The Meaning of Life?

Posted on February 10, 2022 by Graeme

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Not my words:

“Life is like carrying a message from the child you were to the old man that you will be. You have to make sure that that message isn’t lost along the way.”

When I was little, I used to imagine fine things, to dream of a world without beggars in which everyone was happy. Simple, subtle things. But you lose those things over the course of life. You just work to be able to buy things and you stop seeing the beggar and you stop caring.

Where’s the message of the child I once was?

Maybe the meaning of life is making sure that the message doesn’t disappear.

Category: UncategorizedTags: authenticity, culture, emotions, male, men, society, toxicmasculinity, vulnerability

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In 1991 I was called to the Ministry of Health. They wanted to brief me on a piece of work to do with the National Cervical Screening Campaign, about to be launched in New Zealand for the first time.

In a startling revelation, the woman with whom I was meeting for the first time, said “we know that more men die each year from prostate cancer than women die from cervical cancer. Yet, we chose to do this (the National Cervical Screening Campaign) because we know that men are less likely to make a fuss.”

Around 27 years later, here in New Zealand 50 women die each year from cervical cancer. Way too many.

600 men die of prostate cancer in New Zealand each year and we don’t make a fuss.

We are men. We have the scars to prove it.