Is Life Short?

If there were a top ten list of the most commonly-uttered aphorisms in modern English, I think “Life’s short” would likely make the cut. It’s so pervasive that it’s almost glossed over when spoken, serving only as a clarifying precursor to whatever statement comes next, i.e. “life’s short, just eat the cake.”

But… is life truly short? From what I can tell, it’s the longest thing any of us will ever do. Sure, it’s short compared to the grand ~13.7 billion years the universe has been extant, but that’s not a worthwhile comparison to make. Anything is small when set against its grand surroundings. Is a Bengal tiger small simply because the Indian subcontinent around it is far larger?

I think what we mean when we say this phrase isn’t that life is actually short, but that it is transient. We let the moments slip by. So why not make the distinction? Perhaps we don’t want to admit that we’re allowing life to pass us by, so we say instead that it’s short, because it’s easier. It shifts the responsibility away from us. No longer must we worry about trying to “live deep and suck out all the marrow of life,” because it’s simply too short, so we don’t have time. That’s just a theory, and yes, I realize not all of this is going through our minds when we say the phrase. In fact, we often use it for the opposite: voicing the phrase as justification for saying ‘yes’ to life in ways that count (eat the cake, take the trip, tell someone you love them), but that still doesn’t render the phrase true. I suppose that’s my real challenge here, to come up with a more accurate, well-rounded way to describe our dilemma of life. And, while I could toil here at the keys, continuing in vain to put it to words as best I can, a certain titular character already spoke it for us:

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” -Ferris Bueller

That’s it! That’s the diagnosis! The grand truth of life lies in a John Hughes coming-of-age comedy…

Life isn’t short. We just forget to look around.

-John