Some of the most fitting words I read in relation to Nelson Mandela’s passing today were from the poem ‘If this life is all we have’ by Dennis Vincent Brutus. Eulogizing a stranger’s life, let alone a historical figure, is a difficult prospect at best, but there are some good parallels drawn by Mandela’s former prison-mate that pay perfect tribute. Brutus writes “we must fill each day with living and do…what seems to us worthwhile; all that is good, as we understand it. All that stirs us with a sense of joy…while we are living, since this may be the only life”. I think Mandela understood this. Maybe they discussed it late into the night to pass the time. How else did he persevere through all those years of prison? Mandela spent longer behind bars than most college kids have been alive. It takes a powerful sort of desire to keep your focus through that. Anyone can spend that long in prison-it’s not like you have a choice-but for him to continue pursuing his goals instead of merely waiting out his sentence, that is a true sense of purpose.

Would Mandela have found the point of his life without that period of enforced reflection? There’s an interesting French-Canadian idiom that fits this on a couple levels. “Fair le point sur sa vie” means to stop and take stock of your life (literally ‘make a point on my life’). The phrase’s ambiguity between description and directive is a fascinating study all on its own, but I use it merely to emphasize Mandela’s choice in life direction. Taking that time and using it to overcome his circumstance. Can you imagine how well-honed his ideas must have been after just a few months of captivity? Most people in his situation would have given up upon reaching the bottom, and nobody would have blamed them. A rare few, like Mandela, they use the bottom to kick off from towards the surface. Coming out of that time of waiting and directing all of your stored energy towards what you find worthwhile on this earth is a powerful force. That lust for life you show upon surfacing, it’s contagious. It will inspire people to rise to your level. Not everyone has the chance to immediately do what makes them feel alive, though, and most people don’t take the time to refine their life to this point. They look at someone like Mandela and marvel at his accomplishments, but ignore how he achieved them: by combining everything he found important into a harmonious purpose that drove him. Instead, they stumble through life, just blocking out the chords without pleasure.

Life is a giant chord made up of all the separate aspects of our daily existence. Played properly, this chord can resonate throughout a lifetime, reaching farther and with more definition than any single note. It’s not an easy thing to do. Most of us are terrible musicians, flailing away muddily or timidly pecking out disjointed notes. It takes a collected focus to cultivate a rhythm in the bass notes of your work, confidence to enunciate the melody of what you love. You need time to figure out why the song’s dragging, what makes you want to tune out. Once you remove the parts that clash distractingly or run together, there’s room for the important themes to come through. It’s not easy, life racing along in frenzied triplets, picking up speed, changing key just when you got comfortable. Sometimes there’s not much of the original song even left, but this may be the only life, as Brutus says. live it joyfully. Just think what you can do with all the extra time you have from not spending 27 years in an African prison.