This morning I was dozily watching yet another rerun of Woody Allen's classic tale of "Hannah and her Sisters", a 1986 story of the interactions and complications among an extended family group over a period of two years. Nothing much caught my attention that hadn't previously, until we got to the section where Mickey, Woody's character, believes he has some sort of brain tumor.
Woody Allen writes and depicts the obsessive-compulsive hypochondriac type very well, and I couldn't help but laugh as he sat in the chair thinking he was hearing that he had a massive brain tumor that was causing hearing loss in one ear, while the physician was set to deliver good news that there was nothing in fact wrong with him.
There was something utterly fantastic about the way he skipped out of the old New York building housing the doctors's office, with trumpets blaring, and bursting with a renewed joy at the world in general - it's a scene that brings out the same feeling in probably all of us, where you can feel the closing door in front of him suddenly reopened for a second chance at life. Ecstasy!
Ironically, this replenished fountain of joy empties rather quickly, and Mickey descends into a period of existential angst over the futility of our apparently meaningless existence. To have been staring into the blackness, the void, but then to have been rescued by the blinding light of life itself, suddenly turned things inside out and the very consideration of an early death only served to underline the fact that death is waiting - whether today or in ten years. So what's the point?
I couldn't help but feel kinship with that artistic statement. I think it's very true that we just live, for at least the first 40-45 years. If we are very lucky, we don't even have that much death in older relatives to face until around that time. So we just live as if it is all one delicious never-ending adventure, and because there are so many people so much older than us, well, we are still the future. The world is ours!
But by living with the wrong assumption that one was dying, even if it was erroneous and got corrected in short order, seemingly served as the best reminder that life is finite and there's nothing that can be done about it. In Mickey, this caused him to question his whole life, his work, his position relative to the entire revolving globe, and suddenly it was all rendered more or less meaningless. A second chance at life had merely served as a newsflash that an end was still coming.
I think it takes a few decades to be able to realize that it is all, well, rather meaningless. Sort of. All of the things we fuss over, all the warnings we listen to when growing up, doing the sensible things, following the sensible path etc. can suddenly seem like futile choices when in deep consideration of the Grim Reaper and death's descending darkness. Who cares whether I became a rich, unhappy accountant or a poor, free-as-a-bird sculptor if life is not forever and it is supposed to be about enjoying your time as much as possible? Doing the sensible thing and setting up for an eternity of financial security would only matter if it had to last forever, right?!
With some time, Mickey eventually realizes that while it is all somewhat meaningless, because of that, one has no choice but to enjoy one's time - life is there to be enjoyed for what it is: life. For some who want to enjoy life's pleasures and the things that money can buy, well there is work and career that facilitate that. For others who don't desire a regular life, there are other pursuits that provide a degree more of an internal reward rather than a financial one. The key thing is doing what makes you happy, I think. ;)
Naturally, the problem with such analyses is that they tend to come more or less halfway through the show. By the time one gets four decades into the big show, the die is more or less cast, and even upon the light bulb going on with the realization that one wanted to be a contemporary dancer - it's too late! Maybe that's why it is appropriately called the "midlife crisis"?! It takes us half a life to get to a suitable level of experience and maturity to be able to conclude that this is not the life we want to spend the next half-life living. Now that sure is a crisis!
Even if one has been relatively happy, unquestionably one readdresses it all upon any real contemplation of death. Death renders it all kind of futile. We are born, we grow, we live, and then we die. So who cares if I leave my miserable job and go travelling for two years or write a screenplay; what difference will it make when I am lying cold on a slab? If we knew for sure that we were going to be dead in less than ten years wouldn't that change the way we choose to live now?
I think that there's the rub. If we are so happy doing our thing in the first half of life with nary a scant consideration of death, why shouldn't we live the second half more or less in the same mind frame, but perhaps with just a little more urgency for getting certain things done? But to live well, we essentially have to live with a mindset that believes tomorrow is another day and it is coming. Otherwise, all of the rules go out the window, and we begin to degenerate because we are focused on the ending, not the living.
Thus, we need to remember that death is going to come to call, one terrible day. But in all likelihood, in normal situations, it is decades away, so we should skip down the steps of healthy life each day, and dance along the streets to the office, bursting with joy. However, when you watch people in the city on any winter Monday morning, it is a rare sight indeed. Everyone seems more or less miserable. Work serves only to facilitate life, not to make it a happy experience. So is that the secret?!
I think it surely is. For most of us, we have to work to live (well). When one does look around, it truly does appear that the happiest people on the planet are those who love to work, and love what they work at. They get the best of both worlds! They seriously enjoy their Monday-to-Friday lives, and consequently they tend to be successful at making the money that facilitates the rest of their living. They theoretically will face death with less regret, because they enjoyed both sides of what is contemporary life. Providing that they did find a healthy balance, of course.
Well, I could ramble on, but I just wanted to say a few words on Woody Allen and Hannah and her Sisters, and clearly, Woody got me going! I guess that means he really got to me, and I am sure that is precisely what he wanted to do - to make us think. Or at least share some of his pain! Life is a glorious thing, with little other meaning than what we do make of it while we are alive and each of us is challenged to find our way in the confusing maze of life. All so that we end up in the center of it all, having found our very own hidden comfort zone among the complexity.
Speaking of challenges, I think it's time for me to see how well I can empty a massive plate of roast golden turkey, pink ham, warm stuffing, roast potatoes, mashed potatoes, Brussels sprouts, carrots and mixed pickles, all covered in lashings of hot thick gravy! That's part of Christmas and it sure is one of the great pleasures in being among the living. Well, until I collapse onto the sofa afterwards, anyway! ;) - Kevin Mc
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