What is a Human being, but a tourist, walking gently on the Earth?
By: Colton Tanner Casados-Medve
Tags: Humanity, Self, Mindfulness, Life, Inspiration

The more I think about my life, the greater the sensation of being a tourist grows. Whereas I used to be racked by endless anxiety regarding what I was supposed to do with my time here, I’m now finding peace, one day at a time.

The question of death and what to make of it is something that is often on my mind. We know our time here is limited, and it is that very fact of life that causes so much stress.

What are we supposed to do with ourselves?

What should we strive to accomplish?

Will we ever get a chance to truly love and to be loved?

Questions such as these are hard for a mind gripped by the death anxiety to grapple with. But I have found a measure of relief in the words of teachers such as the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, and other proponents of mindfulness and similarly related practices.

The British philosopher Alan Watts words it another way:

The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everyone rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves. — Alan Watts

I have found that the daily practice of writing has helped me to slow down my thoughts and re-focus my energies on what is really important.

It’s because of that slowing down process that I’ve come to feel more and more like an outsider to the rest of society. I look in at the great majority of people involved in the frantic day-to-day hustle and bustle of modern living and think to myself, “My God, where did it all go wrong?”

The words of the Dalai Lama provided above illustrate the point. It is because of our modern striving that we forget the essential ingredients of the human experience: kindness, compassion, and empathy.

When you really think about it, we aren’t here for that long. Ninety or one hundred years may seem like a lengthy duration, but Father Time is a crafty fellow. Whenever we arrive at a point in the future, we always experience the past as something that simply disappeared, almost as if it was never there.

We live as if we will have many more years to come, when the unfortunate reality of life is that it can end at any moment. We are never guaranteed more time here than what we’ve already been given, and so what we do with that time is what really matters.

Society — particularly one in the grip of greed — pushes us to be increasingly self-centered as we move through life. We are inculcated with an image of the “American Dream” that envisions us the Lord of our own little Surbuban Fiefdom.

In this way, we become increasingly closed off to the needs of others. We are only ever taught to think about ourselves, and I see this as a large part of the reason why all our institutions, all our societal structures, seem to be moving the resources upward, rather than acknowledging the grassroots ground from which it all grows.

What is even sadder is that should we achieve what we are taught is worthy of the fruits of our labor — status, wealth, sexual prowess, and success of all those particular varieties — we find, at the end of it all, a still-lingering emptiness born from our failure to flower into our true humanity, something that can only be accomplished by giving a damn.

I do feel like a visitor here.

Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter! — Yoda to Luke Skywalker in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

Call it the Spirit, Consciousness, the Soul, or just a Random Collection of Interacting Organic Molecules, this process called “My Life” is experienced as a deep sense of being along for the ride, and that, if there is any goal at all, it is to assist others in feeling like their ride is worth it, too.

That’s hard to do if we remain in the grip of fear — only ever thinking that our life won’t be worth it unless we achieve what only appears to be worthy of achievement.

If we could be fast-forwarded to our death-bed, what would we think in those final moments? Would we be concerned about the digital readouts regarding our bank accounts? How many assets are in our name? What the stock market will look like next quarter?

I find that dubious, to say the least. For me, this is no small gamble.

The fact of death is frightening. I don’t know what to make of it, but I do know that I would rather slip across that threshold knowing that I was of some use to other Earth-travelers during my time here. That I did my best to uplift others, rather than put them down.

Maybe all we take with us when we die is a summation of the experiences we contributed to during our visit on Earth? That, if there is a balance-sheet at the end of all this, it’s not one concerned with fiscal profits but with how we made people feel?

When the time comes for me to say goodbye, and that time will come, I want to be able to greet the darkness knowing I did my best to be a light to those who will have to make the very same journey, eventually.

I don’t feel it as essential that I accrue a bunch of wealth just for the heck of it, that my name is respected, admired, or feared. That all seems so trivial to me now. What I do find essential is the fact that it’s our shared presence, our shared time, that really counts.

How we walk, whom we walk with, and how we wish to make each other feel along this journey is where the true meaning of life is to be found.

After all, what is a human being, but a tourist, walking gently on the Earth?