Sometimes spending all day in the car can be an exercise of discovery and reawakening yet on a different day it can be no more than road noise and angry truckers. The word ‘dreadful’ is probably too harsh for the situation, ‘bleak’ might make a better fit. Three days out of four on the road with a funeral and binge eating in the middle, it wore me out. Waking up on the fifth day has me wrestling with inertia, moving my feet but going nowhere.
News of a death in the family came the same morning I was on schedule to leave on an Arizona adventure. Now I have a full day, maybe two days to do laundry and repack, reload the truck and camper. By the time I cross into New Mexico I hope the ‘bleak’ aspect of last week will have given way to the adventure again. But when you lose someone you have been on a first name basis with for the past half century, a ‘Ho-Hum’ and a ‘Yawn’ are not sufficient to reboot ‘normal’.
Four hundred years ago John Donne’s poem, “No Man Is An Island” would become universally acclaimed. He made the case for how interdependent human beings are on each other and how one’s fate is linked to everybody else. His words are ubiquitous, celebrated everywhere even if his name is not, “And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” I get it, I really do. We are super-social animals and the passing of one certainly diminishes the whole. At my age I don’t need reminding. The last three funerals or memorial services I’ve attended were for friends who were younger than me. By now I know that numbers don’t say much about quality of life or life span itself. What counts is good fortune, good health and wise practice. Still, each time the bell tolls it foreshadows my own destiny and the fact that I know not when or where, it is what it is and that’s good. I recently observed a shred of good advice; life is short, eat dessert first.
I always thought old people who fixated on their ills and the passing of their generation mates were wasting precious time. I hope I never feel so spent that there is no reason to move my feet or to begin something someone else may have to finish. But then I have no illusions about an afterlife. Those who truly believe this life will be followed by an even better one; I envy them. If that were so, driving 100 mph in the dark with my lights out should expedite the good life. If you win the lottery there is a public record with name, date and the amount (for taxes of course). But with the odds against winning at over a million to one, why would I buy a Lotto ticket as an investment? If there was no public record and no compelling, tangible evidence, they wouldn’t need to pay off any winners, just float an illusion based on a hearsay promise. What a believer believes doesn’t have to be true, it just has to make them feel good. So I live without a promise, for the here and now. That’s what I thought about in the car yesterday on the long drive home. I got from (A) to (B) but otherwise it was mostly a lot of squinting into the sun.
On rereading this piece, I feel obligated to include this disclaimer: I really do envy Big ‘B’ Believers. My unbelief has no malice. ‘Faith’ and ‘Believing’ are neither more nor less than blank pages in my Life Story. It would resinate with me the same as someone else’s expired credit card. Religion on the other hand is a human construct, just as contemptible as its leaders, the Lords of their own ambition who gravitate to self righteous politics when it serves their appetite. In my case, ’Envy’ doesn’t mean you want what they have for yourself, only that you can appreciate its appeal.
News of a death in the family came the same morning I was on schedule to leave on an Arizona adventure. Now I have a full day, maybe two days to do laundry and repack, reload the truck and camper. By the time I cross into New Mexico I hope the ‘bleak’ aspect of last week will have given way to the adventure again. But when you lose someone you have been on a first name basis with for the past half century, a ‘Ho-Hum’ and a ‘Yawn’ are not sufficient to reboot ‘normal’.
Four hundred years ago John Donne’s poem, “No Man Is An Island” would become universally acclaimed. He made the case for how interdependent human beings are on each other and how one’s fate is linked to everybody else. His words are ubiquitous, celebrated everywhere even if his name is not, “And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” I get it, I really do. We are super-social animals and the passing of one certainly diminishes the whole. At my age I don’t need reminding. The last three funerals or memorial services I’ve attended were for friends who were younger than me. By now I know that numbers don’t say much about quality of life or life span itself. What counts is good fortune, good health and wise practice. Still, each time the bell tolls it foreshadows my own destiny and the fact that I know not when or where, it is what it is and that’s good. I recently observed a shred of good advice; life is short, eat dessert first.
I always thought old people who fixated on their ills and the passing of their generation mates were wasting precious time. I hope I never feel so spent that there is no reason to move my feet or to begin something someone else may have to finish. But then I have no illusions about an afterlife. Those who truly believe this life will be followed by an even better one; I envy them. If that were so, driving 100 mph in the dark with my lights out should expedite the good life. If you win the lottery there is a public record with name, date and the amount (for taxes of course). But with the odds against winning at over a million to one, why would I buy a Lotto ticket as an investment? If there was no public record and no compelling, tangible evidence, they wouldn’t need to pay off any winners, just float an illusion based on a hearsay promise. What a believer believes doesn’t have to be true, it just has to make them feel good. So I live without a promise, for the here and now. That’s what I thought about in the car yesterday on the long drive home. I got from (A) to (B) but otherwise it was mostly a lot of squinting into the sun.
On rereading this piece, I feel obligated to include this disclaimer: I really do envy Big ‘B’ Believers. My unbelief has no malice. ‘Faith’ and ‘Believing’ are neither more nor less than blank pages in my Life Story. It would resinate with me the same as someone else’s expired credit card. Religion on the other hand is a human construct, just as contemptible as its leaders, the Lords of their own ambition who gravitate to self righteous politics when it serves their appetite. In my case, ’Envy’ doesn’t mean you want what they have for yourself, only that you can appreciate its appeal.
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