Thank you for sharing the passage. I particularly enjoyed the imagery of the line "the earth is where we make our stand"--really dynamite stuff. The notion of

Thank you for sharing the passage. I particularly enjoyed the imagery of the line "the earth is where we make our stand"--really dynamite stuff. The notion of an individual immortalizing legacy is a very western notion. One only needs to look at some of the great cornerstones of western literature to see this, specifically The Aeneid and The Iliad both speak of glory and historical remembrance. You don't see this as frequently in eastern culture. Ancestry is important, but ancestry is less about individual immortality as it is about continuing the family lineage--something that is much larger and more important than the individual. When my studies in philosophy shifted from a western focus and began to incorporate eastern thought, I had a very similar experience. I realized that my existence was insignificant in the grand scheme of things--something I had really known before but perhaps never fully accepted. This is a powerful thought because from this we can deconstruct our entire society and existence. Some of my favorite western literature is from the existentialists. When you begin to go down this road, however, you can come rather close to madness, as many of the existentialists did. Rules of man and nature can be questioned and dismissed as irrelevant. Life can become meaningless. Oddly enough I seek out my favorite existential texts when I too am in a dark place and feeling the solitude that a conscious and reflective life most certainly brings from time to time. I find solace in the fact that others felt this despondence and through pages and time the authors reach out with empathy. That is what art gives us--a medium through which we can bridge the solitude of existence and touch another being. That feeling reminds me that the connection between beings is what life is about (at least for me)--a moment of escape from our corporal prisons and a brief return the the continuity of the universe. This I believe is fundamental to the human experience, even if I don't understand the meaning of life. I think I tend to be more of an absurdist than anything else. Interesting for those interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absurdism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absurdism. Regardless, I believe one cannot go wrong in defaulting to this simple, folksy wisdom of one of the great thinkers of our time: Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it. - Mohandas Karamchand Ghandi