THOUGHT OF THE DAY

Credit for handwriting and intellectual property to the very talent Mrs. B

THE LAUNCH OF: FIVE.HUNDRED.WORDS.

"Mate… Life's a garden. You just gotta dig it!" With that, he plonked down his empty beer glass and I never saw him again.

It was 2006 and we were surrounded by the endless blue water that could be any one of the 26 main atolls that consists the Maldives archipelago. I was sitting on a resort sundeck crowded with drunken pro-surfers, other surf-industry folk and a small contingent of "exotic dancers" rumored to have come straight from Eastern Europe – a myth their distinct lack of English did little to dispel. I kicked my feet up and leaned back, taking a sip of my beer while ruminating these fine words from one of the drunkest men I'd ever met. The man in question is not important, but as he deposited his empty beer and excused himself to get another – his words have lingered with me ever since…

You see, life is a deep mystery to us all. In the animal world for instance, there is no search for meaning. There are no psychologists. No self-help books. No support groups. No drugs. No religion. No philosophy. No hate. There is life, there is survival, and there is death. The circle of life is a continuous and inextricable weaving between the species that sees survival or extinction – black or white. By contrast, the human world is a distinct shade of grey.

Do you ever ask yourself why you're here? Western philosophy will tell you life is about the self, private ownership, marriage, a career and the Great American Dream, or some localised adaptation of it. Eastern philosophy proclaims self-sacrifice, collectivism, and happiness achieved through altruism. So what are we meant to make of this – all anybody really wants in life is "happiness", right? Amid the pressures and distractions of modern life, where is happiness to be found?

Renowned psychiatrist Victor Frankl's premise is that "man's search for meaning" is the primary motivation of his life. He speaks of the "will to meaning" as opposed to Freud's' "will to pleasure" and Nietzsche's "will to power". According to Frankl, if we have meaning, we can survive anything. A Holocaust survivor himself, Frankl developed a means of finding meaning in even the most mundane and abhorrent activities. He grew a spiritual appreciation that even the SS could not destroy, and once summed it up by saying, "Despair is suffering without meaning." If Frankl could find meaning in his life within the horrific confines of a concentration camp in the absence of money, power, sex, drugs and fame, then shouldn't we be able to do the same?

The working hours have always been somewhat of a grey area for me… I'll often sit in my tree, chewing on my branch and looking on as the other monkeys in my cage bang on keyboards, slam down phones, swing through corridors and make chimp sounds at the other monkeys. I chew my branch; scratch my arse and wonder if the safe, sturdy cages we inhabit really are better than dying a spectacular death in the jungle?

Decision. It's what separates us from the animals – the conscious reasoning of an issue and the decision to take a particular course of action. In our lives, we must make a decision toward defining a purpose for ourselves and taking meaning from it to start on the road to happiness – either that or pick up a shovel and just start digging…

By JP

What is this f*cking thing?
Five. Hundred. Words. is a collaborative effort from young artists Joshua Phillips (words) and Georgina Koren (images). It's a brief search for meaning through topics relevant to a generation striving to keep on thinking, keep on changing and keep on smiling. Josh is an Australian pop-culture writer who's written for the likes of Tracks, FHM, Frankie and YEN. Georgina is an Australian photographer and photographic producer who works for photographer, Annie Leibovitz, in New York City. We're gonna send one of these round every now and then - so feel free to pass it on or delete it. Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Just e-mail us. No complaints - criticism makes us drink. Enjoy.

E-mail: 5hundredwords@gmail.com