My son and I this morning - 9 August 2022 - watched the penultimate episode of a long-running saga called Better Call Saul - ‘Better Call Saul’ Season 6, Episode 12 Recap: Hit the Road - The New York Times (nytimes.com).
The reason I bring it up is that the first many minutes of the episode shows one of the main characters living a very mundane, everyday life - as described in the article linked above. This was shown in black and white and in contrast to the exciting and riotous life (in colour) that this person and the other protagonist (Saul) lived in earlier seasons and episodes.
(Of course, those other bits of the show chronicling the times of a small time hustler and drug dealers and so on are not really 'exciting' but they tell a story and a fable with exciting music and good acting.)
The life that is shown as boring - weekend lunch with friends, office work, a bit of humping - is of course the lot of most of our lives. And I found it hideously true to life and depressing. But there it is.
Yesterday morning I was chatting to a good friend of mine - someone I have known since we were at school together. She lost her parents years ago, she lost one of her brothers (in his 50s?) a couple of years ago and now another brother (early 60s who appeared to have recovered from jaw cancer) has been diagnosed with throat cancer. On top of work issues, she feels completely exhausted and beaten down.
And we were discussing that, as we get older, the little bits of calm where life seems stable are increasingly short false dawns - some tragedy is coming around the corner.
So, what is the point that I am trying to make?
I am 53 now but at one time I went through all the phases of being excited about work, build a career, make a meaningful contribution, be a good son, husband, father. What is the balance, therefore, between considering / knowing all of that to be completely and utterly mundane but also trying to find value and give oneself some purpose?
Where is the balance between being happy with 'good enough' and just being lazy? Is it wrong to float along but is it right to continually 'go for it' - in both cases affecting other people's lives in myriad ways.
And, in many ways, this goes to the heart of what I have been writing about since I started in 2011.
Yes, we lead mundane lives. But we are healthy, we are able to spend, we have lived in nice places, we have a lovely child, we have good friends, we have visited great places, eaten in fancy restaurants - and, yet, for much of our married life this has not been good enough.
I have not achieved the heights of Managing Director or CEO, we do not fly business class. This has been due to a lack of drive, ambition and talent but life has not treated us badly - and I am very grateful for so much.
Life is mundane and in the end we all die. That much we know. And all that can be said about living a good life and love and ambition and purpose has, I am sure, been said and done ....
I was going to write that we know modesty, the middle way, collaboration, community and all those wishy, washy things are the way to a contented and useful life. But, is that true? Perhaps, never being satisfied, driving forward, pushing, pushing, pushing is what moves ithe world forward and improves lives?
It is that eternal balance in the diversity of thought and action that drives 'the game' forward, I suppose.
And, it seems to me, as we lead our lives, that there is no need to find the 'right' way because there isn't one. We all have to find our way through - minimising damage to others and oneself as we go.
The final balance is between looking out for me - being selfish - and erring on the side of the duty to help others - if they coincide, fabulous.
I have no answers, perhaps it is pretentious and condescending to even have these thoughts, but the question of 'me' and 'us' will come.
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