While us humans are all aware of the transitory nature of life from a young age, in our early years we tend to think we'll live "virtually forever." Well, recently the reality of finite existence has really asserted itself upon my psyche more vividly. The subject of mortality, or at least the corresponding theme of "life's meaning," has been confronted in works of art for time immorial, and it's undertandable that such works captivate and resonate with us humans.

In the area of movies, many many people cherish the initially overlooked but now popularly lauded The Shawshank Redemption, with its signature motto "Get busy livin' or get busy dyin'."  As for me - some of you have heard me proclaim my love for Ikiru, and I'm betting that laislabevitaknows exactly why it's my favorite movie. 

In that film, the protagonist finds meaning in his work - not  just busy-work that distracts him from life's questions (that what he'd been involved with before), but work that he finds meaningful. 

You could expand "work" to mean a calling, a hobby, a passion. During last weekend's hijinx, there was a little exchange that I didn't write about. Just before "Blondie" - a woman who'd never met me before - left, she said '...and keep up you're playing! I loved it - keep pursuing that!" rather in the manner of a pep-talk. I feel lucky that I have a talent that arouses such a response. And it's not just piano; I have my songwriting and recording - UPDATE: I'm researching what "Pro Tools" package I can buy for doing multitracking; some of you may have thought I'm full of shit regarding my project, but I am putting the pieces together, albeit slowly.

Time for those apt cliches: "Follow your bliss," "It's the journey." Whether or not I make money doing this (and I have made money in the past as a piano-player), doing it fills me to the brim with the gettin' busy livin' feeling. It reminds me of (another foreign-film warning) this scene from Bergmann's existentialist The Seventh Seal, where the musician looks to have triumphed over death (A Waldo-esque search for the memento mori shouldn't be too hard for anybody here.) I can relate to that bliss (And as a bonus, I'm even hotter than the axe-wielding guitar god pictured there, right?) :-p

Everyone can find that bliss - it's just up to you too seek it out.

(In light of this being such a heavy-ass post, I decided to keep a certain unintentional innuendo that found its way into paragraph 4 intact, to provide much-needed yuks)