I must have asked a dozen times in my lifetime, others "What's the
real meaning of life; what is happiness," and I didn't really want a
strict religious answer, nor a strict, secular answer, just one from the
heart, if you know what I mean, no philosophical jargon, or
Shakespearean Sonnets to explain the simplicity I was looking for.
To
be quite honest and frank, I never got a good answer. Matter of fact,
what I got was folks thinking I was quizzing them, or presenting them
with a trick question, surely a hard question because no one could
really answer it to my liking. When in essence, it was straight forward,
as straight and forward as anyone could get, or make it. For the most
part the question was avoided with smirks, and smiles, and pats on the
back, and then back to whatever the conversation was prior to my little
jaunt, as it was accepted as.
But this all came to focus one day when I was in Athens, Greece. It was a Saturday, a cool day, in 1995.
I
walked down to an old park area, lots of high foliage, weeds and grass,
and open spaces, and high burly and bushy trees, also in the distance,
was an old ruin's, a kind of Parthenon style of ruin's, dating to about
400 B.C., high pillars and all, Corinthian style, it was constructed for
the legendary Theseus, so I was told, which Mary Renault in her two
books so heroically, with attention to detail, describes: "The King Must
Die," and "The Bull from the Sea."
As I looked about, realizing
it was about lunch time, I saw several small groups, they looked like
little packs of individuals, some Jews, some Greeks, some Turks-I
suppose if we sorted out religions here, we had a sort of triangle, the
Hebrews, Muslims, and Christians. Not that it mattered it was just so. A
few made the sign of the cross, a few put their hands and palms up
towards the heavens, a few were counting beads, then they pulled out
bread and sausage and some cheeses from their baskets, and passed a
bottle of wine around. A few had bottles of beer, and one person was
playing something like the mandolin, while a few toddlers tried to
dance.
They were all sitting around in circles, for the most part.
Far-off,
there were a group of women, in a circle, with a woman in the middle of
the circle, and everyone holding their skirts high and low, so you
could not see what was going on, and no one needed to know beyond that.
There
were old men, young women, kids, just a good assortment of the
cross-cultural populist: eating, drinking, dancing, breathing in the
cool and fresh air-a few steps away from the busy carbon dioxide streets
of Athens, talking to one another, sharing conversations, thanking God
for this day.
I said to myself: how can I not know what happiness is, or for that matter, the purpose of life, it's right in front of you.
Here was the thing my heart was looking for, that I felt the world should have more of.
Funny
as I write this out, I was raised in an extended family,
Russian-American, and every weekend, on Sundays, that's exactly what my
family would do, all the relatives got together, ate at our home (my
Grandfather and mother raised me) and the family drank some vodka, and
ate sausage and bread, and cheeses, and talked until late afternoon, and
us kids played, wherever. And sometimes I could hear the old 78-records
playing. Hick, I didn't need to search for what happiness was, or the
purpose of life, I had it in my pocket all the time, and I just forgot
it was there.
Need I say more!
