You're never sure if the illusion is real...

The holiday weekend passed with it's usual series of non-events, save an unintentionally long and Blair Witch like foray into the wilderness, despite having in our possession a fairly sophisticated gps device. But that is another story for another time. Today I will focus on the will to live, and why living things appear to have it.

Thursday evening, july 3rd. was the annual "jolly july 3rd" celebration hosted by the Oil City Arts Council, of which I am a board member. That being the case, it was my responsibility to be present at said festivities should there be any need for my assistance. Given the deluge, the afternoon events and the first concert were pretty much a washout. Thus un-needed, I went home, changed into dry clothes and headed back for the second concert and the fireworks. I sat on a small hillside that abuts the park and spent the dwindling daylight hours watching the hundreds of people mill about the park as they too, waited for the fireworks display.

At times like these, when I lack sleep and am in the midst of hundreds of people, I tend to obsessively "people watch " rather than, say, nap like I should. My mind wanders all over as I wonder about the various individuals I've got a bead on, and invariably before they pass from my sightline I have created a whole series of life events for them. How joyous or how harrowing these life events are usually depends on the hasty judgment I have made about their overall character and personal disposition.

It is not easy being me.

This particular evening, though, I couldn't quite fixate on one individual or group long enough to make up their story. Instead, I was kind of taking in everyone all at once, and couldn't shake the question that kept running through my head: "why do they get up in the morning?"

Now, I was not asking this question because I felt there were reasons why this or that person shouldn't get up in the morning, I was asking because I think the human will to live is fascinating, and sometimes when you see all these different types of people in one place, and you know each of them has a story so spectacular you couldn't even come close to making up a better one, you just have to wonder, why do all these people choose to get up in the morning? What drives them to face each day and prepare for the next? What is their reason?

Viktor Frankl, a noted psychotherapist and Holocaust survivor has written several works that address, from an existential perspective, the "meanings of life" people create in order to choose life over death. One of his most intriguing works, Man's Search for Meaning, was written shortly after his liberation, and recounts the various experiences of his and his fellow prisoners in the Terezin Concentration camp. It's important to note that he considers living a choice that one makes when one has sufficiently created a "why" for which to live. He found that in the camps, for some the "why" was revenge, for others it was love, and for still others it was hope. But inevitably the "why" that created the illusion of meaning would be deconstructed by the reality of the circumstances. In the end he found that it was only the belief in something beyond themselves that led people to consistently choose to get up each morning despite the overwhelming odds against any form of happiness.

We, each of us, cannot fathom a life marked by the horrors of time spent in the Nazi camps. Or any such camp before or since. So, it is difficult to try and make any comparison when considering what it is that compels you to get up each morning. But, if every conceivable answer (i have to make breakfast for the kids, I have to go to work, I have to watch "Ellen", I like mornings, I have to check my ebay auction, I just have to...) were to become invalid, to just be stripped away, why would you get up in the morning? Would you get up in the morning? What reason for living could you not part with?

I couldn't help but think that I don't really think about it that much, why each day I choose to get up and go through my various routines. Day after day, getting up and going through the motions of living, for reasons that could so very easily and quickly be stripped away. What is underneath all of that, though? What would be my breaking point, if any? What would be the reason I would say "no more..." Admittedly, it's not very fun to think about, but the reality is that there is quite possibly an unwavering reason each of us has, even if we can't access it through our immediate faculties of intellect and reason.

I think there is within each of us some connection to something other, something beyond, something that keeps us glancing in the direction of divinity and compelling us, usually, to choose to keep going forward., keep getting up in the morning. (Some don't make that choice, a reality of which I am all too painfully familiar, but most of us do, and that is what I am talking about here.) It is this connection, recognized or not, that ties us not only to something outside of ourselves, but also to each other.

At the end of the day, regardless of our differences, most of us are going to choose to get up the next day and face life to the best of our ability.

In that way we are connected-in our belief that the illusion is real, and therefore we will go forward.

Fascinating.