Creating a Meaningful Be-ing

by Jill Cody

When our sense of control is lost outside ourselves we must turn inward, but to what? Creating a meaningful life also means creating a meaningful be-ing.

It was 2:17am many years ago, I was up feeding my son’s 3 week old kitten that he found trapped between two fences built close together. My son needed a break from the 24 hour feeding cycle of a kitten that age and he and his girlfriend went to Tahoe for the weekend. After “Maggie” was fed she needed to exercise a bit. I laid down on the floor to block her leaving the room and watched her. At that time of the morning it was peacefully quite and I was completely present with her being. My inner child filled with joy watching this small and very new life.

Maggie

I laid there and started to think about the concept of “Be-ing.” I hyphenate the word to make the point that I'm talking about the inner essence of a person … not to be confused with human being which gives a more individual sense of the definition. I'm referring to the dictionary's definition as the nature or essence of a person … be-ing.

Most of us seem to be searching for something to complete or fulfill ourselves. We develop addictions. We buy things and fill our lives with possessions. We keep ourselves constantly busy to fill up our time and to achieve some sense of accomplishment and yet most of us keep searching for meaning … to know that we matter.

I am reading a marvelous book at the moment written by Susan Orlean, a staff writer at The New Yorker. In her beautiful book, Rin Tin Tin (that took ten years of her life to write), she says:

"Could it be that we fill out our lives, experience all that we experience, and then simply leave this world and are forgotten? I can't bear thinking that existence is so insubstantial, a stone thrown in a pond that leaves no ripple. Maybe all that we do in life is just a race against the idea of disappearing" (Susan Orlean).

I believe that those who have created a meaningful be-ing and, thus, are creating a meaningful life can not help but make a mark on the world and the people they touch and then will have won the race against disappearing. 

“Imagine a society of individuals who walk tall with personal presence, a vibrant “Be-ing”, not a presence of arrogance, cynicism, or a phony facade but a presence of genuine essence and personality which brightens the world" (Jill Cody).