Matters of Life... Life Thought About Life Laughed At Life Suffered

Matters of Life..., the first volume of Matters of Life and Death, presents life-thought-about, life-laughed-at, and life-suffered.

The first chapter, "Life Thought About", considers the human from our roots in organic biology. The essays then proceed from the biological organic to the psychological idiosyncratic to the morally valuative.

The most pressing of all human needs is for a meaning of Life. "Investing life with meaning and value is the ultimate creative act." The ultimate goal of human life is the attainment of fulfillment.

"Life Laughed At", the second chapter, presents a series of human life-situations in biographical sequence. First comes birth (or, rather, pre-birth). Then the charms of childhood, painful adolescence, the self and other people, love, sex, and marriage, making a living, experiencing middle age, and some satires of old men, old women, and old couples. If a book is bread, "Life Laughed At" is the leavening of this loaf.

"Life Suffered", the final chapter, combines essays and narratives to treat the tragic of human life. Suffering and infirmity are of the essence of sensate life, as the Buddha recognized.

It has been a long itinerary through life-thought-about, life laughed-at, and life-suffered. In the ultimate valuation of Life-Itself and in the readers' evaluation of their own lives, the author hopes that there may be some sense of fulfilled. That is the farewell blessing.