What do you live for?
I have never thought about this problem seriously, but was asked about this twice. When I was in my twenties, I was asked about this question from a friend of mine. I think it was the serious question as a young. When I was fifty nine years old, I was asked again about this from a person who was in charge of personnel. He maybe intended to remove the feeling of emptiness of the retirement from the person who had never thought of anything except one's jobs. I answered twice; "I think I have already graduated from such kind of problem." Then they changed the topic.
At the university I had to learn a few subjects of the humanities. On a trial basis I attended the philosophy and economy classes without any elementary knowledge. Before I attended the lectures, I was interested in the lecture about philosophy than in the lecture about economy. But the teacher of philosophy was writing like the mathematical signs when I attended his class. His lecture bored me. I quit attending his lecture. The teacher of economy was explaining the law of diminishing marginal utility. He said, "When you drink two cups of coffee, even if each price is $1, the value of the first cup is higher than the value of the second cup." I was interested in his explanation and continued to attend his lecture. But I still had a lingering attachment to philosophy.
One day a teacher of German which was one of the required subjects wrote on the blackboard "Ich denke, also bin ich." ("I think, so am I.") Then he said, "Philosophy begins from here, and finishes at here." My interest in philosophy was satisfied by his explanation. I thought that this sentence and his explanation contained enough knowledge as philosophy of the liberal arts. The lingering attachment to philosophy disappeared at that time. The starting point that I said, "I think I graduated from such kind of problem." is here. Since then I have never thought about the purpose of the life because I thought it was irresoluble problem. I learned German for two years and got barely the passing marks every time. German was not useful for me except this sentence. But this sentence and his explanation are still very useful for me. (For a long time, I did not know that Descartes was a Frenchman and he wrote that sentence in Latin language.)
Buddha makes us alive
On a serial story of a newspaper, somebody who had huge worry thought that she would rather die than suffer so much. A priest who knew about her worry said, "If you thought Buddha made you alive, you could relax." She understood the priest's words and relaxed. I can not understand why she relaxed, but I can entirely agree to think that someone of the Buddha, or God makes us alive. (Nature is the God to me.) We humans have repeated birth without our own intentions from time immemorial. I cannot understand my existence without the thought that someone makes me alive.
All the living things including me are built in two main instincts, that is, the instinct for self-preservation and for leaving behind our descendants. I would like to think that many other instincts exist to support the main instincts. At the same time we have reason in order to control instinct. I think instinct is hereditary ability and reason is the ability of posteriority, which is influenced by environment. Anyway I would like to think that because someone makes me alive, I am alive now. So, I think, while someone makes me alive, I should utilize my life span as long as I can.
Money
To be made lived, and to survive in this world, money is indispensable. Money is also very useful to satisfy our many other instincts. So we often tend to think moneymaking is the purpose of life. Of course I, too, thought that more money made me happier when I was young. Actually I thought it was very nice if I could live in a more high-grade house, and drive a more high-grade car. But I, who am over seventy now, cannot find the way to spend big money. I think I am not interested in spending big money because I have been moderately poor since I was born. I feel that both of moving to a new house and driving a new car are only troublesome now.
Sometimes we can catch a glimpse of a celebrity's luxurious mansion and luxurious life. I think that the difference between the high-grade car and my car is similar to the difference between the celebrity's life and my life. That is only a little difference, I think. As the proverb says "Money comes and goes," money does not belong to our individuals. We can only control the inflow and outflow of money while being alive. We are happiest when we are controlling the flow of money that is becoming to our ability. We can easily find the unhappy news about people who tried to control the flow of money beyond the people's ability on TV and in the newspaper.
I think a small pension is becoming to my ability. So I would like to satisfy to today's pension life. When I think about the risks, that is, like the rise of the medical expenses, the decrease of my pension by inflation, and the long life beyond the expected life span, I cannot continue to be so optimistic. But I do not know about what I should do other than watching the changes in the world. It causes a little stress on me. But I think this stress is the specific medicine for my long life. I would like to continue today's life together with the stress as long as I can.
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February 1, 2007