Advice

“Deal with it,” says Todd Rainey, coach of Amity High School’s varsity swim teams. These three simple words make up the best piece of advice that anyone has ever given me. Calves sore? Deal with it! The bathroom in the pool locker of the opponent school does not have toilet paper? Deal with it! Oh, you don’t want to swim the individual medley? Deal with it! For me, these three words have meaning beyond high school aquatics. Coach Rainey’s intimidating voice reminds me that whenever I face an obstacle, I need to stop complaining, find a solution, and work toward what I want to achieve.

I started to play guitar at the beginning of my high school freshman year. I decided to learn guitar because I needed a skill that I can impress people with. In middle school, the guitar players got all the attention. No one cared about clarinet players or flutists. I remember watching enviously as groups of students crowded around Rex, the guitar prodigy who seemed to know how to play every song on the radio. I wanted that kind of attention, so I decided it was time for me to pick up guitar. I started by learning some chords, then moved onto riffs, and eventually hammered out several songs.

The school’s annual Cabaret Coffeehouse concert was coming up, and there was no better time to show off my undiscovered guitar skills. I confidently walked into the chorus room after school on the day of auditions with brand new strings on my acoustic guitar. “What song will you be playing for us today?” asked Mr. Dylan, the music department chair. “Stairway to Heaven,” I replied. I sat down and started plucking the strings, beginning with the A minor chord and moving through the B major, the G major, the D and the F. After the intro, I began strumming the chords and started to sing, “There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold…” Before I knew it, the song was over and I was standing up to give a slight bow. “You have a wonderful voice,” Mr. Dylan said, “The set list will be posted in the band room tomorrow morning. Thank you for your performance.” Sure that I got into Coffeehouse, I smiled all the way home in the car.

As soon as I got off the bus the next morning, I rushed to the band room to look at the set list for Coffeehouse. This can’t be right, I thought. My name is not on here. Was I looking at the right list? It slowly dawned on me that I did not make the cut. Everything else vanished from my thoughts, leaving only the realization that I won’t be performing in Coffeehouse. I slowly slouch over to Mr. Dylan’s office. “What did I do wrong,” I asked, “Didn’t you like my voice? Was it the song selection?” Mr. Dylan patiently tells me that it was my guitar playing. Apparently, I couldn’t change chords fast enough. And each time I played a barre chord, I couldn’t press the strings down hard enough, so the notes rattled. “That would sound really bad through the speaker system,” says Mr. Dylan.

I went home and wanted to cry. More than anything else, I was mad. Mad at factors beyond my control. I should have made Coffeehouse. It was not fair. It wasn’t my fault that my fingers weren’t strong enough to hold down barre chords! I hadn’t been playing guitar for 23423 years like the other kids, so I hadn’t had the chance to develop those muscles in the fingers. And it wasn’t my fault that my guitar skills seemed dull in comparison with kids like Rex. My parents wouldn’t let me take guitar lessons, although I had begged on hands and knees for them to find me a teacher; they did not think music was important. I would have learned to change chords faster if I took lessons!

These thoughts repeatedly returned to my mind as I trudged through the rest of the week, snapping at everyone who tried to cheer me up. I alternated between feeling sorry for myself and being angry at the world. I did not touch my guitar at all that week, and I basically gave up the hope of impressing anyone with guitar.

One day, Coach Rainey’s words popped into my head. Deal with it. I began to think about my predicament. Whether it was my fault that my guitar performance was spotty, the situation remained the same. I did not get into Coffeehouse. Being upset about how unfair life is would not make anything better. Rainey’s words made me realize that I needed to throw away all excuses and face my problem. I stank at guitar, so what could I do to change that? I made a plan to improve my guitar skills. I did hand strength exercises with a stress ball so that I could hold down barre chords. I practiced daily to master my chord change.

I also took this opportunity to reflect upon my motivation for playing guitar. Why should I do something to please others? For the first time since I started playing the guitar, I played because I enjoyed making music, not because I wanted to show off. When Coffeehouse came around again next year and I still did not make it, I did not despair. I had no reason to be upset, since I auditioned for my own enjoyment. Furthermore, I did not make excuses for my inadequate performance. I just needed to deal with my failure and keep practicing until next year.

Coach Rainey’s advice taught me to be strong when I face an obstacle and to overcome it. This advice is so valuable because in life, I am going to face obstacles much greater than a sore calve or failing an audition. When these problems arrive, I must persevere and not be bogged down by excuses if I want to succeed. I have gotten much better at guitar since my first audition, and my hard work has certainly paid off. I am performing “Rockstar” with Rex at this year’s Cabaret Coffeehouse. By the time you read this, I will already have succeeded!

Disclaimer: Parts of this narrative are fictional, including the characters.

Utnapishtim Replies

People have been conflicted over the ephemeral quality of human life since the beginning of civilization. In The Epic of Gilgamesh, Utnapishtim frankly tells Gilgamesh (who is searching for the answer to eternal life) that “There is no permanence” (106). Indeed, human life is temporary. Death is a natural part of life. A person is born into the world. He or she then lives for a certain number of days before passing away. Although he or she may accomplish something so that his or her name is written in history (in glory or infamy), however he or she lives his or her life is insignificant when put in context of the vastness of eternity. Let us use an analogy. In the expression x + 1, the value of the 1 as x becomes infinitely large is insignificant. That 1 represents the life and actions of one person. This person’s actions may be significant during the brief span of his life (when x equals a relatively small number such as 2,3,18, or 97) but ultimately the person’s actions are not eternal. The same can be said about civilizations. Each of the major empires in history (the Babylonians, the Assyrians, and the Romans, to name a few) saw its rise, its temporary reign, and then its demise.

Our world best illustrates our notion of human impermanence through literature and media. People know that human life is temporary, and creators of culture embrace this concept. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, author of Le Petit Prince, does not hesitate to introduce the idea of impermanence to young readers. In Le Petit Prince, the little prince encounters a geographer and asks whether the geographer records the flower, “the most beautiful thing on [the] planet,” to which the geographer replies, no, “because they are ephemeral…in danger of speedy disappearance” (Chapter 15). The flower represents good things and life itself, and Exupéry communicates that life is only temporary, no matter how much we want it to be lasting.

Above all else, our knowledge of the ephemeral quality of life, of the fact that there looms on the horizon a day when life will end, emphasizes that life is short and fleeting. The song “Circle of Life” from The Lion King voices the idea that life is too short, that “There's more to see than can ever be seen/ More to do than can ever be done” (Rice). These lines express our regret that there is not enough time in our lives to experience everything we want. This truth was evident to the Babylonian writers. Even before Gilgamesh embarks on his search for eternal life, he knew that his “days are numbered,” (71) that he could not afford to waste his life away in idleness and must instead seek out adventure by pursuing Humbaba.

Since life is so short and so insignificant, why do we bother living our daily lives? There has to be a meaning to living. I think that Gilgamesh’s search for eternal life represents our search for the reason why. No, the answer is not 42. Some people are motivated by the need to make accomplishments. Many scholars live through their work or research, hoping to make discoveries that both benefit humanity and go down in the books of history. Such sentiment is similar to Gilgamesh’s when he decides to go on the Forest Journey, when he expresses desire to “[establish his] name stamped on bricks…in the place where the names of famous men are written” (70). Other people find the meaning of life (and consequently, the motivation to stay alive) in love.

Love (giving or receiving it) can make us feel like we matter and therefore eternal. In the musical “Rent,” the characters are afflicted with AIDS and likely have less than a year to live. In the song “Seasons of Love” from this musical, the lyrics, “measure your life in love,” convey the idea that, although the characters might only have “five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes” (Larson) left to live, the love between the friends makes them significant to each other.

In perhaps the most famous quotation from Gilgamesh, Siduri the woman of the vine advises Gilgamesh (and the readers) to “cherish the little child that holds your hand, and make your wife happy in your embrace” (102). Thus emerges a picture of how humans should approach life. The best way to feel like you matter, to feel like anything you do has any eternal significance, is to strive to love those around you. This answer may not satisfy everyone seeking the meaning of life, but it does provide a general direction for a fulfilled life in which what people do has any lasting effect on those around them.

Works Cited

The Epic of Gilgamesh (English). London: Penguin Books, 1972

Larson, Jonathan. “Seasons of Love”. Rent OCR. 1996.

Rice, Tim. “Circle of Life”. The Lion King Soundtrack. 1994.

Saint-Exupery, Antoine de. Le Petit Prince (English). : Reynal & Hitchcock , 1943.