Wake up!
Like someone told me recently, I’m more afraid of dying and never having lived than of dying itself.
I know life is full of struggles. Sometimes it is unbearably hard. But it is my life to live. And there are also so many joys.
There is love to be shared.
Wake up!
illustrating spiritual paths
I often have this feeling – but I’m thinking that partly I’ve been deceived by the idea that I need to be ‘someone’ – that being a father and a husband somehow isn’t enough. But y’know, maybe people in the past (and/or today in other places) didn’t have time to be someone, maybe they were just busy getting on with their lives.
I relate to this one all too well. It’s hard not to press snooze. Comfort is a hard habit to kick. For me it’s probably the hardest. Might as well meet it one day at a time.
@Joe- I think you’re right about people getting on with their lives. Survival was tantamount and everyday duties were not easy. And for a huge portion of the world this is still true. But we have so many crutches in our society to make it easy to hit snooze on life.
As with many cartoons, people may interpret this drawing in several ways. A few I could imagine are:
(a) I’ve got to get up and work. Sure, it is the same old thing, but that is my life. Joys only come with suffering. I have so many chores to do, I shouldn’t sleep so much.
(b) I’ve got to stop leading such a automatic, unreflective, habitual life — for I will die soon. I should take a chance and change because greater joy is to be had. I can’t taste life while I am asleep due to fear of leaving old patterns.
(c) Without practicing love, you are sleeping through life. Reach out and take a chance. Sure, Love can hurt, but there is no deeper joy. We can love in all our normal activities, so there is no need to change anything, just love.
Hi my name is Rhonda and I am a snooze buttonaholic….
I like those scenarios, Sabio. I have another one that is based on my experience–because of my seizures I am in and out of hospital beds. Regaining consciousness in unfamiliar, clinical rooms has become normal for me, about as normal as waking up in my own warm bed at home after a late night. Each time I have a seizure, it’s as if my life was put on snooze. All of my memories are confused, my muscles are sore and slow to move–even simple communication is set back temporarily–and most of my recovery is spent sleeping and working through the pain of sitting, standing, and talking again. Only through time and effort can I get on with my life. What’s more, I have used many years to come to terms with the fact that these seizures I have are not my fault. I think that was the toughest part of the journey.
Back to David’s cartoon…
I really like the fact that the character in the cartoon is not fully awake. As you noted, his action could be habitual and automatic, it could be planned because he has a busy day, or it could be unintended. It’s quite nice that the reader can bring that context and decide.
Carpe Diem?
In Horace, the phrase is part of the longer Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero – “Seize the Day, putting as little trust as possible in the future”, and the ode says that the future is unforeseen, and that instead one should scale back one’s hopes to a brief future, and drink one’s wine. This phrase is usually understood against Horace’s Epicurean background.[2]
Or look in Hebrew:
The phrase ??? ?? ?????, ????? “And if not now, when?” (Pirkei Avoth 1:14)
Hebrew came out in question marks.
Platitude?