Quality vs. Quantity

In his diary, Soe Hok Gie once wrote

"Seorang filsuf Yunani pernah menulis... nasib terbaik adalah tidak dilahirkan, yang kedua dilahirkan tapi mati muda, dan yang tersial adalah umur tua. Rasa-rasanya memang begitu. Bahagialah mereka yang mati muda."

which translate to

"A Greek philosopher once said... The best fate is that of the unborns, the second one is that of those who die young, and the distant third is that of those who die in the old age. I feel that this is right: Happy are those who die young."

But how do you feel?

"Long monotone life or short exciting one?" has been attached to my nickname for several days now and I've gotten calls from my friends letting me know their preferences. As you probably expected, 100% preferred the short exciting one. Well actually, several said they wanted long AND exciting life. Hahaha, don't we all?

If I have to choose between the two, I honestly can't pick between the two. Borrowing the term from one of my friends, is quantity more important? Or is it quality? I'd like to say I want exciting life cause my life's pretty boring now. But having it short doesn't sound that great either. What if it is too short? As a human being, people always wants more. More money, more time!

Say you know you can only live for another 3 months. Wouldn't you wish you can live longer? The quality of life you're having, in terms of excitement, wouldn't matter so much anymore. Even if it's just a usual everyday life, you'll take it. Because when you know it's going to be taken away from you very soon, the little unimportant things that you've taken for granted before becomes important then. So in this situation, quantity becomes more important.

So it seems most people agrees with Gie. But I think it's a tough balancing act...

As a side note, I didn't specify the word monotone. So it doesn't mean that it's an unhappy monotone life. This has something to do with presumptions and expectations, right? Well, that's a different topic. It just popped into my mind so I thought I'd write it down.