Back in the day when we would do book reviews in English class, when reading had not yet become a passion, we would often just skim through to the last chapter of the book to get an idea of what it was all about. The shortcut proved mostly futile because good books are meant to be savoured gradually.
It is however quite useful and perhaps even very beneficial to sometimes take the time to look at our life from the perspective of its end. We rarely speak about death, it has become the real taboo of our generation. Sometimes we are forced to think about life through death, whenever somebody we know passes away. These moments make us more sensitive to the value of life, what is worth fighting for and what is, in the end, futile and ethereal.
The benefit of looking at life from its endpoint, far from any kind of morbidity or escapism of the present moment, is to actually get a sense of where we are heading, whom we are becoming. The destination influences and shapes the journey itself. The first two days of November, while celebrating all saints and all the departed, give us that kind of perspective. They are an invitation to see the point of arrival as the actual point of departure.
Seldom do we ask ourselves how we are being shaped by the journey we undertake. The main character in Paolo Sorrentino’s movie The Great Beauty, comes face to face with this question while celebrating a party for his 65th birthday. He is confronted by a question we are better off asking ourselves before we reach a venerable age. What is beauty? Put in other words, what is most important? What remains and has substance?
Seldom do we ask ourselves how we are being shaped by the journey we undertake
While these questions might sound too abstract and lacking substance when compared to the other more urgent questions we face every day, it is these profound questions that shape the majority of our days; they shape us. But we know life well enough to realise that we are not just shaped by the force of our will. The story of our life is also filled with seemingly haphazard and random events that we do not choose for ourselves. Whether we believe they are the fruit of someone’s providence or not, we are shaped by how we navigate through such untested waters.
Just as the hands of potter gently and sometimes forcefully shape the wet and mouldable clay, so is our life taking shape by all that we do, the choices we make and the priorities we set. The inevitable moment of death is that kiln that merely solidifies the shape achieved in the previous process.
If only we could give more weight to that which we live on a daily basis; if only we could see with eyes full of wonder and curiosity the shape our heart is taking while we undertake this pilgrimage on earth, while we build relationships and interact with others.
Who am I becoming? That is the question that beckons a tentative answer. We might fumble at our first attempt to answer it. Befriending it daily will make our life a story worth reading from the first to the final chapter.