On page 120 of Nicholson Baker's The Mezzanine he mentions a quotation that Howie is reading out of a work by Marcus Aurelius:
"Observe, in short, how transient and trivial is all mortal life; yesterday a drop of semen, tomorrow a handful of spice and ashes"
If you ask me, Howie is not at all subtle in relaying his opinions of this passage. He practically has a mental temper-tantrum in outrage. Of what I have read, he appreciates every minute of his life. Never did we hear about a complaint of an egregious task or a complaint of daily life. He notices things that spark his interest like the beauty of baggage belts in airports and describes things in a way that will spark everyone else's interest (such as describing the amount of force needed to push a button on a cigarette vending machine as being akin to the force necessary in a Foosball game). Everything is fascinating and worth the time to notice it, analyze it, metaphorize it (new word!) Take your time! Enjoy your time! What are you talking about, Aurelius?! Trivial??! Howie's whole persona seems to contradict what Aurelius says here. How can life be trivial, he seems to be saying, when so much is happening around you and to you or even just in your mind every day?
These seem to be the extremes in terms of the views of the value that our lives hold. It seems to me that most people fall somewhere in between: we aren't so amazed by quite everything that Howie is but at the same time don't seem to think, "Oh, well, it doesn't matter what I do today, I'll be dead in a few decades tops anyway. Who cares?" I don't anyway. I think more people should slow down, and I'd like to take a leaf out of Howie's book and try and appreciate the beauty that even the most everyday objects can hold.
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