(final version) What is Life?

42.  Ah, if only the answer to the perennial question were that simple.  Recently I've found myself doing a lot of reflection in the days leading up to and following my graduation, and I'd like to take a moment to share the conclusion I've come to about this question.

I'd like to begin with a quote by John Lassetter, one of Pixar's founding members.  The Pixar team was trying to coming up with a story to pitch to Disney, and Lasseter finally hit on an idea that would make their film come together.  Toy Story became wildly successful, and Lassetter explains that his brother had taught him the crucial lesson to ground the fantastic in the everyday.

"To me," he said, "the key is understanding that a man-made object is made for a reason.  And therefore, if it were alive, it would want to serve that purpose more than anything in the world.  A glass is meant to hold liquid, so it's happiest when it's full.  The more you drink from it, the sadder it gets.  When you get to the bottom and it's empty, its biggest hope is to be washed and filled again.  The saddest thing in the world is a paper cup.  What kind of life is that?  It gets this moment of ecstasy - 'I'm filled!' - and then it's drunk from and wadded up and thrown away.  Life's done."

(To Infinity and Beyond! The story of Pixar Animation Studios, page 84)

We have no idea what it'd actually be like to be a paper cup and want to be filled with water; being a paper cup is alien to us.  Yet we connect with that paper cup which wants to fulfill its purpose, as well as the rest of Lassetter's animated lamps and toys which he imbues with life.  There's something about that need to fulfill purpose which resonates with us, something about that deep inner longing which makes the personal narrative of a paper cup so familiar to us.

In the same vein of thought as Lassetter from Pixar, Aristotle said that everything has a nature or essence that determines its function, and that function is what gives it its meaning.  To be a good hammer, you gotta hammer well.  To be a good cup, you gotta be able to hold water.  What is the nature of man?  What are we, what is life?

To be straightforward, I've become fully convinced of the Christian answer to this question: we are created for relationship with God.  Leaving the answer at that would be cheating you the reader, I think, because if the answer I've given is true it has many implications.

Every created thing shares a special relationship with its creator.  A carpenter can take a piece of wood and make a chair, and give that object the shape and form of a chair with its corresponding function and purpose.  Or he can take the same piece of wood, and make a storage chest.  The created object really has no say, and there is a simple fact of the matter that the object has its essence defined by the creator.

Man imperiously rebelled against God, our creator, and we seek to define our own nature, our own function, our own essence.  That's not a sentiment found only in Genesis, but within our own hearts.  We feel it ourselves, that black desire to scorn the words of others so that we can live life the way that we want to.  I feel it in myself when I listen to the words of the poet Henley when he defiantly declares "I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul."

As a result of this rebellion, we have become dysfunctional.  We have all the marks of good creatures gone astray.  Adam Smith in his book "The Wealth of Nations" famously stated that man is driven by rational self-interest, pointing out that it is beyond obvious that the baker bakes your bread not because he cares for you, but because he wants the money you will provide for that bread so that he can buy something for himself.  It's less well-known that before "The Wealth of Nations," he became renown for writing "The Theory of Moral Sentiments," in which he argued that society is held together by compassion, citing as evidence the pain we feel in ourselves when we witness the pain in another, the human capacity for sympathy and care.

We recognize in ourselves this capacity for compassion and good, but we can also see that nearly all of our day-to-day decisions are not driven by a desire to be good, but rather, self-interest.  We have all the signs of creatures created to be good that have gone astray to pursue our own desires.

I want you to imagine with me for a second.  Imagine you are having an argument with a good friend of yours, and you are thoroughly convinced that she is wrong.  If only she'd stop and consider the reasons you're presenting, she'd see that you're right.  You argue with full vigor and passion, but as the argument progresses, it slowly dawns on you she may be right.  No, not only that; she IS right.  It's too late though, you've said too much, you'd be a fool to admit it now.

The conversation ends at an impasse - what now?  No, I don't care, I'm not going to admit that I'm wrong.  You know what, I'm not obligated to admit that I'm wrong.  I'd rather die.

There's a black pleasure of holding onto pride, of holding onto autonomy.  There is also the torment and twisting of the soul that occurs, we are struggling with all our might to protect our image and dignity but we loathe ourselves for it.  I'd like to suggest that that is what hell may be like.  In our refusal to admit that we are wrong, we have separated ourselves from our creator, and hell is God allowing us to have our way.

The question is most often phrased, "who can save us from our sins," but I would like to phrase it "who can save us from ourselves?"  There is one answer:  Jesus Christ.  He took all the guilt and shame of our sins and bore upon himself all the consequences.  We rightly deserve hell, but Jesus suffered hell for us so that we could experience freedom.  Accepting Jesus Christ means freedom.  We were slaves to our sins and desires, but we can now be free to live and love.  Following Jesus Christ means being free to experience the pleasures of being fully human, fully as God intended for us to be.

I'd like to end with probably the most famous of all Bible verses, John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."  The invitation is open, and everyone makes a choice about this invitation, whether it is to reject it, ignore it, or accept it.  I sincerely implore you, consider it.