How Do You Measure a Life?

I recently saw Carrie Mae Weems’ Contested Sites of Memory at Lincoln Center—a moment that reflected on the past, sat with the present, and dreamed of a future. The evening brought together live music, spoken word performance, and screenings of new and existing video art, weaving them into something that felt like collective reckoning.

There was a moment in the event where we were forced to sit with the current moment we inhabit—the violence rippling across the country, the meaning of home being eroded for so many, lives being destroyed in real time. It led me to the question that Weems herself posed: What is the meaning of life? How do we measure it, especially when it feels so precarious, so constantly under threat?

Weems doesn’t answer this question with certainty. Instead she asks more questions—each one peeling back another layer of what it means to be alive, to endure, to matter

How Do You Measure a Life?

By Carrie Mae Weems

In this mystery of all mysteries, In the alpha and in the omega
On a day coming in a world without end,

I humbly ask:
By what means
By what measure
Do you measure a life?

Do you measure it
inch by inch,
foot by foot,
yard by yard,
or step by step?

Do you measure it by the moments lost,
or by the moments gained?
Do you measure it by yesterday, today, or tomorrow?

Or by the miles walked,
the mountains climbed and the valleys explored?

Or do you measure it by the dreams imagined,
or by the hopes dashed?

Do you measure it by the wisdom of wise
words spoken,
or by the sorrow suffered in silence?

Do we measure it by the wealth accumulated or by
the amount spent,
by success or by failure,
by the monuments built or by the walls scaled,
by victories and defeats, large or small?

Do we measure it by the forgotten or over
the remembered?
By all of the near misses, by the exhaustion
or do we measure it by the will,
the determination to endure?

Or do we measure it by race, by class, by gender,
by beauty,
by your lover’s love or your hater’s hate?

Do we measure it by pushing against the wind,
against the tide,
against family and against tradition?
Or do we measure it by the suffering of our friends
and enemies alike?

Do we measure it by the beginning, or by the end?
Do we measure it by the way we confront life
or by the way we confront death?
Or by the number of friends and family that are
gathered during a lifetime?

Or do we measure it by the remaining few
who go as far as they can with you,
shedding copious tears when they lay your
body down?

How do we measure this life?
Do we measure it by the road travelled–
the journey taken?
Or by the effort, the will, the drive to endure?

Do we measure it by the kindness displayed in the
act of living,
or do we measure it by the grace offered
or the grace received?