Earlier tonight, I saw the movie, Man on the Moon, about Andy Kaufman. It’s hard to form an opinion about this guy. He was obviously on to something. He knew his audience so well — to a point. He was able to make them hate him. He was able to make them love. Andy knew exactly how to manipulate people. Everything was unexpected.
But he was on to something beyond that. The way he viewed life and existence really captured me. Everything Andy did was incredibly clever. He enjoyed what he did, and towards the end of the life, he enjoyed making everyone around him incredibly happy. There’s something very honorable in that.
On another note, the full moon tonight was incredibly bright, in fact it’s the brightest it has been ion a hundred years, due to the close positioning of the moon and the Earth. After I drove home from the movie, I was able to just look at it lighting up the sky for a minute or so. It made me think about the purpose of people on this planet. I had been convinced that there really is no purpose to life, and that it was okay to not have a purpose. Now I’m thinking that there’s more to it than that.
I grew up Jewish. It wasn’t necessarily in my household, except for Hanukkah (though we still received Christmas gifts as well as Hanukkah gifts). I did go to Hebrew School all the way up to the high school level, and I enjoyed it. I had a wonderful Bar-Mitzvah where I led the entire service. But if you were to ask me about my beliefs at this point, I would say that I don’t believe in a God the way it is presented in the Judeo-Christian tradition. I don’t think I believe in the concept of “body and soul.” I do believe in well-being and the need to be at peace with one’s self. However, I also don’t believe in Zen as it has been presented to me.
I do believe in meditation and other methods to attempt to achieve a different (not necessarily higher) level of “consciousness” (whatever consciousness is). I think that sometimes the world needs to slow down to really gain an understanding of the processes of life. I do believe that each person needs to enjoy what they do, otherwise do something else that’s more enjoyable.
Now, I’m not out on a mission to try to convince people to share my beliefs. Quite the contrary, actually, I’d like to hear other people’s thoughts, where they are similar or different. If you’ve got any thoughts on life, don’t hesitate to email them to me.