Sitting at the Mexican restaurant drinking a corona, I had a sudden realized.
“This is it”.
This is what life is made up of.
The beautiful aesthetics of the interior design of the restaurant. The sun’s rays piercing through the ocean blue sky. People walking, sitting on the grass, laughing, taking pictures and videos and selfies and what not. And in the midst of all that, an old couple walking – a husband and wife, probably in their 80’s. The man could barely walk but his wife clutched him tightly by the arm, showing him things in his surroundings, describing them.
He might have been blind, I couldn’t know.
I thought to myself, if I could distill the wisdom of life into three words, it would be:
“Life is Beautiful”.
Whatever happens, through all the good, the bad and the ugly – it is beautiful. No matter the pain and hardships we encounter, it is always worth living.
Life. Is. Beautiful.
Another three words would be Life is Live. It is right now.
But these are nouns, they are states. What about verbs? If I had to distill it into an action verb, it would be this:
This is all that we have. It sucks to see human against human fighting for it shows a greater ignorance of the forces of the universe waiting out there for us to stumble. The cold, harsh and indifferent conditions. At least when humans fight – they hate, and as paradoxical as it sounds, it takes a certain amount of caring to hate.
Hate is above indifference.
The thing about such realizations is that they seldom last more than a couple of minutes or hours. As time went on, focus went off that and on to the topic of conversation at the restaurant.
Going to pay the parking ticket though, was the reminder. Arriving at the machine, I saw there is no card payment allowed – only cash. Up the escalator. To the ATM. Withdraw cash. Down to the payment machine.
A long line.
Oh well. Wait in the line. Wait, wait, wait.
Still waiting.
Get to the front of the line to pay and….
“Currency amount too high”
It only takes banknotes of certain smaller amounts. Damn it.
That’s when the man behind me said:
“Here”, hands me the money “you’re better off just paying right now instead of waiting in line again. The amount is only like half a cup of coffee anyway, I’ll live”
Disbelief and gratitude all in one. We don’t have a name for it but we should.
It is moments like this that remind you that it is not human against human but humans against everything else. We have conquered the forces of nature, tamed them, in order to provide a better life for ourselves and our fellow men. Being of service to your fellow men is what life is about.
In fact, it’s ALL that life is about.
I don’t know if I’ll ever get to see that man, if I would even remember his face much less be able to repay him – but there is one thing I can do to honour his act.
Pay it forward.
“It’s only like half a cup of coffee”
And now I’m thinking what I’m gonna say when I pay someone’s ticket.