Thursday, September 24, 2009

Big Question: First Entry

My big question is: What is the difference between living and existing? I have been interested in this question for quite a long time now because I thought of it one day after seeing existing as a synonym to living and for some reason I found it hard to agree with that. Existing is the limbo you’re in between being alive and being dead. Existing is maintaining an average life without doing anything out of the ordinary. Living is the uniqueness one obtains and projects throughout the duration of their life. Living is going through life, the good and the bad, the pleasure and the pain. You can either live life doing the things you like and having an impact on people or you can exist as many do just doing what they can to survive and not achieve much else.

Oedipus Rex relates to this question by showing that Oedipus is a person who lived, not just merely existed. Oedipus’ life is riddled with trouble as he is predestined to kill his father and marry his mother. That is far from a mundane lifestyle.

"Ah! my poor children, known, ah, known too well,
The quest that brings you hither and your need.
Ye sicken all, well wot I, yet my pain,
How great soever yours, outtops it all."

Here Oedipus explains the pain that he experiences in life after unknowingly succumbing to his fate. He explains no matter how bad the struggles of his children are, he still had it worse because of all that he has lived through. The problems Oedipus faces make him a prime example of a person that has lived because he escaped the mold of normality by being placed in a horrible situation. An example of him just existing would have been if he grew up under the house of his biological parents and obtained the throne as a regular king would have. Also he would have had a family of his own and not have his wife be his own mother. That’s an expected life, therefore it is existence and not living.

My summer reading book, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, shows a great example of a person who was simply existence and then worked his way into living. Sammy Clay is a character in Michael Chabon’s book who is a homosexual who lives in denial throughout the majority of his life. Finally he openly admits to being a homosexual in a public forum and feels as if he is liberated from his mental entrapment. Sammy could’ve continued his life after coming out as a guy working with his cousin in New York, but he decided to take a risk and move to Los Angeles to pursue a career in television. Taking risks is a large component when answering what constitutes living.

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