What does it mean to be alive? To think, to feel, to love, and to envy? Do you think having our human consciousness is the premise of sustaining our happiness? Or does this human consciousness  trouble you sometimes?

I didn’t initiate these questions. The 2015 Giller Prize winner Andre Alexis did with his Fifteen Dogs. The story says two Greek Gods give a pack of fifteen dogs “human intelligence” to see whether “human intelligence” is a gift that makes creatures happy or “an occasionally useful plague”. So suddenly these dogs start to struggle with their new perspective on life and on themselves. Alexis is challenging the reader to examine our own existence and recall the age old question, “what’s the meaning of life”?

“What’s the meaning of life?” I would be too ambitious to discuss such a big philosophical question here. What I am trying to do here is just to share some reflections surrounding the topic. Some of my views may reflect some Stoicism and Buddhism theories.

So why are we sometimes perplexed or even suffered by our awareness and emotions? I believe one of the main reasons is we human beings are clinging to too many desires. Somehow our emotions aren’t pure emotions – they are often attached to some sort of desires. When we love someone, we want this person to give back the same kind of love, do we? When we work hard, we want recognition, agreed? When we earn more, we want to spend more. We want our house bigger, our cars better, our phones thinner, but with more functions. Steve Jobs is not only an innovator, but also a brilliant marketer. He knows our desires very well, therefore, he can design and sell his products so well.

Please don’t get me wrong. Some of these desires are really driving up our economy, which I am not against with. Our desires are true and normal human feelings. What I really want to say is we must keep our desires modest, knowing when enough is enough. “Self-sufficiency is the greatest of all wealth.” When our happiness is not dependent on something else, we are free.

You may ask, can we really be free? Many things happen inevitably or unpredictably, like aging, death, natural disasters, war, and crime. No normal human being wants any of these things, but they come and disturb us regardless. Yes, you are right, but do you realize wanting to remove all the unfortunate events is also a desire? More importantly,  we have to distinguish what is and isn’t under our control. We can’t change the things that aren’t under our control, but we can change the way we feel about these things. The stoics said, “For death or pain is not formidable, but the fear of pain or death.” They are saying, we can’t escape from death, but we can escape from the dread of it.  The point is “life is a human drama.” Human beings are actors, each given a role. We don’t get to choose our role. Who assigns the role? The director, the producer, the investor, or whoever that is. Not us. But what we can do is to play our role well.

Again, please don’t get me wrong. I am not saying we should develop an indifferent or pessimistic attitude towards life due to all the uncontrollable factors. On the contrary, I am saying we should always keep our courage, calm, and persevere in face of adversities. We should also look at the human drama as an evolving process. You may not be the main role at this time, but if you play your current role outstandingly, you may become the main role the next time, although our hard work is not always proportionate with our success.

Oh, what happened to the Fifteen Dogs? Without giving out spoilers, I can tell you some dogs flourish with their new skills, but others consciously turn away from their humanness. My question is, if you were one of these dogs, which group would you want to be in?