative economic systems, and fleeting personal relationships. Moreover, each generation is the inheritor of this mad spectacle. We all realize that it was not from the ore of our dreams that this maelstrom was crafted, and this revelation compels each of us to ask ourselves, Why am I alive? This is the eternal puzzle, the supreme Question, the quest for whose enigmatic solution, the ultimate Answer, propels all human activity.

Most people dare not seek the true Answer; instead they settle for the false doctrine of Eat, Sleep, Work, Play, Breed. Their minds are frozen by a blizzard of half-truths and lies that storms forth from the fog of manipulative mass-media and socioeconomic injustice. They trade their passions and hopes for delusions of stability. For people of means, “stability” is defined as a nine-to-five office-cubicle job, a prefabricated house in the sprawling spiderweb of suburbia, and a gargantuan sports-utility-vehicle that guzzles gasoline and self-aggrandizement. Unfortunately, most people are not people of means. For the impovershed underclass, “stability” means simply a job, any job, and they grind themselves beneath the gear of society for survival’s sake.

Both groups - called in traditional Marxist terminology as the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, respectively - are trapped in immediacy’s idolatrous cult. The bourgeoisie strive for immediate sensual gatification to pleasure away the insecurity of their middling socioeconomic position. Meanwhile the proletariat strive for immediate financial gratification to safeguard for their progeny some semblance of a bourgeoisie-like “better future.” Both seek to avoid extinction, but as the great religions teach, the more anyone is ruled by fear and materialism, the deader the soul becomes.

There do exist individuals who are essentially classless. Rather than surrendering themselves to obscurity, they commit themselves to the dazzingly black ideal of glory - financial wealth, political power, spiritual righteousness - the quest for which purges them of the torturous uncertainty that haunts the rest of civilization. Their Answer is, To thrive at all costs. They see the nightmare of history and forget that it is only a passing dream, an illusion. They deem the dog-eat-dog chaos "reality," priding themselves for their so-called "realism."

Opposite the “realists” are those who see through the hallucination. They discern a pattern lurking beneath events, an epic progressing toward a final state of peace and opportunity. So to speak, they can see the peak of Zion just beyond the hill of the here-and-now. Their Answer is, To live Life fully, defined either universally or exclusively private. Typically through art, sports, or activism, they work toward that utopia.

Yet, I belong in none of these groups. I have no Answer, but in the vacuum of my heart lingers vague recollections of Eden. There are others like me, and I sense that our greatest wish is to battle the shadows of existence to give Innocence a fighting chance in the world’s brutal wilderness.