And now I lay me down to sleep, and the book comes to a close. Against the deep down pillow, I realized something. Is Human life ever worthwhile? And Does (or can) human life have any meaning? Human life is part of a divinely ordained cosmic scheme and after death at least some human beings will be rewarded with eternal bliss. Not only much each individual human life some to an end but life in general will eventually die out. If we are asked to believe that all our starving is without final consequence, then life is meaningless and it scarcely matters how we live if we all end in the dust of death. To handle the fear of loss, we have to look at what purpose the external person or object serves in our life. What emotional need is being fulfilled? What emotions would arise were we to lose the object or the person? Loss can be anticipated, and we can handle the various fears associated with the sense of loss by disassembling the emotional complexes that they represent, and letting go of the individual component feelings. Associated with grief and mourning is the emotion of anger. The loss of that which is important frequently brings up a feeling of rage, which may be projected onto the World, society, individuals and, ultimately, God, who is held responsible for the nature of the Universe. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 5

I will stop time for you, the moment that you say you want me to. Even in grief and loss, I possessed someone special to me. He was presence within me forever. My loneliness would never again be as bitter. Anger results from prior refusal to accept the fact that all relationships and possession in this life are transitory, here today and gone tomorrow. Even the physical body, which is our biggest attachment, eventually has to be relinquished, as everyone is away. Nonetheless, each life and each action has vital significance. God’s grand design is life eternal for those who carry on the behavior, work, or tradition of Christ. Here is the one grand incentive to good living. As life is seen to have purpose and meaning, men and women find release from despair and the fear of death. Whatever meaning life acquires is derived from the encounter between God and human beings. The means thus conferred upon human life cannot be understood in terms of some finite purpose, supposedly more ultimate than the meeting itself. For would could be more ultimate than the Presence of God? It is true that God is not always near, but time of Divine nearness do not light up themselves alone. Their meaning extends over all of life. There is a dialectic between Divine nearness and Divine fareness as it points to an eschatological future in which it is overcome. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 5

Over the years he might drift away from me, he might come to condemn the point of passion that had brought him to my heart. He might be lost to me in some other mundane fashion that would wring tears from me all my nights. I never would really lose him. Because I would not lose the lesson of love I am learned from him. And this head had given me, as I had tried to give it to him. The Night was wide, and furnished scant with but a with a single star, that often as a cloud it met blew out itself for fear. The wind pursed the little bush, and drove away the leaves. November left; then clambered up and fretted in the eaves. No squirrel went abroad; a dog’s belated feet like intermittent plush were heard adown the empty street. Among believers not a few maintain that life can be worthwhile and have meaning in some humanly important sense even if the religious World view is rejected. Other, however, agree with the religious theorists that our two questions must be given negative answers if there is no God and if death means personal annihilation. Having rejected the claims of religion, they therefore conclude that life is not worthwhile and that it is devoid of meaning. Some people believe that the World is something which ought not to exist: the truth is that we have not to rejoice but rather to mourn at the existence of the World that its non-existence would be preferable to its existence; that something which ought not to be. And then my heart cries out, my heart will not be still, my heart will not give up, my heart will not give in—the blood that teaches life will not teach lies, and love becomes again my reprimand, my goad, my song. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 5

It is absurd to speak of life as a gift, as so many philosopher and thoughtless people have done. It is evident that everyone would have declined such a gift if he or she could have seen it and tested it beforehand. To those who assure us that life is only a lesion, we are entitled to reply: For this very reason I would I had been left in peace of all sufficient nothing, where I would have no need of lessons or of anything else. Happiness is unobtainable for the vast majority of mankind. Everything in life shows that Earthly happiness is destined to be frustrated or recognized as illusion. People either fail to achieve the ends they are striving for or else they do achieve them only to find them grossly disappointing. However, as soon as man discovers that a particular goal was not really worth pursuing, his eye is set on a new one and the same illusory quest begins all over again. Happiness always lies in the future or in the past, and the present may be compared to a small dark clouds which the wind drives over the sunny plain: before and being it all is bright, only it itself always casts a shadow. The present is therefore always insufficient; but the future is uncertain, and the past is irrevocable. Men in general, except for those sufficiently rational to become totally resigned, are constantly deluded—now by hope, now by what was hoped for. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 5

They are taken in by the enchantment of distance, which shows them paradises. These paradises, however, vanish like optical illusions when we have allowed ourselves to be mocked by them. The fearful envy excited in most men by the thought that somebody else is genuinely happy shows how unhappy they really are, whatever they pretend to others or to themselves. It is only because they feel themselves unhappy that men cannot endure the sight of one who they imagine happy. I want to be a saint, I want to save souls by the millions, I want to look like a angel, but I do not want to talk like a gangster, I do not want to do bad things even to bad guys, I want to be Saint Peter. However, you know me, and come sunset, maybe it will be time to hunt the back roads, and those little out-of-the-way beer joints, sure enough, smell that malt and sawdust, and yeah, right on, dance to Aaliyah on the jukebox, and maybe crush a couple of heavy-duty Evil Doers, guys who are just waiting for me. Who knows just how glorious the firmament with all its breaking clouds and lost little stars will appear as I rise above this Earth and spread out my arms as though there was no want in me for anything warm or good. Be gone from me, oh mortals who are pure of heart. Be gone from my thoughts, oh souls that dream great dreams. I am the magnet for the damned. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 5