The problems with living for today.

That sounds like an essay title.

Bleh.

Anyway.


I've been repetitively listening to Imagine for a few days now, and while I agree with and hope for most of what Lennon says, the line "Imagine all the people living for today",  sounds to me a little..problematic. I mean, if I lived only for today, I wouldn't get anything done at all, and I'm quite sure the rest of the world agrees with me on that. If someone told me I'd die tomorrow (and if I believed everything I was told), I'd hop onto the first flight outta here and go absorb as much Europe as I could in a day. Or go visit my friends, live out my bucket list, something. I certainly wouldn't sit at my desk and work and contribute to the continued functioning of the world as we know it.
And if everyone thought that, everyone would want to go out and have fun, and no one would work, and there would be no one to man the flights, or drive the taxis, or sell fruit, or do anything and then there would be chaos and riots and mobs and the world would collapse and everything would end and the sun would swallow us up and we'd all die.

I could go on, but I think we can all see how Utter Chaos And Death would be a problem.


[Yes, this is what I get from one of the most hopeful songs in the world.
Then again, I'm the one who gets cheered up with Welcome to My Life when I'm depressed, which goes to say something to you.]



Though I guess if you took Lennon a little less literally, and a little more utopia-ic-ally, which I suppose is how he intended himself to be taken, everybody living for today wouldn't sound like such a bad idea after all. Maybe.

~Sam