{"id":8108,"date":"2013-12-05T11:24:50","date_gmt":"2013-12-05T19:24:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/?p=8108"},"modified":"2013-12-05T11:57:28","modified_gmt":"2013-12-05T19:57:28","slug":"reasons-for-being","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/2013\/12\/05\/reasons-for-being\/","title":{"rendered":"Reasons for Being"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"It's-About-Life-Front-Cover-115\"<\/a><\/h6>\n
Click here to order. Note free shipping and discount for multiple copies.<\/span><\/a><\/h6>\n

I met a man who, as far as I could tell, had reached the height of his success. He was recently retired, with plenty of money in the bank. He built a house, a very fine one, on a promontory with a view to die for. He took his family on expansive trips. He kept up small interests, but apparently lost track of larger ones. As a secret to all but those closest to him, he took to drinking. In time (and not very much time) it killed him.<\/p>\n

He wasn’t the first of my friends to die of liver failure.<\/p>\n

The other was my friend Hugh from college days. Hugh was my older, intellectual mentor. Our long late-night talks were filled with wide-ranging topics, and always spiced with gin and tonic. I was underage and he had money. He bought the gin, I bought the tonic. We mixed the drinks 90\/10 (to save on the tonic).<\/p>\n

As I’ve mentioned before, I eventually discovered new light and moved on. Hugh never did. Years later, I heard how he died in a hospital back East. They’d offered him one more dire measure but he turned it down. He said he’d not been able to come up with a reason for living yet and couldn’t think of one now.<\/p>\n

Seems his liver failure had to do first with a failure in living.<\/p>\n

In both of the cases above, money was not a problem; there was plenty of it. Or maybe that was the problem.<\/p>\n

Not that money is the reason we live. But the arrival at any of our goals can have a downside. Without reasons, we can find ourselves quite without purpose, direction or energy.<\/p>\n

With or without hitting the bottle, it begins to kill the liver in us.<\/p>\n

Speaking of reasons, I just came across a book on my shelf, Reason for Being, A Meditation on Ecclesiastes<\/em><\/strong>, by the French intellectual, Jacques Ellul. I read it years ago, twice. It’s all about the deeper things.<\/p>\n

Which reminds me to remind you about my book,\u00a0It’s About Life.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0Mine is a lighter touch on Ecclesiastes than Ellul’s but addresses topics that meet us every day. (And includes drawings from life’s sketchbook.)<\/p>\n

There are lots of reasons for being. Don’t let yourself be without.<\/p>\n

It’ll kill the liver.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(Sorry, this didn’t start out to be an informercial. But I know you would enjoy the book, as well as your friends. You can order them here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

____________<\/p>\n

PS. My recent talk on “It’s About Life” is HERE<\/a>.
\n<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There lots of reasons for being. The pursuit is good. The arrival can be precarious. Be careful how you succeed, and what you do then. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8108"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8108"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8141,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8108\/revisions\/8141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}