In Pink Floyd's movie, "The Wall," the protagonist, a rock star named Pink, though he enjoys the trappings of his commercial success, is nonetheless constantly plagued by the sense that something is missing.  As the movie winds on, Pink veers in and out of joy and angst, inevitably despairing that he will ever find what he is looking for.  In a world of conformity, a world in which education serves merely to subjugate the people, a world in which an invisible and nameless authority defines what is meaningful, Pink finds himself struggling to make sense of who he is.  The movie repeatedly depicts him, an immensely popular musician, moving forward, only to be halted by a massive, impenetrable wall.  There seems to be no escape from the caldron of his existential aporia.
     I wonder.  Why did the Buddha decide to leave the walls of his father's palace?  Why did Robert Peary leave the walls of his American home to be the first person to stand on the North Pole?  Why did Joan of Arc step out from the walls of her French peasant house to lead the French to victory over England?
     And why does a wall of death separate us from eternity?