This post is ostensibly about banana slugs. But it’s really about life.
Yesterday I went hiking in the South Bay, down near La Honda. It was a very pleasant, if uneventful hike - warm, easy, rolling hills. Nothing particularly notable happened. Along the way back, I was on my own, having split up from the group to get back to the city early, and I happened across a banana slug along the trail. For some reason I stopped to watch him, as he moved over a twig. I watched, as he slowly stuck out his feelers, and stretched his upper body out along the twig, extending up towards the sun. It took him a full minute to completely unfurl. I had a sudden thought that, by banana slugs, this guy (or girl) was a go-getter, an adventurer. Here he was, braving danger, lifting his body up towards the light. Moving, it might be said, at a breakneck pace, by banana slug standards.
I promise I’ll connect this story up to something, but switching gears for a moment, a few weeks ago, a good friend of mine had what can only be described as a near-death experience. She fell while walking, and ended up lacerating her kidney, spending 8 days in the hospital and bleeding internally. Friday night, I got to sit and have a few drinks with her for the first time since this happened. It was a good conversation, and overall she seemed to be in good spirits, all things considered. At one point, though, she turned to me, looked me right in the eyes, and said “What is the point of life?” I paused. My first thought was: nothing like serious health problems to really force people to get to the crux of the issue. My second thought was that I was really glad for all the meditation and yoga training. My third thought was an upwelling of personal pride. I wasn’t sure where it came from at first, but then I realized: I was proud of myself for living my life the way I would advise others to live theirs. I was walking the walk so to speak. So I looked her right in the eyes and I said “The point of life is to be happy.” I elaborated briefly: we all know, I said, what we really want to do; who we really are. But so much of the time, we ignore that - for reasons which seem like good reasons at the time; money, advice from friends, society, a general feeling that what we truly enjoy is silly, or irresponsible, or selfish. But, in the long run, I have found this: when you do what you truly, truly want to do, then you become a happy and surprisingly selfless human being; you not only are happy yourself but you want to spread that happiness to others. Conversely, when you avoid what you truly want to become, you get tight, selfish, controlling. Resentful. I’ve seen it time and again. In fact I don’t know a good counterexample off the top of my head. I think much of the truly evil stuff in the world comes from people who don’t feel like they can express themselves and be who they really are. I kept going: I don’t know - I said - what you ought to do, specifically. In fact, the whole point is, nobody does, except you. The only thing you can do is listen closely to that tiny voice on the inside. I’ve met a lot of engineers, doctors and lawyers in my life. And I’d say there definitely are some of them that are truly happy with what they do. Being a lawyer *is* their innermost desire. That happens, and I think that’s awesome. However, for every lawyer I’ve met who truly wants to be one, I’ve met 3 more who don’t, but do it because it makes money, or they went to law school already, or they feel like they should, etc., etc. And those are, by and large, not happy people.
I can’t tell anyone what they should do with life. It’s hard enough to keep track of my own. But I will say this: you’ll know it when you see it!