Be in love with life + help others be in love with life
could this be the purpose of life?
As I’ve mentioned before I’m participating in a year-long slow read of War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy led by
. It’s unfolding as one of the most magical experiences of my reading life.I’ve read War and Peace twice before, once in my late teens, skipping most of the war parts, and again in my mid-40s. I loved this book before but now? Now I can honestly say it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read.
About a month or so ago, there was a chat exchange between another participant and Simon about a character and his struggles to find meaning in life, and Simon wrote this, “Be in love with life and help others be in love with life.”
This phrase swelled in my heart. I immediately loved it so. So often in the past I searched for some fancy specific life purpose. But in the last decade or so, I’ve come to believe the only purpose I need is to love life, be fully myself, and love the people around me as best I can.
Here I am mid-run on my local trail, feeling that love. And being a goof.
Be in love with life + help others be in love with life.
What helps us love life?
I think it’s an act of bravery, like letting yourself love another person. When Bob and I met, we were 45 and both newly divorced, dented and sad, but something in us said, “Trust this person, trust love.” True, it could have ended badly, but both of us wanted to be people who said yes to the future, to move. Who believed it wasn’t too late.
Or maybe being in love with life is about being a Mary Oliver type who pays loving attention to the smallest details?
Or maybe it’s about gratitude, about being kind to ourselves, about acting as if the world and people are fundamentally good, ourselves included.
Or maybe loving life means something else entirely. I imagine there is as many ways to love life as people.
I do think our love of life is something no one can take from us, no matter how hard they try. And that we do not have to be shining polished and perfect to love life. We certainly never have to earn the right. We don’t have to pass any tests or win any prizes or approval.
But beyond that? It’s up to each of us. I am compelled to see how wide and wildly I can love life before my final curtain falls. What about you?
I would love to hear how this idea lands with you. What does it bring up? I’m so curious!
Or perhaps you would rather share this post with someone you love?
Thanks for reading and loving life.
Much love,
Jen
I had a conversation with a young twenty-something last week about exactly this. Their position was opposed, being in love with life was not enough, not purposeful, and in their view bordered on selfish. They are at a time of angst and turmoil and energy, they are flummoxed by all they want for themselves and the world and by hurdles and politics, seeking love and work and their tribe of friends. For them loving life is something to do when one is old! Oh honey, I want to say.
I may have felt that way at 20 as well. But now I think loving life is the most daring and political and gorgeous thing we can do. For me, loving life is loving people. Family, friends, neighbors, loose connections, close connections-that brings joy. Loving nature, getting out in it. Art! Moving my body. All of it makes me a better contributor to the world.
Thanks, Jen. Love this and now I want to find my own slow read! Middlemarch anyone?
I've been reading and thinking about "purpose" in life -- you know, "living life on purpose" and "finding your purpose," etc. There's another side to that coin: a "purposeless" life (German speakers, see https://youtu.be/94YQKzsD02c ). Purpose implies cause and effect: if I have a purpose, or goal, I pursue certain activites or thoughts to achieve a related outcome, which in mainstream USA society can easily entrap us in the endless hamster wheel of "if this, then that, if this..." But loving life and helping other love it is amorphously individual and simultaneously collective. It sends feelers out into the world (or streamers: remember the rainbow streamers we folks at a Taos retreat once imagined as we all returned to our abodes?). And those feelers create a vast web in which cause and effect is no longer discernable, we stop aiming at specific outcomes and let the connections surprise and nourish us. Love this!