A friend of mine asked me about “life philosophy” a little while ago. We talked about a wide range of things, but I remember specifically discussing the concept of “epic.”
I believe that life is absolutely epic in its scope, ranging from world changing to extremely personal. Life can be heroic, no matter if you have superpowers or not. In fact, it’s epic even though you don’t have superpowers. Our concept of heroism extends so erroneously just to comics books and uniforms that we sometimes forget that it is absolutely incredible to learn how to live in this life … to look reality in the face and continue one … mindful both of joys and sorrows. Some of my favorite books and authors capture this better than I ever could:
“No one doubts that an ordinary man can get on with this world: but we demand not strength enough to get on with it, but strength enough to get it on.
Can he hate it enough to change it, and yet love it enough to think it worth changing? Can he look up at its colossal good without once feeling acquiescence? Can he look up at its colossal evil without once feeling despair? Can he, in short, be at once not only a pessimist and an optimist, but a fanatical pessimist and a fanatical optimist? Is he enough of a pagan to die for the world, and enough of a Christian to die to it?
In this combination, I maintain, it is the rational optimist who fails, the irrational optimist who succeeds. He is ready to smash the whole universe for the sake of itself.” (Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton)
“If God loves the world, might that not be proved in my own love for it? I prayed to know in my heart His love for the world, and this was my most prideful, foolish, and dangerous prayer. It was my step into the abyss. As soon as I prayed it, I knew that I would die. I knew the old wrong and the death that lay in the world.
Just as a good man would not coerce the love of his wife, God does not coerce the love of His human creatures, not for Himself or for the world or for one another. To allow that love to exist fully and freely, He must allow it to not exist at all. His love is suffering. It is our freedom and His sorrow. To love the world as much even as I could love it would be suffering also, for I would fail.
And yet all the good I know is in this, that a man might so love this world that it would break his heart.” (Jayber Crow, Wendell Berry)
“Your daily life is your temple and your religion.” (The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran)
It’s so hard, in the midst of the repetitiveness of school, break, or work itself to remember just how important it is to love, to learn, to strive, to become better, and to persevere. It can be difficult. It can be confusing, dark, and convoluted. But this life is the greatest adventure you will ever know.