I was just finishing off a book (reading not writing) recently when the phrase 'pointless death' came up. It's not an uncommon phrase but, for some reason this time it struck an unusual cord and I found myself thinking that the idea of a pointless death is a very human creation. No where else in the animal, or plant, or microbiota kingdoms could such a concept arise. Other creatures accept death as a natural part of the cycle of existence. New creatures are born, they consume, they produce, they age, they reproduce and they die. Even in death they remain a part of the cycle as their components are recycled into new life. Nowhere could the concept of a pointless death exist. And yet, for humans it is a very real concept.
Somehow this concept seems at the very center of what it means to be human. Of how we think of ourselves in relation to the world. We feel we are made for more and that, when we don't achieve it, somehow we've been cheated, or we've failed -- that our life has been for nothing.
Yet, when one considers just what it is that we are supposed to be achieving, generally, it is something wholely within the human frontier. Fortune, prestige, power. All the while, our principle goal and responsibiliy is simply to continue the cycle of life, expanding it where ever possible. In truth, by witness of our treatment of the planet and its other inhabitants and our abandoning the cycle of nature, almost all of us have lived 'pointless lives'.
EH Rydberg
