Jonathan Brun

On Life

A few years ago I stood in the small room that my wife’s grandfather was occupying in a retirement home. The room was no larger than 12 feet by 12 feet in a nice building with good services and friendly staff. He had a television, a small closet, a bathroom and a bottle of rum. He insisted we drink a bit, “A rum and coke?”, he proposed. Who was I to turn down an offer like this? He then poured a bit of coke into a glass and then followed with a lot of rum. Sitting in that room and drinking the stiff drink, I thought to myself two things – “So, this is how it ends” and “I would drink too in this situation.”

Life is terribly ephemeral – a moment we are here, living and breathing and the next we are on our way out. As has often been repeated, the only truly certain thing we have is death. It comes for us all and when it does, there is nothing else. You may choose to believe in some form of mystical afterlife or reincarnation depending on your religions inclination, but life as we know it on this planet with all of its foibles and challenges is over. For some, death comes early and swiftly and for others there may be a long wait after a wholesome life filled with emotions and love and all sorts of ups and downs. No one knows and no one can tell you what will happen.

At 42 years of age, I am hopefully somewhere towards the middle of my life. This is both a comforting thought and a scary thought. Thanks to much good fortune, I have thoroughly enjoyed my first 42 years on our little spaceship called Earth. Born in a great country to a good family and blessed with good health, my time so far has been pleasant and meaningful. As a father of three, with a wonderful wife and meaningful job, and living in a great city – I have no reason to complain about anything really. My main hope is that this trend of luck and health continue for another 40 or 50 years – fingers crossed. As I have progressed through life, I have accumulated experiences that remind me of how sacred the good life is. People I have personally known have died at a younger age than I am now, parents I know have lost children to accidents and disease, I have seem the misery of hopeless abject poverty in places such as Haiti, Ethiopia and the United States. Said another way – things could be worse (for me).

When William Shatner, the actor who played Captain Kirk in Star Trek, returned from an actual trip to the edge of space onboard a Blue Origin rocket, he explained his experience:

“I saw a cold, dark, black emptiness. It was unlike any blackness you can see or feel on Earth. It was deep, enveloping, all-encompassing. I turned back toward the light of home. I could see the curvature of Earth, the beige of the desert, the white of the clouds and the blue of the sky. It was life. Nurturing, sustaining, life. Mother Earth. Gaia. And I was leaving her.

Everything I had thought was wrong. Everything I had expected to see was wrong.

I had thought that going into space would be the ultimate catharsis of that connection I had been looking for between all living things—that being up there would be the next beautiful step to understanding the harmony of the universe. In the film “Contact,” when Jodie Foster’s character goes to space and looks out into the heavens, she lets out an astonished whisper, “They should’ve sent a poet.” I had a different experience, because I discovered that the beauty isn’t out there, it’s down here, with all of us. Leaving that behind made my connection to our tiny planet even more profound.

It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered. The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness.”

The abject emptiness of space should act as a strong reminder that life is precious. In many things in life we choose to define ourselves by what we are not – racist thoughts, sports team rivalries, thoughts about people we know and dislike, etc. While this way of thinking is not always desirable, it serves a useful purpose of creating structure in our perception of the world. If we care to define life as what it is not, space would be the contrasting thing. Outside of earth, to the best of our knowledge, there is no life. There is nothing but but an infinite and expanding universe that is likely unreachable by us and can only reflect back light that we can observe. There is no salvation, no saviour and nothing of note outside of our spaceship which we live on and which orbits our Sun.

The bleakness of space should help remind us of the joys of life. As my young children demonstrate to me every single day – life is worth celebrating. Their joy, energy, happiness and reactions to food, people, events, friends and more are what make life so amazing. You can do so much, take in all that you want and express yourself as you wish. As long as you are not breaking the laws of physics, you can do a lot. In a wonderful TED talk by brother David Steindl-Rast, he explains how to be happy: be grateful. He provides a useful reminder of the many things we enjoy every day and should marvel at. For many of us in the developed world we should marvel every day at some of the basic things we have and one of the most overlooked things we should all be grateful for: free potable water.

Water is the essence of life, without water there is likely no life or certainly no life as we know it. Every time we open our faucet to take water to drink, cook, clean or do so much else – we should be reminded of the beauty of life. The act of experiencing something and especially of experiencing life alongside others – people, family, friends, animals, plants, insects, and other forms of life – remains the most fulfilling thing we can do. We are all in this show together – whether we like it or not. The uniqueness of life and of our perception of it is what makes it so special. Every living thing is unique and is constantly changing, reacting, growing, suffering and renewing itself all the time. The past is largely set in stone, the present and future are great and infinite unknown sea we must travel. As Robin Williams explained in the film Good Will Hunting,

“So if I asked you about art, you’d probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life’s work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I’ll bet you can’t tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You’ve never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that. If I ask you about women, you’d probably give me a syllabus about your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can’t tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You’re a tough kid. And I’d ask you about war, you’d probably throw Shakespeare at me, right, “once more unto the breach dear friends.” But you’ve never been near one. You’ve never held your best friend’s head in your lap, watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help. I’d ask you about love, you’d probably quote me a sonnet. But you’ve never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn’t know what it’s like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer. And you wouldn’t know about sleeping sitting up in the hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes, that the terms “visiting hours” don’t apply to you. You don’t know about real loss, ’cause it only occurs when you’ve loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you’ve ever dared to love anybody that much. And look at you… I don’t see an intelligent, confident man… I see a cocky, scared shitless kid. But you’re a genius Will. No one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you. But you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine, and you ripped my fucking life apart. You’re an orphan right?

[Will nods]

Sean (Robin Williams): You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Personally… I don’t give a shit about all that, because you know what, I can’t learn anything from you, I can’t read in some fuckin’ book. Unless you want to talk about you, who you are. Then I’m fascinated. I’m in. But you don’t want to do that do you sport? You’re terrified of what you might say. Your move, chief.”

This dramatic quote may have some exaggeration to it, but the point remains – each person has a unique story to tell and their own view of the world. This is something that should be embraced and cherished. We are all going to die and we will take with us all of our experiences and memories to the tomb. While we do live, we should strive to fill our lives with as much positive meaning as possible, because afterwards it is all gone. After three generations, no one will remember you. No matter how rich you are, it always ends the same way. Even the wealthy Pharoah Tutankhamen could not leave us his thoughts and dreams – only his gold and perhaps some dead slaves in his tomb. Let me end with a one last thought from another film, Ferris Bueller’s day off, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Published on July 13, 2025