Synchronicity

I love it when things I'm reading, watching, thinking, and wondering about are in sync!  Yesterday I watched the final episode of The Good Place with Sisi.  Earlier in the day I had read an essay by Rebecca Solnit in Hope in the Dark called "Getting the Hell out of Paradise."  Who knew that a clever TV comedy and a philosophical essay about political activism would essentially say the same thing?

Now that I've reread that, of course, I realize the The Good Place is a clever TV comedy about moral philosophy.  So, duh!

Here is the quote from Ms Solnit that sums up the take home message:

"The industrialized world has tried to approximate paradise in its suburbs, with luxe, calme, volupte, cul-de-sacs, cable television and two-car garages, and it has produced a soft ennui that shades over into despair, a decay of the soul suggesting that paradise is already a gulag."

The final episode of The Good Place essentially demonstrated the same thing - heaven was joyless because it was perfect and went on FOREVER.  (And yes I do see the irony in her "cable television" reference, thank you.)  And the Good News is that they figure out how to fix that minor flaw.

It's the journey not the destination is a lesson I seem to need to learn over again.  It's the fact that life is finite and uncertain that makes it so dear.

So today take a few moments to pause and embrace the exquisite experience of life on Earth.  Or take the whole day to do just that!