“Viva not est vivere, sed valere.” Life is not to live, but to live well. If one wastes their time trying to live longer, is it worth it? Surely in that aspect living would not be as fun. Think of all they are missing. Life is not just to live. Life is to live well.
We have all heard the story of the poor grasshopper who does no work during the summer and ends up suffering in the winter. But look at it this way. What if the two bugs died in some freak lawn mowing accident? The bug who worked all summer did nothing with his life but try to survive. The other one, however, may have mastered a skill, written poetry, had a family. He truly lived. He would have been happy with his life. But that’s not how the story goes. The grasshopper has no food come winter and probably ends up starving. Still, the grasshopper lived well while he could. The grasshopper, according to the passage, loved life. The other bug, greedy, loved living.
One may ask, “But, is there not a point to ‘living well,’ as you say?” Quite frankly, there is a point. If you live well doing things you love, for instance writing or music, dangerous stunts, etc., you are leaving an important legacy, which, in retrospect, is all man really desires from life-- to be remembered. Everybody wants to be remembered. The mere fact that one day we will vanish from this Earth terrifies us. Being forgotten is the worst fate of all. So, in this, we subconsciously make a decision. Do we try to exist as long as we can or do we try to develop a legacy to pass on? Then there are the select elite who truly realize our fate. These try to make the most of their short time on Earth. They live life with no regrets, pretending that tomorrow does not exist, celebrating their true and deep understanding of the word “live,” while the life conservers glare and snarl at their fun and their “living” with pure jealously and hatred, wishing that they would just leave their mundane, ordinary, trivial lives behind for ones of intensity and excitement just like those very elite. But the life conservers are too cowardly and greedy to risk everything they have. They hoard their lives from the very natural things-- predators, disease, man’s very own technology. The elite go with the flow. If death approaches and its ominous shadow befalls them, they accept their fate, happily knowing they’ve made the most of everything they could.
“Life” is a noun. “Live” is a verb. “Exist” is a verb. Most dictionaries and thesauruses would list the two (“live” and “exist”) as synonyms. However, this is now not true. Living is making the most of and thoroughly enjoying life. Existing is the mere state of being alive. While one cannot live without existing, one can exist without living. And that, truly, is no way to exist.
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