"Life only avails, not the having lived."
This quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson's Self-Reliance definitely caused me to think. The line itself is short, and that might be part of the reason why I think it's such a good line. Only seven words, and yet it can cause so much controversy as to what it means.
Basically what I think Emerson is trying to say here is that the fact that a person lived isn't really what's important. Yes, you lived your life. However, so did billions of other people in the world. The question is, what did you do with it? To avail means to profit or to get an advantage from, so take that into consideration, and does it really change the meaning? I think when you add that in, maybe it's saying that you only get an advantage from life and from doing something, not from just living. Or put another way, the world will only profit from your life if you make something of it, the world isn't going to profit just because of the fact that you were born and died. Life only profits, not the having lived. On the other hand, is he saying that it isn't really a person in general that profits, but life itself? I'm not sure.
Maybe I'm way off here, but that was just what came to mind when I read it.
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I also see multiple sides to this. The best I can figure is a "live in the moment" deal. He says that "life" (used actively and with presence) as opposed to "having lived" (past perfect, more latent) is the way we learn and advance. In other words, we have to learn from the present situation, and not what has happened.
ReplyDeleteNice discussion, Kirsten. I think both your interpretation and Andrew's take on it are valid. R. Waldo definitely is a "live your life to the fullest" type of guy, but he's also all about living in the moment.
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