Future Use

by Christian Go


The first thing which crossed my mind when the last discussion was going on was how my own mom did not want to use expensive plates and would always keep them for "future use". This so called "future use" would never occur. The purpose of a plate is to be used for eating and not merely for show or for safe keeping and so I did not quite see the point in it. Then it came to me that we have become so materialistic in life that we tend to forget that everything we purchase and everything we obtain are only the means to an end. We want to be happy, we want what's best for our very own families but in the end, we tend to forget that it is the goal we want to achieve. Soon, it will become all about finding the right job and making money and we forget that money is only a means to an end and its not the end itself. I think that is why despite knowing that something will disappear and vanish through time, we tend to grasp so hard on to something. We forget that it is only a means and that there are other means towards that happiness we seek in life. We attach our means of happiness to that one thing, that we forget we can achieve it elsewhere. I think this goes back to how Marcel described the broken world we live in today.
   
Beyond this, the truth is that life is such a fleeting thing. The reality is that people die everyday without us knowing and who knows we could be next. But the point of it is that we should not be holding on to dear life and decide not to experience the outside, not to experience the world for that matter. If life is to end, then why not make the most of it. And when life is to end, we can always say at least I lived a good one.