Death gives meaning to life

On my 7-hour flight from Brisbane to Manila, two particular movies caught my attention. After watching these two — “Troy” and “Doctor Strange” — I could not help but be struck by similar thoughts, which I shall quote here. The first from “Troy”:

“I tell you a secret — something they don’t teach you in your temple. The gods envy us. They’re envious because we’re mortal, because any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed. You will never be lovely than you are now. We will never be here again” (Achilles to Briseis, priestess of Troy, cousin of Hector, in Troy, 1:30:26).

The second is this from “Doctor Strange”:

“We don’t get to choose our time. Death is what gives life meaning — to know your days are numbered; your time is short” (The Ancient One to Dr. Stephen Strange, in Doctor Strange, 1:23:52).

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What beauty lies deep within the reality of our mortality? It takes a lot of wisdom to discover it for, humanly speaking, we don’t want to pass away. Our first tendency is to linger especially when the experience is ecstatic. “Lord, it is good for us to be here,” Peter commented to Jesus on Mt. Tabor during the Transfiguration. “Let us build three tents”, he proposed.

Our first reaction towards blissful experiences is to keep them: “to build three tents”. That is why human beings would do anything to discover the secrets of immortality — the fountain of eternal youth.

But there’s beauty in mortality. The Greeks recognized it and expressed such awareness in their idea of the “envy of the gods” towards mortals. But again, what is beautiful with being mortal?

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It’s not the impermanence itself! It is the effect that such awareness of the perishability of life has to a person’s behavior that makes mortality beautiful. One secret of success, says Og Mandino, is to think everyday that “This day could be your last; hence, do your best today!”

The awareness of our mortality can move us (if we allow it to) to be our best and to do our best everyday. Because “any moment might our last”, we indulge into self-motivation and strive to become a better version of ourselves. We also strive to fulfill whatever good deed we can afford to do because we think “we may never pass this way again”.

“We will never be here again,” Achilles wisely pointed out. So what do you do with the time that is given to you? To spend it as meaningfully as possible! But how do we make life meaningful?

Pope John Paul II would say, “by giving one’s self to others in service”! (Read his book Love and Responsibility). Vatican II’s Gaudium et spes expresses this paradoxical insight saying “if man is the only creature on earth that God has wanted for its own sake, man can fully discover his true self only in a sincere giving of himself” (§ 24).

Paradoxically, true happiness is experienced when we seek the good of others rather than our own. Selfishness is always a torture. First, there’s the torture of the lack of contentment. Then, there’s the pain of frustration for unmet expectations. Lastly, there’s a sense of being imprisoned within the desire to get what you want.

On the contrary, selflessness is so rewarding. The sense of freedom is so consoling. There’s a deep contentment and a light feeling in the thought that you have made someone smile or happy even if it meant a little sacrifice on your part. And especially when you realize that “this might be your last”, you will begin to discover the beauty of life — it becomes more meaningful, thanks to the realization of its impermanence.

Then, you understand why “death gives meaning to life”!

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While we were preparing for the funeral mass and burial of Ernesto Evangelista, Sr., whom I fondly called “Kuya Ernie”, these realizations filled my heart and mind. During the last night of his wake, various individuals shared how their lives had been touched — like mine — by the selfless generosity of Kuya Ernie.

Indeed, Kuya Ernie knew how to live life meaningfully!

The Davao Catholic Herald and the DXGN can attest to this! During my very short stint as director of DCHERALD in 2007, Kuya Ernie and myself worked hard to revive the paper financially.

A very good friend of mine, Janet Estepa, gave a quite providential suggestion to have a film showing on the life of the then Venerable Pope John Paul II. We had chosen the SM Cinemas in Ecoland as our venue. We had wanted the parishioners to know more about the life of the soon-to-be-declared saint, so we promoted the activity to all parishes.

The idea delighted Kuya Ernie so much because, besides his deep devotion to the great pope, his school bore the name of this Polish Pontiff, the permission to use such name was given by the saintly pope himself while he was still alive. Out of his own initiative, Kuya Ernie shouldered the cinema rental expenses, the biggest expense so far in such endeavor; thus, contributing a lot to the considerable net income that definitely saved DCHerald from closing down that year.

This, and in countless other small and big occasions, indeed would tell us how the late Ernesto Evangelista, Sr. — and many people like him in Davao — knew how to make life so meaningful!

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I THINK, we should not lament over the impermanence of life on earth and our mortality. Instead, this reality should make us strive to seek the good and never let any opportunity to do good pass for “we may never pass this way again”. If we live life with the constant awareness that every day could be our last, we would always spend each moment meaningfully. Truly, “death is what gives life meaning”.