As an English major I read a lot. And when I read for class it's mostly older works of literature. And by reading things that really old people wrote I've realized that not much has changed. Do you know what Shakespeare wrote about? Sex. Drugs. Love. Betrayal. STDs. And that's just a drop in the bucket.
Now how many of you thought you would never be able to relate to Shakespeare because he was too old and too hard to read? Sure there's a language barrier, but I like to think of it more as a hurdle than anything. If you go into it knowing that if it sounds dirty than it most likely is dirty, Shakespeare is much more enjoyable.
And it's not just Shakespeare that liked his perverted humor. Chaucer wrote about fart jokes. Hell, he even used the word "piss". (Side note: I don't know how to properly use punctuation in quotations marks. I know I'm a n English major and I should, but I've been told different things by different teachers and I'm too tired to look it up right now.) Did you know that the word piss was even around back then? That's something I thought my friends and I (Another side note: I almost wrote "me and my friends" right there, but then I gagged a little and corrected myself.) made up one day in grade school.
But even though the old masters of writing joked around a lot they did write about some heavy topics. Since I've already mentioned him I'll use Shakespeare for another example. In his play
King Lear (warning, spoilers) King Lear is betrayed by his two evil daughters. The one daughter that he rips off in the end dies after he realizes that she was the only one who actually loved him. Oh yeah, in order to understand he has to go crazy and another guy gets his eyes ripped out. It's intense. You should read it. But while I read the play and contemplated about its subject I realized that not much has changed.
People today betray each other all the time. Good people die and bad people get away with things. Loved ones are taken from us, sometimes right as we need them most. And at the time I read this play I was also reading a lot of other semi-tragic stories and was going through a hard time in my life. I generally only saw the bad in things and I had abandoned my faith for the most part. Mainly because I questioned why a good God would let bad things happen to good people.
I understood the free will part. I mean, our existence would be pointless without our own right to choose what happens. (Some people will argue that our existence is pointless regardless.) So if a person decides to do something bad then I get that they have the free choice to do it. But what I didn't understand is why a good God would let a person like Stalin or Hitler exist. My friend helped me to understand that just as people have the choice to do something wrong on the small scale, such as steal a hat from a store, they also have the choice to do something worse, like kill millions of people because of religious beliefs. What I didn't see is that just as some people chose to do so much harm, others like Mother Theresa and MLK Jr. chose to do so much good. In order for there to be an extreme good there must be an extreme evil. This is a tough concept for me, even now, to understand and to accept. But I'm trying.
But then I started noticing the little things in life. Like today for instance, my girlfriend and I were driving to the store. She was sitting in the passenger seat singing along to "This Afternoon" by Nickelback. As the sun shone in her face and she looked over and smiled at me I realized that life is good. Moments such as that are things that make life worth living. Yes bad things happen, and they often happen to good people, but so do good things.
"You're only here for a short visit. Don't hurry, don't worry. And be sure to stop and smell the flowers along the way."
I think Walter Hagen said it just about perfect. We're not here for long. We should all learn to take our time and not stress about about the small things, like that test that's coming up. Or the bills we have to pay. Or what other people might think about us. Or what we might have lost. Instead we need to take time to enjoy the little things. Like smelling flowers. Or helping others. Or singing campfire songs with friends. Or eating your favorite meal. Or laughing at Shakespeare's dirty jokes. Or riding to the store with your girlfriend, realizing how beautiful she is as she sings along with the radio.
Life is beautiful.
