Gifts begin by the giver; they are perpetuated by the recipient. Life is a gift; love is a gift; truth is a gift; the good is a gift; beauty is a gift. Gifts are a prompting to humility and gratitude because there is a giver that both has and shares what the recipient lack. One shows humility by declaring the previous privation. One shows gratitude by putting the gift to use.
I am born and thereby given the gift of my life. With all gifts, the recipient's appreciation is measured by how much she appropriates it. How does a person appropriate life? By living.
Is it possible for a person who is living to live more? Can life be increased beyond the basic amount supplied by normal bodily function? Often it is said during moments of intense sensation, "I feel so alive!" Does an increase of perception increase living? No, it only garners greater awareness of being alive. Life and consciousness are not the same thing, though the two are often found together. We want here to consider living specifically.
To be alive is a consequence of the body; to feel alive is a consequence of the mind; to live is a consequence of the will. In the existing individual, the three entities commingle and collaborate, but in thought each are distinguishable. To live is to act. Some actions are performed by the body, some by the mind, and some by the will. The act par excellence of the will is choosing. Does a person live more by choosing more?
If a man was placed before a palate, told to choose a color perpetually, and he chose only one color and adhered by his choice thereafter--did he choose less than a man who chose a different color constantly? No--they both always chose. The former man chose in integrate; the latter chose to dissipate.
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The greatest asset a person has is one's life. The greatest risk for a person is to squander one's life. Yet the conditions of life require one to toil and the circumstances of life require one to idle. A person is being drained through time.
Consider: We must sleep. We must eat. We must expend precious energy toiling and we must squander precious time in the tedium of life. We must relieve our bodies of what was once sustenance. How far from noble our lives can be! How it bucks our minds' aspirations!
"Yes, you may enjoy the scenic outlook--but sweat will seep through your pores and your body will ache."
"Yes, you may analyze the inputs of the world into pieces that will equip you for prediction--but you will yawn and your mind will wander."
"Yes, you may align yourself to the truth--but your nose will run and you will see ugliness."
"Yes, you may approach righteousness--but anger will rise up within you and your enthusiasm will wane."
We err when we disavow any truth, be they the truths of our limitations or our deep-seated yearnings. One wants greatness and is not great. What if a person was not complicit? What if a person persists in wanting? What if she accepted her finitude and yet railed against it? Here we find the appropriate response of a recipient: I know my life is tainted and draining, and still I fill myself up all the faster!
If one is depleted by the passing of time, how is one filled? By adding more time? No, that would only be more grist for the time-mill. Only by adding something timeless can one combat the loss of time. Time is a part of life, and so are the other gifts. Life is the bride between the mundane and the lofty. It begins in the circumsribed and ends--for those who believe--int the limitless. One moves along the bridge by opening the other gifts. Love is an act of opening. It requires exercise.
A person lives more by exercising her will more. In so doing, she takes greater responsibility for the aspects of her life within her control. Time and circumstance limit, but the will can replenish because it is in some ways unconditioned (i.e., to the extent that it is not predetermined). Every willful act is like an act of branding--the objects are defined by the owner. The brand remains definitive for the rest of the object's life. In a person's case, the object is her life, the brand is her character, and the owner is the whole person (i.e., the self). When we imagine ourselves ultimately judged, it is our lives and the marks we seared on them that will be admitted to the court. He who lives more--chooses more--is like the man who opts to represent himself. He refuses to leave his fate in the hands of a contemporary. He says, "It has been my life. Let me be the only one under consideration. Then the judge will know that it is I who throws himself at the mercy of the court, that I was not thrown!"
Does an increase in responsibility lead to greater guilt? Could not a man try to absolve himself by washing his hands of his life and say to the prosecution, "It was not my fault. If I did wrong, it was due to the instruction given by another person, other people even--authorities and officials!" Would this hold up in a court?
Every person, by her own free-will, is negligent. Every person, by the gift of her life from another, is innocent.
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