Monday, August 10, 2009

LIVING LIFE TO THE FULL

Death is a strange concept and is one that is part of the fabric of life. Without life there can be no extinguishing of it. When you are young, unless you have seen death at close quarters or had some experience of it, there is nothing to draw upon that really enables you to comprehend it.

Our youth think they are invincible and the majority in our society, live modern life to the full. Sometimes, it is so full they hurtle towards the very state of fallibility they believe they have no stake in. Was it always thus? Living conditions of earlier societies would have introduced quite young children to the notion of loss. If then, as young adults, they did make the most of what life they had, bearing in mind that they did not live to ripe old ages, and rarely beyond the biblical three score years and ten, what would living life to the full have meant?

For men, would 'living' have been 'sowing their seed', making the best use of any and every haystack in the rural fields. Would it have meant becoming 'a man' by being enlisted into the militia. For women, apart from spurning the local yokels' charms, as and when they did, it was probably a different story. Either you were home-making with your mother, assisting with other young ones in the family, and working on the farm, or in the factory. A woman may have been in service somewhere, helping to support those at home by being away and one less mouth to feed, probably also supplying a few pence into the family budget. As a woman in the 18th, century, for example, you may even have been a militia or naval follower.

Whatever living life meant before, whatever our ancestors did before they died, they made sure that mankind continued into the present day. We, like them, procreate for our posterity. It is curious, but what I take from this, is that the path of life leads to death, but, both nurture new life.

No comments: