An Essential Life 1 of 14

Preface

I must preface these writings by making clear from the outset that I am not presenting new information. At best, this attempt might introduce a different analysis to an already known text, the Holy Bible. These stories are the instructional tools that I use in my own decision making. I believe that these stories present universally applicable and timeless truths. The challenge is filtering these truths through the lens of our current time so that we understand how to apply them.

Ultimately, to determine what is ‘essential’ in life, the conclusions must be equally true for every generation. A return to the foundational stories of our culture provides the lens to clarify the ‘essential’ nature of life itself.

Introduction

Thanks to the novel Corona virus we have been presented with the unique opportunity to reassess our lives by a new paradigm, Are you essential? As a young adult we are charged with the responsibility of choosing a career, a life path, which will dictate how we spend the majority of our time. Each week we have 168 hours. A rough division of that time is, 50 hours given to sleep, 50 hours given to work, which leaves 68 hours to be divided among personal and familial responsibility, and life maintenance such as: eating, hygiene, etc. The division of “personal” time is easily bogged down by the varied responsibilities that life demands of us.

Presented with the global pandemic, the government took the approach of labeling careers as ‘essential’. If you were fortunate enough to fall into that category then your life proceeded as normal. But what about those who fell into the ‘non-essential’ category? If roughly 40% of our time in life is given to our career, how do you process the information that you have been deemed ‘non-essential’ to society?

A functioning society requires maintenance just as an individual conscience requires maintenance to avert callous and destructive behavior. One way of thinking about this on an individual level is, a healthy conscience allows a person to be both tender hearted and yet thick skinned. A healthy conscience must be perceptive, it must be aware of others and their reactions toward other people’s behavior. That type of conscience, in the process of judgement, will be considerate of others to their own benefit whether they acknowledge it or not. Being thick skinned infers that you are not apt to internalize direct or indirect affronts on your person. If a person is high in perception, it is quite often the case, that they are easily offended. The highly perceptive person is quick to notice inference and is most likely to understand the subtle forms of insult that human nature quite often produces.

The balancing act is to couple perceptibility with an armor that is pliable enough to not cloud our judgement but strong enough to deflect the darts that come our way. Within the frame where sectors of society have been labeled as ‘essential’ and ‘non-essential’, the individual conscience is forced into overdrive. Instead of operating on an individual level where it deals with people on a person by person interaction, it now must deal with an entire social construct that has aimed an arrow directly at its heart.

In order to process this experience an individual conscience must assess their life and decide whether to accept or reject the new social paradigm which has attacked its individual worth. To use the term which the social paradigm has appropriated, the question: What is an ‘essential’ life? presents itself. In order to address this question this analysis returns to the core principles that are gleaned from our most ancient, foundational stories in western civilization, the Holy Bible.

The Holy Bible is the source from which this analysis addresses this question. There are multiple topics that will be addressed, but each begins from the platform that every individual is ‘essential’ because they have a soul. The soul is what gives humanity value. Humans have value because each individual soul has value in the eyes of the Creator. The concept that society determines who or what is ‘essential’ is in direct opposition to Scripture. Society exists as a consequence of individual value. Social order is a product of individual maxims which became canonized as law. The social canon maintains control with the hope that all individuals will mature to the point that these maxims will emerge from their own soul. Society coming before the individual is the proverbial example of getting the cart before the horse. On a functional level, social forums are very beneficial, but if they supersede their role then they become destructive to the individual.

The following chapters present traits that exist in a mature soul, a fruitful soul, and in that context they are elements in an ‘essential’ life. The value of the individual as a soul before God could be reiterated in each chapter in order to give validity to the trait in question, but addressing that here, in the introduction, establishes the premise; and hopefully, the reader will keep that thought in their mind throughout each installment. Each individual has value because each individual has a soul. The maturing of the soul under the direction of the Spirit of Truth is what produces an ‘essential’ life.