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Who are you? Who am I? | Week 52

December | Meaning of Life | Week 52 | 12/31/2023
What is the meaning of life? Part 5   

Recently I discovered Shakespeare's Sonnet 29, which tells of a common male experience: the experience of self loathing, of resentment, disappointment, and envy, catalyzed by an avarice for all that life has to offer. The Sonnet showcases the agony of that all too common situation but details with beautiful literacy, the single, shining antidote - Love. For me, love, truth and wisdom are beacons of light in a dark cosmic background. They form a strong base for meaning in my life, and I feel fortunate to have become satiated in their pursuit. 

When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, 
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, 
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, 
With what I most enjoy contented least; 
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, 
Happily I think on thee, and then my state, 
(Like to the lark at break of day arising from sullen earth)
Sings hymns at heaven's gate; 
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,
That then I scorn to change my state with kings. 

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