Dickens

December 2. 2020

I don’t know what I expect out of life but it seems we humans are incapable of the level of communication that I once thought possible. When you admit that, it leaves us all on our own deserted islands to fend for ourselves. This is a desolate condition. I read about the travails of the young Charles Dickens and how his experiences influenced his writing and I marvel at the pain that humans carry through lifetimes. My own childhood was ordinary. Families were very stable; we were very middle class. My dad had a college degree (accounting) and my mother had attended business school.

Education was important and I assumed I would attend college. However, I remember the first time I talked to someone who intended to go to grad school…..it was some guy in animal sciences who told me that he was going to get his masters after completing his B.S. Looking back, I don’t know why this should have been such a revelation since my plan at the time was to apply for veterinary school!

Anyway, my childhood was as good as any but when I look back on it now, I wish I had been more motivated….it all seems such a waste. The hours/days I spent watching TV or doing nothing can never be recovered. Could it have been different? Who knows; you can ask that about every decision in your life. In the end, you die and none of it matters at all – so there’s that. I just see no point in being here at all. What am I doing? Scribbling in this book, eating , sleeping , reading, playing guitar…. and if I help others what will they do to give meaning to their lives and therefore mine? Nothing anyone can do changes our final destiny which is oblivion.

Survival

December 3. 2020 10:14am

We just walked two miles after cleaning the house.

I live, it seems, two separate lives – one described in these pages and made up of the internal dialog which I think has taken greater precedence as I have aged. And the other is the one we all fulfill to satisfy the requirements of daily survival.

Dreams

December 6, 2020 11:37am

In my office there are recessed lights. After reading a few more page of “The Brothers Karamozov”, and reflecting on the chaos of the human condition, I sit with my hands clasped, looking out at the December landscape and brooding about life, the injustice and insanity of it all. I notice then, the shadows of my hands on the carpet. The motion of my intertwined fingers cast multiple shadows from the six lights and while a couple of the shadows were distinct, some of the lights were farther away and at such an angle that the dark outlines were really not discernible but I knew they were there…..just difficult to make out.

I had been folding my fingers together reflexively and then straightening them into a prayerful position when I noticed the movement of the two or three distinct shadows on the floor. As I continued to clasp and unclasp my hands and consciously note the shadows, I wondered if each light could see only its own shadow or all of them writhing there on the ground? We ARE those lights and most of us see clearly only the lives that WE lead . The lives of others, we see only indistinctly if at all. And ALL these lives are intertwined and moving together but really not going anywhere. And, occasionally , we may pray to a God we cannot see or prove and we think he may intervene and provide some armature upon which we build these lives we live for our brief existence in an eternal and infinite universe that never knew we were here.

Here is a dream I had a few nights ago: I was aboard a naval vessel…an aircraft carrier, I believe, to be precise. One after another, men were jumping fully clothed into the sea. In the wake, we could see the men floating there several hundred meters apart…. a long line of bobbing heads to the horizon. Next thing I know, Rachel (my daughter) and I are treading water in a group of these officer candidates who had jumped to prove something. We were having a lively conversation. No one was concerned nor did they have any idea what was supposed to happen next.

Rachel and I then noticed that another ship – our ship – was sailing away, leaving us behind. It was headed to port; we could just see buildings on the horizon. We started swimming! Next scene is at the cruise line office. We are trying to speak to my mother but she is mad at us and is in a heated conversation with the representative. We go out into the city trying to find Dad. We do not locate him and return to the office but still can’t speak to mother and it goes on like this until it ends.

Does it mean anything? Does anything mean anything?