There was a time when a flight to a place far away would thrill me. But that was long ago, and it is no longer the case. Perhaps because I now value more what I have at home than the vague danger of something far away. Perhaps because I have become jaded and little surprises me. Perhaps because there is nothing lonelier than looking out a window at nothingness. I flew recently for more than 30 hours, staring out a window, day and night, at nothingness. I discovered something I didn’t know before: that travel isolates you from the world more completely than perhaps anything but death. Your only companion is thought.
The solace of such a trip is that you are free to think about anything you want, without interruption. At a time when relations between nations are defined by relative infection rates, I thought about COVID-19, and about the doctors who speak about it. For physicians, saving lives is their mission, and I hold it a noble end. But life is a means toward more extraordinary ends, not an end in itself. In the midst of mortal danger, it is difficult to imagine ends other than surviving, but I have found that it is precisely at that moment that flashes of what might be surge through your mind. Survival is the means, and that is the task of physicians. Living is best addressed by poets and artists. When staying alive is all there is, life is lost.
Over time, the definition of what it means to be human has subtly changed. Rembrandt painted a magnificent painting about an anatomy lesson. The guest of honor is a criminal who had been executed earlier that day. Who he is doesn’t matter; he is simply a corpse whose face is shrouded, and from whom these learned men can learn about the human body. An arm has already been stripped of skin and meat, and the participants are mesmerized. There is something noble in understanding the human body as the center of all life. But the question that arises is whether the human body is all life is. Organs, enzymes and liquids allow us to live, but we must ask, especially in the time of COVID-19, having succeeded in living, now what? I think that this painting redefines life in a radical way that stays with us. Life is about the organs found in an autopsy and about delaying death, which can’t be avoided completely. This is at the heart of the human experience. At 30,000 feet, that is a gloomy thought.
I also recalled a sculpture I love by Michelangelo, called Bacchus, about the life of drink but also about the life of pleasure and sensuality. The sculpture shows a well-built man who could be a soldier, drinking and clearly getting drunk. Behind him stands the god Bacchus, urging him on and taking pleasure at his surrender to joy.
These two works of art depict different ways to escape life. One way is through death. The other is through Bacchus. They are very different escapes, and depending on how death happened, they compete well. But life is painful and there is ultimately no victory, only the small successes that make us human.
There is a Latin saying, attributed to the Greek philosopher Epictetus: Dum vivimus, vivamus. It means: While we live, let us live. I always like to say it with a snarl. Death is coming and all the doctors and their horses will not save us from our fate, so let us live. I look at Bacchus and say, “Yes, that is the challenge hurled at death.” Then I ask, “Is that what Epictetus really meant when he spoke of life?” Sure, it is better than thinking of life as a good cardiogram. And certainly it reminds all of great and terrible things we did – the things that make up life. But a human being staggering into oblivion could not be what was imagined.
There is a third work of art, also by Michelangelo, called David. It is a sculpture of a man as he should be: erect, muscled, alert. He is carrying a rock. That’s important and appropriate. David is the name of the Battle King, who defeated Goliath with a sling and stone, then waged a relentless campaign for decades to take control of Israel from a king unworthy of his position.
David was an unbending and courageous warrior. His life was a means to an end, and in risking his life prudently, he always measured life and death without being the slave of either. There are those who court death – the crazy brave, as they were called – and those who flee from it. He did neither. But he was more than simply a warrior. He loved life, from women to luxury. As much as Bacchus, he drank, and as much as Rembrandt’s anatomy, he clearly is shown here as cherishing his.
When we say “Dum vivimus, vivamus,” we are not thinking of a man in the hands of Bacchus, nor of a room full of physicians (certainly not physicians for whom staying alive is an end in itself). We are thinking of someone like David, who waged war, loved when it was time to love, and risked his life when it was time for that.
“Dum vivimus, vivamus” means that we are all going to die, and that the most important thing is not how long we live but how well we fill life with the joys that it offers us. Without life, we can’t do that, but if we obsess over staying alive, we won’t do that. David risked all to kill Goliath, and having done that, I am sure he had a good time until the next time duty called.
And this is the point I am driving at. Among the joys of life is doing your duty and, in doing your duty, living or dying, having lived as a human being should. And if you live, then live well, with all the pleasures you have earned. What your duty is is a matter for you, but that you should risk something is the true meaning of “Dum vivimus, vivamus.” You can’t live without risk, and the only meaningful risk comes from duty.
Rembrandt must have known the banality of life his painting displayed. He knew there was more, even if his heirs have forgotten it. Michelangelo knew that Bacchus was not life. I know that because he also created the perfect image of the Battle King.
And such are the thoughts that 30 hours staring out a window at the abyss gave me.