And to ask the question is to know the answer...

"For no sooner do we begin to live in this dying body, than we begin to move ceaselessly towards death... so that our whole life is nothing but a race towards death, in which no one is allowed to stand still for a little space, or to go somewhat more slowly..."- Saint Augustine "City of God"

What an uninspired view of life. Life is a race towards death where no one can stop and smell the roses without, essentially, wasting the precious few moments that he has to live. Augustine's solution: spend your entire life praying and reflecting on God in the hopes that, after death, we will be rewarded with eternal life.

I will not impart any particular religious views because they all appear to be different slices of the same pie, with "exclusive" stories of their specific religions oddly enough seem to overlap with every other religion's "exclusive" stories. Similarities notwithstanding, let us presume there is a Creator, and it is within His creation that we exist. Fine. And it's clear that every moment we live is actually another moment closer to our death. Fine. But does that mean that we can only live after we die if we are lucky enough to be granted the grace of some omniscient Being?

It seems to me that the whole problem that people have with dying is that they do not know what death will be like and that they do not know what comes after death. If only a few of us are saved, then we fear damnation and so live according to certain rules. If we are all saved, then we fear damnation less and live according to a different set of rules. If there is no life after death, then we tend to grasp to every moment of our lives, scratching and clawing to pull ourselves in the opposite direction of the conveyor belt that draws us nearer to our final packaging.

Fear, then, is our major motivator. Fear is the reason we believe in religions and why we cower at the sight of death. Fear is why our emotions pour forward when we hear of someone who is at the end of their life. And we fear it because we know nothing about it:
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all - Shakespeare "Hamlet" (Thanks Mr. Maier)
This is the state of our existence. Fear drives us. But it is not death that we are afraid of, but rather the thought of death. When we imagine our own deaths, we imagine ourselves present in that moment. We imagine watching our loved ones crying because we are no longer with them. We wonder about who will show up to our wakes and our funerals. Were we loved? Did people really care about me? What will they say when I am gone? We worry about whether our wives or husbands will re-marry. Will our kids remember us? Will they think about me everyday? How much will I miss out on because I will no longer be alive?

But how much are you missing out on every day while you are still alive and have a chance to experience life?

Why worry about what you cannot know or reasonbly imagine? Change the course of the history of your life by acting today in a way that will make you smile when you are gone and looking back on the world. The reflections of God or the Creator or the gods are accessible all around us - in the glimpse of a lover's eye, in the giggle of a baby, in the beauty of a snow covered mountain range, in the serenity of the wind bustling through the trees, in the warmth of the sunshine on your cheeks, in the splendid taste of an ice cold beer in a frothy mug, in the tenderness of a mother's touch, in the adulatation of a "perfect game", in the pleasure of friendly company, in the raucousness of explosive laughter during good conversation, in the awe of a windless summertime day on the beaches of the Jersey Shore. These are my prayers. I try and see them in every moment that passes. Circumstance affords some of us the luxury of taking our time to discover that which is important in life. Such a luxury was not extended to me, but it was replaced with a much better gift: the immediate realization of how lucky we actually are. I wish you all could truly know how amazing a meal actually tastes, or how soothing it is to be with someone you love, or how good it feels to really laugh so hard it makes you cry...

Life is not a race towards death. It's not a race at all. It's a careful contemplation of who we are and what is important. We cannot help but ask "What is the meaning of life?" constantly demanding an answer to an apparently impossible question to answer. Is it impossible? I think in this case the question IS the answer. To ask "what is the meaning of life?" and expect an answer is like asking the sun not to rise and it conceding. To ask "what is the meaning of life?" and to pursue the answer in your life IS to answer the question. Simply put: the question - what is the meaning of life?; the answer - living.

"Certainly there is no one who is not nearer [death] this year than last year... For whatever time we live is deducted from our whole term of life, and that which remains is daily becoming less and less...It is one thing to make a longer journey, and another to walk more slowly. He, therefore, who spends longer time on his way to death does not proceed at a more leisurely pace, but goes over more ground. Further, if every man begins to die... as soon as death has begun to show itself in him... then he begins to die so soon as he begins to live." - Saint Augustine "City of God"

...Better get started living...