ForEV-ER, forEV-ER, forEV-ER, forEV-ER, etc.

"I believe I can see the future 'cause I repeat the same routine.
I used to think I had a purpose, but then again, that might have been a dream."
-Nine Inch Nails, Every Day is Exactly the Same

Ivan Ilyich's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible. Poor Ivan lived like an empiricist to the extreme, abstaining from true extrememes in happiness, detestment, and the like, instead choosing simply to do what is comfortable, easy, and affordable. The world of Ivan Ilyich is like a bastardized version of the American Dream where everything is exactly the way he wants and feels safe in, and he has enough money and wealth to live securely and splurge as he sees fit. I say bastardized, though, because he eschews real excellence in himself and his relationships for just living comfortably. It's like you hear so many people say, "man, if I just had this or that, and could have this going on, man, I'd just be coastin'" or "if I just lived in the mountains/on an island life would be so simple and so cozy. Yeah, Ivan knows how they feel. He created his own life and lived his own way by his own rules, and by disconnected from life he could say he overcame it. Not really, for he never had one to begin with.

Death came to Ivan so quickly and so efficiently, he didn't know what to think. He had never tried to be anything better than normal and never tried to reach better heights, and when he did, it was decorating his own home or advancing in his position at work to please other people. It's like he was afraid to fall or be hurt, so he just numbed himself to everything and thought it was the good life. In this way he achieved his own personal heaven, where everyday was exactly the same. Essentially, he went to work, treated his wife and children nicely, and played cards with his friends because he knew he would win. He could say he was living well, but everything he did was without love. It's only natural that when death came knocking at his door he turned from apathy to hatred because he knew nothing else.

But back to the idea I mentioned of a bastardized heaven, I say that because we all kind of want the idea of Heaven in our lives. By heaven, of course, I mean endless peace, comfort, and joy. What a lot of people fail to remember, however, is that heaven is more than just a place of peace. It is the dwelling place of Holy God, whose power and majesty exceed the kingdom itself and makes that peace that we all so desperately cherish. Without Love, Heaven is just another pretty place. Likewise, Ivan did not have any love in his life or anything truly happy-he just had system and structure. He thought his life was a perfect heaven, but as he soon discovered, it was all just a hellish lie and his final moments were nothing but torment, reflecting the emptiness and meaninglessness of his self-sustained life. In conclusion and to sum things up, he created his dream, he lived his dream, but because he did not invest his love in something other than himself, he ultimately was just as meaningless as a dream.

So, now that I've cheered you up, please feel free to comment as you please. Thanks for reading! BTW, I commented on Sam Oliver's post Greed.

You're right about greed, it's a point that a lot of people miss out on. We all know that we can become as complacent as Ivan but we often forget about the greed of his coworkers. It all just comes down to selfishness and looking out for number one-there is no love in this poem. If there was, Ivan might've lived better and his friends might have actually cared about him, but no.