blog :: IO Life → [String] | living with side effects

The bells again… someone has died
The bells of the end told to remind
That life’s but a race against time

This verse describes a funeral taking place. One should remember the shortness of life and never being able to reach all the goals in one’s life in time. You can certainly try and everybody does in fact, but in the end you are going to hear the bells after all: you die.

At your back youl’ll always hear
The chariot of time hurrying near
The faster you run the closer it comes
A pursuer you can not outrun

Now, the author clarifies that the harder you try to your life’s goals on a scale of months or years, the less you are going to succeed. Why? The more you attempt planning your future, the less control you actually have on your life. You may come close to your objectives, but this path you will be taking is stressful and unfulfilling.

Refrain 1:
Hear these words I say:
Make the most out of your day
For brief is the light on our way
On this momentary trail

The refrain now gives you the solution: Seize the day! Your way through life may be brief, but this momentary trail, this very day you are happening to live right now, is what’s keeping you alive. The small but nevertheless pleasing and comforting events that happen every single day are the ones one should seek and enjoy.

Refrain 2:
Hear these words, awake:
Make the most out of your day
For brief is the time, so brief is the time
That we’re allowed to stay

This variation of the refrain refers to the fact that we shouldn’t take everything for granted. Even though we should enjoy every day for ourselves, we shouldn’t forget the happiness of other people. We’re staying because they are allowing us to.

The bells again… whose turn this time?
To reach the end, yours or mine?
Each funeral just makes us realize
That life’s but a series of goodbyes

With this verse, the variation of the refrain is clarified. We’re not the only ones heading for death eventually. Who will be next? One can’t know, but we have to realize that there will be a next one. Make the most out of your day, and equally help your friends having a good time before it’s too late.

[Refrain 1]
Too late

[Refrain 1]
[Refrain 2]
Life passes by, melts away, like snow in the spring
We all are blind to the running of time

The melting of the snow in spring points out that dying in most cases is not a quick event. By growing old, our body is so slowly deteriorating that you can’t see that time is running out for you and you are restricted in what you are able to do. Enjoying yourself will become difficult. So have fun as long as you are still able to!

Consider yourself dying. Your whole life rushes by your eyes in a matter of milliseconds. Was your life worth living for? When would you consider your life fulfilled anyway? Having worked hard your whole life getting rich, a wife, some kids, a house in the country? Or is it the knwledge, that you lived every single day as though it was the last day of your life? Was it worth having strained yourself on a daily basis for an uncertain future fantasy that maybe never fully became reality? Or having succeeded in the short-term day to day goals by having had as much joy as you could?

Well, I choose the latter. Carpe diem!