Sine Qua Non

Without which nothing.

There are things in each of our lives, without which our lives have no value. To you, it could be as simple as the friends you have made over the decades, or as complex as the company you spent your whole life building. These are the things we identify with and define ourselves by; these are the things we measure our lives by and therefore the things that make life worth living.

We tend to grasp on to something, perhaps anything, that keep us alive. An old, friendless lady who finds some small sorrow-tinged joy as she watches the sun set from the porch of her nursing home, or a young teenager who slits her wrist to get attention, and, she hopes, concern: we search for things that matter to us, and like proverbial straws they are sometimes too insubstantial to lift us; but we still try.

My condicio has always been close friends and memories. These are the things that define me, because my close friends are the people I am walking through life with today, and the past is how I came to be here. I still have the full set of journals I ever wrote, from the time I was six, and almost all the photos, digital or otherwise that have ever mattered to me.

What is your condicio? Do you know why you are something? Dubito ergo cogito ergo sum, but existence is not value. If you value yourself, you will treasure, and maybe even fight to be, yourself. That is what makes us human beings; it is why we live in houses, wear clothes, have quarrels, worship, get married, and go to funerals. It is why some people can say that yes, life has meaning.

Condicio sine qua non: a condition, wihout which there is nothing. Do you have one?