You can’t live forever, but your example can.
'Et In Arcadia Ego' can roughly be interpreted as 'I also was an Arcadian'. This saying has been circulating since ancient times, and was often inscribed on tombstones. It references Arcadia, a land-locked rural part of Greece, which was considered to be the land of nymphs, natural beauty and simplicity. The intent of the inscription was to remind the reader that although the deceased person may have lived a wonderful and idyllic life, even he had to cope with the inevitability of loss.
Unfortunately, unlike the cultures of the past, we are not accustomed to having reminders of the concepts of loss, decline and death in our daily lives, and it can even be said that all of these words are a bit of a taboo. And perhaps inevitably, these seemingly distressing subjects are almost always brought up eventually by clients during therapy as something that they have trouble coming to terms with.
It seems to me however that the way we live today is perhaps an indication that we are in fact OBSESSED with the idea of loss, by constantly trying to turn a blind eye to it. We are all running around, filling up our calendars with events and things to do, absorbing as much trivial information as possible and making a huge fuss about everything that comes our way. It almost seems like we are actively trying to escape the possibility of sitting still, as if having nothing to do is a waste of time, and ultimately a waste of life. As a result, we have adopted a mania with youthfulness, while forgetting that there is beauty and a natural progression running through all the stages of life. And all along, by creating this idealistic structure that we call 'Life', we are giving more strength to the looming specter which we refuse to acknowledge in the opposite corner.
Being proud of how invested we are in this lifetime is great and commendable but being concurrently humble is, I believe, the way to being more conscious of the paths we choose in life. The first step is realizing that we are all mortal and that, like all the great people before us, we will also become old and lose our prowess regardless of how much energy we put into things.
It would therefore be easier for all of us if we lived in a simpler manner with less expectations. By focusing less on being a busy-body in life, we will create a different relationship with the idea of an end to our path on this earth. Perhaps instead of instilling us with panic and anxiety, the idea of an end may give us a sense of direction, a sense of a grander narrative in the span of history and even a context within which to live our lives now and give them meaning.
We can all touch greatness, but we can never hold on to it. The effort and spirit of the whole ordeal however, is what lives on. We can therefore, and at the very least, be part of what others consider to be a good example of a life lived beautifully and worth remembering fondly, long after it has run its course.
