Live the World You Want
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MY GOOD FRIEND, DEATH "...if we do not learn to perceive We love to personify everything. Opportunity is a wealthy traveller who sometimes knocks at our door. Luck is a capricious lady who sometimes smiles at us or at other times ignores us. And Time is an impatient, old, grandfatherly codger who cantankerously refuses to wait for us. Most interestingly of all, we have even given life to life's so-called opposite -- Death. Death arrives unannounced. Death is proud. Death is mighty. Death rules a vast kingdom. Death dances and grimaces at us, as in the medieval "dance macabre." Death eventually seeks us out and claims us all -- with the cooperation of those other necessary personifications: Opportunity, Luck, and Time. But why give Death life? It seems very generous of us. Or is it only fair? Isn't the exchange a simple quid pro quo? For doesn't Death give us life also? Death remembered, after all, encourages us to make more out of life (that is, unless we are cowards; in which case, we aren't making much out of life anyhow), encourages us "to love that well which [we]...must leave ere long," to borrow once more from the highly quotable bard of Stratford-on-Avon. Death forgotten, on the other hand, lulls us into making less of life. For we begin to think of our present existence as a permanent possession, rather than as the temporary loan that it is. If you are willing to adapt a realistic view of life, one that includes Death, and one ironically that can be the opposite of morbid, Death can be your friend every day; for Death will say to you, "Look, my friend, you have yet another day of life, another possibility of another twenty-four hours of borrowed time, another bestowal of the incredible gift of life." Perhaps you have not been fortunate enough to meet Death and almost leave life in his company as I did at the age of thirteen. On the way to class, I misjudged where to place my right hand on a door with three large, horizontal glass panels that was swinging shut toward me. Instead of catching the door on its wooden frame above the handle and reversing its momentum, I heard a terrible crash and in disbelief watched my forearm go through the glass pane next to the frame. When I instinctively pulled my arm back, my wrist was ripped open by a jagged, upright piece of glass that looked very much like a dagger, and had the same brutal effect. I turned to the student behind me, and as I showed him my arm, the blood from the main artery in my wrist spurted up into his face. The school nurse arrived shortly, and, after she gave me first aid, I was rushed to the hospital. Had the teacher driving gotten there five minutes later than he did, I would have been "dead on arrival." When I awoke from my emergency operation, I was a different person. I have rarely since taken life for granted. The scar on my right wrist remains to this day as my constant memento mori, serving the same purpose as the human skull or hourglass on the study desk did for scholars of an earlier time. I am almost always amazed when I get up in the morning and discover that the mountains, the trees, our lawn, and our driveway are still there, that I am still around to experience life once more for another day, or whatever portion of it I will be able to enjoy. Of course, some days I forget. On those days, I just go through the motions, I just do my imitation of "being alive." And, oh yes, I do have a problem with the expression, "I'll see you later." I know full well that it could be a lie. One of the parties involved might not be available again. Strangely enough, lots of people have no such doubts. I have known others who have had the same good fortune, others who by meeting Death have learned to love life. We all recognize each other immediately, for we all see in each other the same daily gratitude for and appreciation of the wonder of life. Thanks to Death, we live full lives, rarely taking a day for granted. If you haven't had the benefit of a similar experience, I would recommend that you see or read Thorton Wilder's play, Our Town. After the young ingenue, Emily Webb, dies in childbirth, she is able, through the magic of the theater, to visit earth and relive her sixteenth birthday. However, she quickly comes to realize that nobody -- neither her mother, nor her father, nor anyone she tries to communicate with upon her return -- understands how precious life is, for everyone is treating life as a relatively empty and ordinary routine. People are not really listening to each other. People are not really paying attention to each other. People hardly seem to notice the beauty of nature. They seem completely unaware of the miracle of their own or anybody's existence. Their self-imposed loneliness, their self-chosen alienation from each other and from all that surrounds them, fills her with overwhelming sadness and dismay. Of her own volition she ends her "experiment" within minutes. It is too painful to witness. She cannot "re-live" that which no one, including herself, actually "lived." When you wake up tomorrow morning and see or hear that the world is still outside your window, think twice. For you, for me, for anyone, it doesn't have to be there. Death can show up any time. Until he does, shrouded in his black monk's robe, as in Ingmar Bergman's classic movie about the Black Plague, The Seventh Seal, or attired as Emily Dickinson’s perfect Nineteenth-Century suitor, in her poem, "Because I Could Not Stop For Death," today is another day of whatever number of days you have been allotted by Opportunity, Luck, and Time. Carpe Diem. Make the day meaningful and rewarding for yourself and others. Share your love of life while you have the opportunity, luck, and time to do so.
Carpe Diem. Not everyone who begins the day will end it. Treat others as if you won't see them again. You might not. I recall a student telling me about how she still regrets having had a very unpleasant and unnecessary argument with her uncle, an argument that left him feeling unloved and unappreciated, an argument that was never resolved because he was killed in a car accident twenty minutes later on his way home. Carpe Diem. Once the day is gone, it will not return.
Procrastinate any trivial thing you wish, but don't procrastinate your involvement in life. Don't procrastinate enjoyment, affection, sharing, helping. Don't procrastinate encouraging yourself and others to participate fully in the present. Carpe Diem. Thank Death for teaching you its value. Spend it wisely.
Seize the Day. Horace is dead. You are alive.
the mystery and beauty of our
present life, our present hour, we
shall not perceive the worth of any
life, of any hour." -- Huston Smith
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About the Book
This is a book that grew out of a poem. Live The World You Want If you want people to be loving, be loving;If you want people to be understanding, be understanding;If you want people to invest themselves in relationshipsAnd make an effort to make them work, invest yourself;If you want a world in which people are less greedy, share;If you want a world with less war, be more at peace with yourself and others;If you want a world in which more people contribute, give;If you want a better world, be a better person.Even if others do otherwise, you can know That you are doing what you can doTo make the world a bit better rather than worse;For the world is simply you and I multiplied, and multiplied,Throughout time and is no better or worse than you and I make it.The poem had developed from an extemporaneous speech at one of Colorado Mountain College's graduation ceremonies when I was honored as Teacher of the Year. Within a few days of graduation I was asked for copies of the speech. Having none, I turned the main idea of the speech into a poem which became popular as refrigerator philosophy.Over time, the poem grew in my mind and finally became a book, a book based on a lifetime of observation, thought, and study. The major focus of the book is that the individuals we remember and glorify or vilify are not the only humans who make a difference in the course of our world. Each individual makes a difference. And since anonymous individuals far outnumber the famous and infamous, they make a much larger difference than they realize.I have seen too many people, college students and older adults, even teachers, become overwhelmed by the problems of the world and feel helpless.
About the Author
Clay Boland Jr. is a retired Colorado Mountain College Professor of Communications and Humanities. This handbook is the culmination of years of diverse life and work experiences and twenty-six years as a full-time teacher of an eclectic variety of college courses, including literature, philosophy, interpersonal relations, art, and music. He also created and directed the Humodyssey program, a two-year interdisciplinary course of studies for freshmen and sophomores funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, a program praised by both students and visiting professors from various universities. His desire is to help readers of this handbook find more meaning and fulfillment in their own daily "ordinary living," and also contribute more to the quality of life of those around them. He lives in Colorado with his wife Mary, and spends time with his two grown daughters and two grandchildren. In addition, he keeps busy with his many interests, including music (he’s an accomplished jazz pianist), gardening, windsurfing, kayaking, sailing, hiking, cross-country and downhill skiing, and traveling.