Do people have life?

Do people have- “life?”

When a man looks at the world he gets the feeling that people have life. , that is to saythat there is such a thing called a life of a person. He can look at a family, that sitstogether in the living room, or a couple seated in a café, or a group of youngsterswalking on the sidewalk- and he can think that… this is their life, that these peopleare alive inside, right now, and that life is happening for them right now.When he looks at the sight of a girl walking, he looks at her and says to himself: ” shehas life, and she is now walking in her life and to her life  i.e. there is somethingwaiting for her later, and something is fulfilling her right now. something that every !it of her is a part of. ife is happening to her. #he is happening with it. $enerallyspeaking, people appear as if they have a life, and are a part of the greater life, life atlarge.%nd later on he !egins to reali&e that instead of living, and living in the now, people,are constantly trying to start the engine of their life. %nd this is what happens: everytime they go to the theater, every time they read a !ook, and when they pick up the phone to call someone, and at the !eginning of se’ or a relationship and every timethe () is turned on, and with the !irth of the new child – all these are efforts to try andstart the engine of their life.* am talking a!out many efforts to try and create a mosaic, a collage of life. +ut it isnot a solid internal unit that lives and !reathes, !u!!ling, with a living dynamics thatoriginates from a deep magnetic center of gravity, rather it is some kind of a coatmade out of patches stitched together from the outside one patch is the daughter orthe son, another patch is the workplace promotion, another patch is the !ook that onehas started reading, and another patch is ones ho!!y, another patch is ones friend andtheir conversations. +ut these patches cannot !ecome a replacement for the realhappening which is their life./rom a distance every !ody appears

to have a life,

!ut this is appearance only. (heirlives are not something alive, ongoing. *t is not a world. *t is not a universe. *t is noteven a planet with its own atmosphere and life forms.

It is only the things thatpeople do in the absence of life.

(hese are a su!stitute for living.(his is not how he pictured life his own and other peoples. 0very time he takes acloser look at someones life, which seems to !e harmonic and whole, it is only todiscover, later, a series of segments, 1ust like in a pointillist painting, not connecteddots that only due to pro’imity create an illusion of movement and a distinct unifiedform.%nd indeed, appearances can !e deceiving looking at a pu! you see couples,threesomes. +ut when you come closer and closer you notice that the threesome isactually three lonesome people a!sor!ed in themselves and that they are more alonethan they are a company. When you &oom in more and more you find inside them thea!sence of coherence and homogeneity, you find many many thoughts and pettyfeelings running simultaneously all over, their attitude toward one another is filled

with petty resistance. +ut from outside, each of them is trying hard to keep theconversation alive, and to create a sense of continuity and dynamics. +ut in the !ottom line, they don2t consolidate into one whole with a life of its own.%nd after all this intimate o!servation he has to ask himself: “

is this life?

“0very!ody is so certain that other people have life, and if here we do not know how tolive, may!e somewhere there is knowledge how to create life. 3ay !e we, in ourcountry, in our neigh!orhood or in our families, or me, in my personal life- havemissed it, !ut, foreshore, somewhere there

must be

a place where people live andknow what life is.*t may !e hard to grasp !ut this is the situation for men. 0very!ody matures towardsunknown future, and wishes it would !e life, full, rich. 4ynamic life. 5nly later on toe’perience ones own impotency as an individual, in creating a world that is filledwith an ongoing living. %t that point everyone tells him that this is what family is for,so he tries to make a family, only to find that a family consists of two lonelyindividuals, that are, in most cases, strangers that reminds me a wonderful series !roadcasted in ondon in 6789 called intimate strangers. What a wonderful andtragic name. (hey are also strangers to their children. #trangeness is intertwined !etween and inside of them.ou can see it everywhere. Writers, for instance. (hey live in a writers world,e’istence, a universe of writers. (hey live the life of writers. (hey come together anddiscuss the things that writer should discuss. +ut o!serving a group of writers revealsdisharmony and hidden rivalry. 0ach of them is trapped inside his solitude, with hisendless inner conflicts. (hey carry the image !ut don2t make a whole.%nd it is so e’ternal wholeness conceals endless internal efforts to start the engine oflife .(his ongoing illusion of life spreads all over. ou can find it in !anks, restaurants,offices. ou might want to !elieve that after-hours, when a person return to his home, !ooks, ho!!ies, friends and family, he finds himself surrounded with the ecology ofhis own life and world.+ut it is not so. He returns into emptiness, into nothingness. *nto the huge void that hedesperately tries to fill with all kind of stuff. He constantly tries to !reathe life into itwith graceless attempts tries to read a !ook, pick up the phone and call a friend,may!e goes out with the wife or hus!and, or watches this program on (), as he didyesterday and the day !efore. *t may look as if he has a rich full life to come home to, !ut the truth is theres nothing. His life is simply not there for him.*t is the case for private people, !ut also for life in general a hotel, a hospital or acrowded restaurant, seem filled with vital life. We want to !elieve that 1ust like on the() series 0.;., a hospital is a universe and things really happen there people comeand go and their life takes place without the constant need for resuscitation. We getthe feeling that life can !e this crowded vital universe teeming with life. We watchthis life occurring effortlessly in 0.;., <hicago hope and /riends. /or some reasonthis does not happen for us. 3ay!e we took the wrong classes, met the wrong people

or !een to the wrong places. We wonder what is it that other people have that wedon2t. *s it the !ooks they read= *s it their masters degree= 3ay!e it happens only in%merica.We all know that 0.;. and /riends are fiction, !ut somehow it falls into place for us !ecause this is how we envision life elsewhere, especially in those !ig !u&&ing placeshospitals, hotels, news paper editorials, () companies. +ut when we enter one ofthese places, instead of a lively universe we find people. onely people. %nd they sittogether under the same headline !ut hide !ehind masks and create rituals that act as awall which keeps them safe from their own fears and personal wishes, that are dividedinto thousands of su! particles, colliding and un aware, !ecause their awareness ismuch to !usy dealing with the shallow surface of the social mask, which is a collageof clichés that cover for the lack of a whole group dynamics.#o life is not the !ursting drama of 0.;. or the light amusement of /riends. (hat ismerely makeup. % clearer reflection of life is found in plays !y (ennessee Williams,0ugene 5>eill, %rthur 3iller, and %ugust #trind!erg. (heir dramas and tragedies peel of the mask and tear it to shreds. %nd that is the doing of prose in its !est, toshred the wrap called my world, my life. We use this wrap to cover up our own livesfor the sake of others and init we hide our downfalls and graceless attempts toweave life together. 4ownfalls and ruins are hidden inside glories men, who appear tohave life.%nd finally, is the potential of this total happening, which in it you are alive, canreally !e fulfilled=(o answer this you need to wake up and see if you woke into living .$a!riel ;aam