Trigger: As we have all mentioned from time to time, finishing a story is difficult. Choose one from the list of possible endings:

Closing the door behind her, very quietly, she left them around the table, expressions of amazement and disbelief on their faces. On hers, a smile, growing as she walked away.

Thierry sat down opposite the inspector. “Is this what you have been looking for?”

But she did arrive. To his relief and delight. He put his arms around her and his lips to her ear. “Now we can really get to know each other”.

And there it was, as he had remembered. Perhaps smaller, perhaps less dramatic but nevertheless an unforgotten piece of his history. (It is this last which began me writing, an essay, not a story. G.)

A rumination on life remembered

Where does one begin when you want to relive your past? Yesterday? Last year? 20 years?At the beginning. The question is why do you want to go back? What is it you are looking for? What is it you are trying to remember? What are you hoping to find? Is it a piece of yourself that maybe you lost and need to rediscover?

Perhaps its not an object but an idea, something you once felt important about you? What happened to that idea and to you that caused it to fade from your mind and then be lost in a lifetime of experiences. Or is it still there in some way, just hidden below the surface unrecognized. And what does it matter anyway, here you are, at the end of life. You made it somehow and that’s all that counts. It’s too late to change anything now. Things turn out as they do, so stay in the moment, there’s enough to deal with in these final years to be rummaging around in the distant past.

Socrates said at his trial, “The unconsidered life, is one not worth living.” The reality is that we all live in a flow of life, constantly being bounced around and off of other beings and events. Family, friends, teachers, colleagues, mentors, bosses, loves, things that touched us directly all contributed to our path. And then there is the flow of the big river of society in which we exist: politicians, the economy, climate events, wars, technology, entertainment, events from the other side of the globe, all have their butterfly effect in some way on everyone. Those are all outside your own control yet may get in the way of being true to your own self, or at least can pinball you away from who you thought you were and wanted to be or were supposed to be. It is this last that is hardest to deal with over the course of a life: what you are supposed to be. “That kids going somewhere. He has so much potential.” And that is the heaviest burden of all. No matter how hard you try, you can never live up to your potential. It is an unattainable goal.

Whatever you do, there is always the nagging feeling that you could have done more. Whatever successes you have, they could have been bigger, broader, more impactful on the world. To the ancient Greeks, it was the concept of “arete”, the achievement of perfection. Consideration of their life was in relation to arete, to strive for perfection and how closely you could come to attaining it. The problem is everyone has a different idea of perfection. Are you the perfect crook, the perfect general who destroys the most, the perfect investor who takes everyone else’s money? How about the perfect surgeon who’s skill allows him to save more lives than any other but will treat people around him with disdain. Has he achieved arete? I assume he doesn’t care. Thus is his unconsidered life not worth living?

No one is born with a specific road map that will guide you perfectly through life. One that says, don’t take that turn today because otherwise you will have an accident. Every day in a life is an accident waiting to happen. Some are fortuitous accidents, some are fatal. You can meet the right person at the wrong time so a potential connection is lost. Or you can meet the wrong person at the wrong time and be destroyed. Mostly everyone manages to muddle through, somehow. Of course some manage it far better than others. But they are all just making it up as they go along.

On the other end of the arete spectrum from Socrates was his foil, Epicurus. Instead of some unattainable perfection which posits that we are flawed beings from the start, Epicurus thought life was pretty simple. It was the seeking and achieving of pleasure. Over the millennia, Epicureanism, has been bastardized into thinking it is a search for idle joy and gluttony.

His was a simple idea. Behavior in pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain assures an upright life. Happiness lives in having friends, and sharing good simple food and conversation and laughter. That was his view of the goal of life. Don t over complicate life. It is extravagance that leads to pain. Don’t constantly seek fortune and fame. Enjoy quiet. Appreciate nature. Let enough be enough. His was the counterpoint to the constant striving for being better, having more, living up to the potential in life. Unfortunately the Puritan view of life being a long hard road of work and denial of humanity seems to have taken control in western thought. If you are not a success (whatever that is), it is your fault. You just did not work hard enough or wasted your time on frivolous and unimportant things, like the pursuit of happiness.

Implicit to Epicurus was the idea that living a pleasant life involved living wisely, honorably and justly. It is the practice of those values that brings a pleasant life, not position, power or profit. And there it is, that last little idea that should be remembered in an examined life. Did you seek to live honorably and respectfully of others and for the pleasure of sharing food and friendship? A good life lived is not about all the faults and missteps and missed opportunities of a life. It is about the smaller, less dramatic but nevertheless important pieces of a man’s history: is he content with enjoying the small things of his life after all these years?