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Do you know I was asked many many times when I was in the front lines of the
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--no, when the people in the death trade thought I was a good idea--
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to come and talk about finding meaning
at the end of life.
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That was the standard request.
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So you can see the idea that meaning is somehow
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potentially elusive or even fugitive and has to somehow be wrung from the circumstances
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is behind that question.
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It's a particularly modernist dilemma to find meaning,
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but the real problem is in the conceiving of it as something you have to find.
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You can hear the language implies that it's hidden,
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or that you're not looking in the right place,
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or that there's some nefarious architecture that keeps it from you,
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or that--you understand--
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--or that you have to just claim so-and-so as your own personal saviour, you know...
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But what if meaning's not hidden?
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What if it's not something to find?
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What if that's not the story?
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What if the story is that meaning is not found at all--that it's made?
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It's made by the willingness to proceed as if certain things must be:
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like life has to continue, not "you" have to continue;
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that life is not your lifespan or your children's lifespan or the lifespan of what you hold dear.
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How about holding dear the fact that nothing you hold dear lasts?
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How about holding that close to your bosom?
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That's making meaning of the end of life, the willingness to do that.
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It's not hammered into the sky for all to see so that nobody could forget.
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You see how precarious the whole proposition is,
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that it actually has to be lived out and told
in order to pertain.
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It has no police, it has no enforcement branch, you know...
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It just, if you're kind of not willing for it to be so, it probably won't be.
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And what's the consequence of that?
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Well, it's not a conjecture. Look around you. Our way of life is the consequence.
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Life does not feed life.
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Life is on the receiving end of life. Always.
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No, it's death that feeds life.
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It's the end of life that gives life a chance.
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It's a hurtful kind of comfort, maybe, that the dominant culture of North America
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is in some kind of beginning stage
of a terminal swoon.
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Because it's beginning it's hard to tell the difference between that and dancing,
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or having a good time, but it's terminal alright,
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meaning there's no turning back from it.
There's no undoing it.
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Alas, it's worse than talking about it as a punishment.
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It's not a punishment. No more than dying is a punishment for having been born.
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Our particluar dilemma, I think,
is trying to live the realization that
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what the world requires of humans is not that they piss off already,
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and "why don't you all die and
then we'll go back where we were."
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No, I think the world whispers,
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"All we need of you is that you be human. That's it."
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The dilemma is in the meaning of the word 'human.'
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What has to die is your refusal to die, your refusal for things to end.
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If that dies, life can be fed by that.
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And so the plea is not for punishment; it's for remembrance.
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You're not supposed to feel bad about having forgotten; you're supposed to feel more.
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You see, that's the invitation.