Reflection on article "What is the meaning of life? 15 possible answers – from a palliative care doctor, a Holocaust survivor, a jail inmate and more"

 I read this article "What is the meaning of life? 15 possible answers – from a palliative care doctor, a Holocaust survivor, a jail inmate and more" in The Guardian this morning. It moved me to tears (although I seem to be fairly easily moved to tears nowadays!).

I felt the letters expressed a lot of what I am coming to try to say with my art. Some did it better, but that's ok, it was like an injection of motivation to do the topic the best justice I can. 

I was particular struck by the words of Kathryn Mannix, the palliative care consultant:

The threat of having our very existence taken away by death brings a mighty focus to the idea of what matters most to us. I’ve seen it so many times, and even though it’s unique for everyone, there are some universal patterns. What matters most isn’t success, or wealth, or stuff. It’s connection and relationships and love. Reaching an understanding like this is the beginning of wisdom: a wisdom that recognises the pricelessness of this moment. Instead of yearning for the lost past, or leaning in to the unguaranteed future, we are most truly alive when we give our full attention to what is here, right now.

Whatever is happening, experiencing it fully means both being present and being aware of being present. The only moment in our lives that we can ever have any choice about is this one. Even then, we cannot choose our circumstances, but we can choose how we respond: we can rejoice in the good things, relax into the delightful, be intrigued by the unexpected, and we can inhabit our own emotions, from joy to fear to sorrow, as part of our experience of being fully alive.

I've only experienced literal death second-hand, but I know how things that seemed to matter so much, like planning my career, being well-regarded, being a 'success', fell away... And for a time nothing mattered - life, death, money, food, all became the same... And there was terrible beautify and power in that, but also terrible emptiness and despair. It was like life in it's barest form - survival, I guess.

Monica Heisey describes the aftermath of the sudden death of her baby niece:

Something terrible had occurred from nowhere, and now our lives were changed for ever, and Rosie would not get to have one. I felt nihilism like a riptide, swirling around me and tugging at my ankles. It would have been easy to go under.

I think for a long time I was swept under by that riptide. I don't know that nihilism is 'bad', but my need to preach it to others was perhaps misplaced. As the numbness thawed, I found meaning in the sight of the spring leaves, in the way the birds fluttered from the branches, in the cold soil of winter. It is a simple meaning, but a pure one. And actually I came to remember compassion, and started to believe in humans again. My mother taught me that people are almost all fundamentally good, and I have certainly found it to be true. My wife used to say "people are just people", meaning each should be judged on their merits, not on labels, and I think there is deep wisdom there. 

Which bring me perhaps to Susan Pollack, who survived the concentration camps of WW2 at the age of 14:

In Sweden, where I was taken for recuperation for my devastated physical corpse-like being, one of the facilitators had a large collection of classical records. These he played every evening, and we sat around and listened in awe to Beethoven symphonies and other pieces. In my interpretation, I could feel the energy of the music, from sorrow and despair to the drive of supreme human effort to rise above those destructive memories. I must say not completely – personally, I don’t want to let it go completely – but I am free of the chains which deprived me in the camps. Music, generally, has an enormous effect on my life.

Perhaps that is one 'purpose' of art? To remind us that we are more than just ourselves?