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If you are looking for a happy book to cheer you up on a bad day, make sure you skip Ecclesiastes. The book could be summed up by the word “meaningless” which it repeats 35 times through out its twelve chapters. It’s dark, gloomy and pretty depressing. Kinda like a teenager… or Eeyore.
Your life is suckier than you think
Tradition has it that Ecclesiastes was written by an old man (some say King Solomon) who was looking back on the great achievements of his life. His conclusion is that all his great deeds and actions were worthless. He’ll die and be forgotten. The good he’s done will be undone by someone else. You’re born, live a meaningless life, then you die. In his great wisdom, he makes the awesome decision to write down his depressing thoughts so they can be shared with everyone else. Pretty thoughtful, huh? Kinda like that person who eats something and is like “Oooo, this is gross! Try it!”
Past the Depression
Generally, I recommend bringing all your own personal prejudices into your Bible reading. Why bother trying to understand what someone else meant 2000 years ago when it’s so easy to make my own judgements? Am I right or am I right? Well, I decided to break that rule this time and try to figure out where the author may have been coming from and whether he really was as depressed as I thought he was. In taking a step back out of my own judgements, I realized there’s something kinda cool about this dude’s thought process.
The dude who wrote Ecclesiastes was Jewish. Jewish people believed that our 60-70 years on earth was merely a tiny slice of our entire existence. That kinda reframes the whole book for me. Now I see this dude basically saying “Don’t sweat this world. Whether you’re rich or poor, smart or dumb, awesome or unawesome, this whole “life on earth” thing is a tiny piece of our existence. If you step back and think about eternity, it actually makes this time on earth seem pretty insignificant and meaningless. Be good, do your best and live life to the fullest, but just know that this is just a drop of water in the ocean of our existence.”
Much less depressing.
Back to the Depression
For this week’s design, I wanted to capture the initial darkness the book had to me. For those who, unlike the author of Ecclesiastes, believe that this life on earth is really all there is, this book is a big bucket full of depression.
Next week, it’s time to get sassy with Song of Solomon.
Tags: Bible, depressing, Ecclesiastes
Posted on Friday, June 18.
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Jim, you’ve finally articulated everything thought I’ve ever had about your design…meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless. Nice work!
King Solmon: “You could have it all, my empire of dirt…”
Thanks, dude! I was actually thinking of that song (the Cash version) as I was working on the design. I Job you not.
i’ve actually always liked ecclesiastes in a weird way. for a person who’s always struggled with depression, this book can kind of feel validating. love the design. i’ll bet there’s a lot of goth types out there who would pay good money for it.
Really good image, Jim. It made me LOL. But also, a more cheery way to look at a traditionally depressing book. I’m excited to see what you come up with for Song of Solomon!!!
Terri – Thanks for the perspective. Yeah, one unique thing about the book to me is that based on your worldview, some people could respond “Oh crap! Everything is meaningless?!” While others could respond “What a relief! Everything is meaningless!”
Marie – Thanks!
Marie posts your work on her FB page all the time, but I’ll be honest that this is the first one I looked at, because Ecclesiastes is my favorite book of the Bible. I take the perspective as well that he is writing more so about the temporal nature of life, not just simply trying to make everyone depressed. And I also appreciate the serious perspective with which he approaches our relationship to God, that we should approach Him with reverence and be careful what we ask for. Or at least that’s what I’m remembering from that book; it’s been a while.
Thanks for stopping by, Krissy! Marie is like my unofficial Facebook promoter :)
Yeah, Ecclesiastes seems like a book that can easily mean different things to different people and I think that is one of the things I like most about it.
Jim…found you from the guys over at 8-Bit. Really digging it bro. This was one of my favorites. A few of the guys were asking if these would ever be available in a poster print. I could see a few of these hanging in my office. Great stuff.
Thanks, Adam! Yeah, 8-Bit was very kind to post some of my work. Really respect the work they do.
Yup, poster prints will be available in the future. Keep and eye on the blog for updates on that.
I’ve only just been put onto your site and I love the graphics! I’ve been preaching through the book of Ecclesiastes this year and have grown to love the book more and more as I read it, digest it, and come to understand the purpose of the book.
I wrote a very short blog on it for my teenagers at youth group here: http://www.petersham.anglican.asn.au/salt/?p=406
But here’s an even shorter version of my thoughts on Ecclesiastes: I think Ecclesiastes is a fictional biography written most likely by one person but using 2 personas: the Narrator (1:1-11 & 12:8-14) and the Teacher/Preacher (1:12 – 12:7) and it’s about not leaning too heavily on the wisdom teachings that we observe from our limited human viewpoint (under the sun), like the Teacher does. I think the Teacher IS a depressive pessimistic bloke and he is our example of what happens when we lean too heavily on wisdom viewed from under the sun. The motto becomes: “life is shit and then you die”.
But Ecclesiastes is not a pessimistic book on the whole because the concluding remarks of the Narrator put it all into perspective “Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of every human being.”
This is where wisdom in the bible always has to end up because like Job we cannot always see the what’s going on behind the scenes, and so we have to trust that God sees the big picture and has it all sorted out for our good. “Fear the Lord” in the Bible always means “trust the Lord”.
There’s my 2 cents and a bit more.
Keep up the cool pics!
Mike: Thanks for the encouragement and insight!
Hey, am I able to buy this imprinted on a shirt?
Thanks.