"If I am through learning, I am through." - John Wooden
There is more than one type of death. There is the kind never debated where hearts cease and breath no longer flows from our airways.
Then there is the slow kind. The type of demise that is gradual and more subtle. We continue to physically inhabit time and space but with a dormant soul.
There are many people who look to be living but in actuality divorced themselves from life long ago. They are no longer immersed in living but enduring it.
I recently spoke with a family friend at a holiday dinner who told me he saw no point in getting up in the morning. He'd retired recently and no longer felt any sense of purpose.
His remark made me think of the observation German writer Wolfgang Von Goethe once made:
"If you wish to draw pleasure out of life,
You must attach value to the world."
Too often we lose that value when what we allowed to define our very being diminishes, evolves, or disappears all together. With careful and deliberate introspection we discover it wasn't who we were to begin with but rather something we did. The human experience is far to complex and nuanced to be defined by one or any thing.
One can't be casual when engaging with the world. It requires a commitment to serve, to grow, and to pursue not just learning but wisdom. The first helps at cocktail parties while the latter makes us better at life.
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