8:50 am - 05.10.2010
Taking Note

I don't believe in "synchronicity".

I like the idea - it's a romantic notion I find very appealing - but in reality, I believe "synchronicity" is just coincidence and selective memory (ex. Thinking about someone you haven't thought about in years, you get a call from them the next day. And you marvel at the way God/The Universe works, forgetting the hundreds of times someone pops into your thoughts and you don't get a call from them the next day).

I say all this because my last entry concerned a lack of "meaning" in my life...and I just finished reading Alan Alda's second book (Things I Overheard While Talking To Myself), which I bought on a whim, and which had, as its loose, overarching theme, Alda's own search for life's "meaning".

That Alan Alda - who's had his difficulties, to be sure, but who's ended up with everything I would want from life - would still be struggling with life's "meaning"...well, at first I found that a little discouraging.

But he "lands", in my opinion, in a good place.

Which is, basically, that "the meaning of life is life" (The italics are mine).

Not noticing life is what's meaningless, right down to the last second. When I played Richard Feynman on the stage, Feynman, who was dying of cancer, told his doctor he didn't want an anesthetic at the end, because "if I'm going to die, I want to be there when I do". Even in this last moment, there will be something to notice. After all the talk, that's the final word. Notice.

That makes sense to me.

I'm reminded of a quote on "happiness" that I'm too lazy to hunt down right now, but that basically says "Happiness doesn't happen when you search for it, but instead, by forgetting about it, and living your life to the fullest".

I'm thinking the same logic applies to life's "meaning" - The "meaning" of life is life, and the "meaning" of your own particular life emerges in the living of it.

And I think "Noticing" life is key, whether that means noticing that your life is actually not that bad - maybe even pretty darned good - or noticing you're not happy with certain things, and doing what you can to change them.

Or both

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