Meaning Of Life

We are into the floor routine. Core work staring with a two minute front active plank. We rotate to each arm for side planks and finish with a back set of leg lifts, knee pull ups, bicycles, flutters, scissors, repeated lifts and end with flow into boat. All told we are into our morning routine about 8 minutes and ready for second phase, the compound dumbbell set. But before we do…

…I check in with my training partner who also happens to be my 15 year-old nephew. It is ritual that I ask him what has caught his attention between our every-other-day sessions. Mostly this encompass'  his classes in our highly acclaimed high school, but not always. Anyone paying attention knows that 15 year-old boys have way more going on than simply the scholastic. But Junior is a scholar, a smart kid and a good student. I jokingly admitted one day that he has, even before entering high school, earned  more A’s than I did in my entire (and on-going) formal education. 

But today I feel like exploring. So we talk a little more about the French Revolution, America’s part in it, the will of the people and the power of the proletariat. I casually mention that it is interesting that he is, they are, studying an uprising of French peasants while, a class earlier he was, they were, learning the language commoners used to communicate the need, necessity and meaning of their bold decision to rebel. Tres interessant, no?

One topic has led to another and I am connecting the dots that separate the French storming of the Bastille with a few of the current events that we watch today on the evening news. Are there similarities? I ask. Perhaps in the area of freedom of the press? 

Alternating 30lb biceps curls with breaths and short responses, we get to a place that asks for one or the other. Food for thought, grist for the mill, I say, but let’s focus on this. This is too important to allow any distraction. The meaning of 'that' is 'this' I say, demonstrating a perfect (or as close as I can get to it) overhead press. 

The gears are turning, data is processing, concepts are forming and steam starts to rise from our working muscles and activated endorphins. We flow into the routine hoisting the bells as if they were biscuits. I see that he is here, fully present in this activity, using his body, breathing smoothly while executing the demanding protocol. And I have it…

…The meaning of life. Is this. THIS is it. I blurt it out with equal parts - half eureka and half epiphany. He looks at me with one eye closed, head tilted slightly to express doubt. This? Yes. 

The meaning of life is awareness, a self-realization that whatever you, we, are doing that that activity is the most important thing in the cosmos. The meaning is this. If something else was most important, if any other activity provided this essential meaning, we would be doing that instead of this…therefore THIS is the literal meaning of life. It is screaming at us: DO THIS. 

I continue trying to find a closing aria worthy of this operatic endeavor, and after several beats and several lateral flys, I sing, it is then our responsibility to do whatever satisfies the conditions of this cosmic certainty, to give our best efforts, pay our highest respects and pledge our most devout sacrifice to this noble cause as we are able. 

Like the French did, he says. 

Oui. comme les français.