Big Puss and Danny
Big Puss: What is the meaning of life?Danny: What do you mean?Big Puss: I mean why am I alive, why are you alive, why is anyone alive, what are we supposed to be doing?Danny: What do you think you’re supposed to be doing Big Puss?Big Puss: I don’t know, nothing really I guess, I’m just having a tough time, you know, nothing seems to make much sense. It doesn’t seem like anything matters.Danny: Probably doesn’t.Big Puss: Then what’s the point? It could all end tomorrow, why even bother?Danny: Well… I think the point is to hang around and see what happens next. Good or bad, something’s going to happen, eventually. You can count on it. So tighten up and hang in there.Big Puss: You really think so?Danny: Yeah, the point of being here is to see what happens: to affect and be affected by the world, to do our best to enjoy ourselves, but most of all to wait around and see. Don’t leave before the miracle happens- and it can happen to you.I think what freaks most people out about the end of the world are same things that freak us out about our own mortality: that our lives may not add up to be all that we wanted them to. We are afraid of taking the necessary risks that would enable us to do everything we want and get the most out of this life. The reasons for our indecision and non-action are many- but the result is the same: regret.Big Puss: Regret? Really? What do you mean?Danny: In the words of the unsinkable Gibby Haynes, “…remember son, it is better to regret something you have done, and than something you haven’t”. No wants to end up with a life full of regret for the things we never allowed ourselves to do, but I think many of us do end up like that and I think many of us don’t realize it until it is too late to do anything about it.Big Puss: You really think so.Danny: Sure, I think most people live in a kind of state of fear; Most of our choices are fear based. We let the fear of not getting what we want or the fear of losing what we have keep us from actually doing what we really want to do.Most people don’t go for it because they’re afraid they won’t get it, or they’re afraid that if they try to get it they’ll lose what if ever it is they’ve already got. So they just keep doing what they’ve been doing and, in the end, they regret it.Big Puss: But Danny, it doesn’t matter: When it is over, it is over, there’s “nothing there”, What if nuclear bombs were dropped on all the major US cities, what ifSome new disease comes along and wipes us all out. What if the earth shifts on its axis and destroys us all?Danny: I’m excited by those possibilities. There is something I find exhilarating about watching the world crumble down around me.Big Puss: What!?!Danny: To have to actually work to figure out where the food is going to come from, where am I going sleep, will someone kill me tonight? I think some major disaster would help clear away the cobwebs and help us see the world and this life more clearly. To stare into the eyes of the chaos and violence which governs the cosmos, the chaos and violence we like to pretend doesn’t exist, or at the very least, choose to believe we are the masters of, is exciting. How liberating would it be to admit we were the fools to think we had it all under control? You know, when the planes hit the towers I remember thinking to myself, what a marvelous opportunity we have here to do the right thing and let it go, to throw our hands up and say, “okay, we’re wrong, we’ve been wrong for a while, we’ve hurt the world, how can we make this right?’Big Puss: What are you talking about Danny?Danny: Humility, my dear Puss, Humility.Big Puss: Humility?Danny: If there’s one thing I’ve learned it is that there is great freedom in humility. Once you admit you were wrong you can start over.Big Puss: Uh huh.Danny: Feel better?Big Puss: Yes?Danny: (Laughs) C’mon, let’s get some tacos.evnt:end- that shadow in the mist could have been anyone.
-Bob Carlton
