Do we survive to live or live to survive?

On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone will drop to zero. --C.P.

I thought this was an interesting way to re-phrase the cliche "we'll all die someday."

The weird thing about this concept is that the understanding of its real meaning is often lost in the words.  An important meaning, repeated often enough, becomes just a chant.  It has no more depth than the "hello how are you? I'm fine" exchange we all experience.

When I really dig in and be attentive to the real meaning, there is a change that occurs.  The issue really becomes about the way I'm living, right now.  And what does "living" mean anyway? I hear the whisper that I've been sleeping for so long and it's time to wake up, to pay attention deeply to all that is around me and inside me.  I spend too much time planning for some imagined future, instead of being enriched by what life is all about in any particular moment, whether pleasurable or not.

I wonder why--after having been reminded a billion times about "living in the now"--I and so many others quickly drift back into the business of the mind.  If thought were a usable form of energy, and all the thoughts about "living in the now" could be stored, we'd immediately solve our energy problem; we would have enough energy to power the world for centuries.  Why, with all the books, lectures, sermons, and conversations about this very important point, do we so easily forget it?

The understanding of this does have a different type of energy, a transformative energy.  If people really just planned for survival instead of all the rest of it (becoming somebody, having lots of wealth, controlling others), our whole world and society would change and we'd all be more sane as a result.  In living in the now, the sturdy divisions between "me" and "them" become cracked and tiresome.  The clouds, the plants, and humans all participate in life like a grand party.  Sharing is natural, not coerced.  Life is inescapably interesting.  It's when we leave the party, and tumble back into self-incarceration that life becomes dull and so starts the planning to "succeed" and stop sharing.  These sneaky tactics will never, ever, bring our survival rate above zero.