:::the reservoir is empty::: this will have to suffice.
these are exerpts from a book my mom got me, called "the meaning of life: reflections in words and pictures on why we are here", made by Life Magazine. my favorites:


The meaning of life is listening to Pavarotti, feeling the sun on your face, drinking a bottle of wine, and then another. The meaning of life is having a safe and healthy society, a happy family life, good health, a loving wife, work that you like, smelling the smell of a new car and the ocean air, being able to hit a bull's-eye, coming home with the fish and not another fish story." Carmine Pucci, a butcher

If I had been asked why we are here four years ago, just when my daughter was born and I would stand over her little bassinet asleep and just weep uncontrollably because I was beyond happiness or sorrow or any other feeling I had ever known, I would have said that this small child - my child - and all others just like her, was the reason we are here. Just the other day, though, over her objections, I turned off the Sleeping Beauty video she was watching so that her father and I could watch the evening news. Half to herself, half to the empty space in front of her, not directly at us at all, and in a plaintive voice, she said, "Now I'm all alone with my boring parents." If anyone should absolutely, definitely, truthfully find out why we are here, please do not tell me. If I were to really, really know, I feel certain that I should then ask, "Please, may I now leave?" Jamaica Kincaid

While calamity jane in a slow burlesque plays catch in a bone yard way at the top of a two-legged mare it was a good night full of bad dreams with flat champagne and leaves in my hair, still shooting at birds with a violin bow first whisper your dreams in your children's ears making them safe as a hurricane dangling from a spider web and across the plate with a swing and a crack with just a skull for a ball and a leg-bone bat and all I remember are sparkle rocks, blue horses and flamingos as the train begins to slow and I always saw better when my eyes were closed." Tom Waits

I used to think that life was all about going to work, nine to five, busting your butt. I was a commodities broker before I was a sock salesman. I worked at Four World Trade Center on the New York Mercantile Exchange. I was a trader. And I lost a whole lot of money in one day. Around fifty thousand dollars. I went from being pretty well-off to being broke-- all in one day. After I lost it, I thought, "this is the end of the world." Soon after it was all gone, I realized money wasn't that important anymore.
Then I started selling socks on the street. It has made me a little bit tougher, not as trustful. I have a harder edge to me. Part of the meaning of life is learning that some people come to you with a smile and all of a sudden they're trying to stab you in the back when you turn around. When that happens to me I really don't feel so bad about it because I'm honest, I go to sleep with a clear head every night. I realize that these people who try to "get over" on me--who try to pull a number on me--do not. Life is not about going through the drudgery of work. Life is aobut trying to enhannce your existance: anything from climbing mountains to going up in a hot air balloon to falling in love. Life is more or less trying to surround yourself with good people." Wayne Silverman

The real question to ask is: Why am I here?
Each of us was placed here for a special purpose. I believe that it is each person's responsibility to determine what he or she can do to make the world a better place-- and then go out and do it.
We are here to:
Live together peacefully.
Be honest with ourselves and others.
Stand on principle, never yielding to expediency.
Take full responsibility for our actions.
Control our selfish and acquisitive instincts.
Protect and preserve our home-- the planet we live on.
Maintain and improve the most efficient unit of government the world has ever known-- the strong family unit.
Manage a world driven by rapid change for the benefit of future generations even though an inherent trait of human nature is to resist change.
Be resolute and unflinching in accomplishing the toughest tasks, where the odds of achieving success are against us.
Risk failure." Ross Perot

The reason we are here is to ask "Why are we here?" and have the question go unanswered." Marc Kravitz

The only real meaning in life can be found in a good man. And maybe Paris. Preferably the two together."

No why. Just here." John Cage