“You should always look on human life as short and cheap. Yesterday sperm: tomorrow a mummy or ashes.” That is a quote by Marcus Aurelius. While I can see his point about the shortness of it, compared to say the age of the earth etc, I would beg to differ about the cheap part. Sure in his day, life was cheap, People were bought and sold as chattel. Life was short and oftentimes brutal. But at the same time, there is a beauty to life... particularly ones own that can make it priceless.
Aurelius often wrote about living in the moment. He believed that life was short and that there was no guarantee that anyone would be here tomorrow. Enjoy the moment, for tomorrow you die! At the same time, he believed in honor and helping people as well. Life is short versus the age of the pyramids. Yet can seem brutally long when you are missing someone. Memories of when I was young are as fresh today as when they first happened, and yet changes occur daily so that nothing is as it once was. The only constant is change. For instance, I remember walking to the junction when I was a kid to play video games and to get a bite to eat with my friends. While the junction is still there, all of the stores have changed. Middletown Pizza is a great example. When I was young, the pizza place was in the middle of a row of stores. It was small and mainly for takeout. When I became a teen, the pizza place moved to a free-standing location near the far end of the junction (the junction, by the way. was a collection of stores at the junction of three roads). It was more of a sit-down type restaurant then and we would go and hang out and eat pizza. After about fifteen years, Middletown Pizza moved again. It is now back in the middle of a row of stores, and the free-standing location was torn down and turned into a CVS. Meanwhile, CJ's Deli is long gone as is Wasserman's Variety Store... that was turned into a Dunkin Donuts! It is the same all over my hometown. Landmarks I thought would be there forever are gone and replaced by places others think will be there forever. Rickels has closed up and was replaced by a staples, Cloth World was replaced by an Applebee's. Shop Rite is still in the same shopping center, but is now in a different building. The changes aren't only in the locations either. The other night, I went to see The Who with my daughter. Two members of the band remain and are now in their seventies. And yet, I still picture them as they were in their prime. I am gray and heavyset now... yet I still like to try and do my karate as if I am young. We all change. It seems like no time is going by, and yet twenty years go by in a moment. My eldest daughter is now 14. In ten years, she may have a family of her own. My youngest is now six. It seems like only yesterday that I was singing her to sleep and feeding her with a bottle I am fifty years old. Where did the time go? I was too busy living to notice it. And that, I believe, is what Marcus Aurelius was speaking about. Life flies by. We start as a gleam in our parents' eyes and the next thing you know, you are burying them. A newlywed one day and in the blink of an eye, a widower. Yes life is short... But cheap? I think not. Some of my memories are priceless. And as well as I can, I plan to pass some of the more pleasant ones on to my daughters. Many of my favorites involve them anyway. Memories are the currency of life folks. Life can be cheap or dear. It depends what you make of it. When I get ready to leave this world, I want to look back and feel that my life was priceless. But the memories that die with me, I hope will be dwarfed by the memories I leave behind with my children.
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