Retirement Approaches
June 2, 2018
Retirement is nigh. I am reminded of “The Hollow Men” by T.S. Elliot. “This is how the world ends, not with a bang but with a whimper.” – T.S. Elliot.
The writer is an agent or intermediary of the masses. Most of the people do not see the world as does the writer. The writer provides a perspective the people cannot see for themselves. In some cases, the writer is the view into the abyss that people do not want to see. The writer walks a slack line over the precipice and starring down into that terror, that terror that is a mirror of the human condition, the writer reports the vision to those who can’t or won’t risk their illusions – reports in such a way that the effect is dulled just enough to make it bearable.
The poor writer is often a reluctant observer of the horror but is drawn to the awful truth time and again. Until, trembling on the line, balance is lost and the world changes. Every scene becomes alien. The humans become grotesque and strange….unfathomable and corruptible. And then, in that final jerky correction, purchase on reality is lost and the desolation swallows another who looked too long into the empty nothingness we call life.
In “Nostromo”, the journalist Martin Decoud ridicules the idea that people “believe themselves to be influencing the fate of the entire universe” – Joseph Conrad.
Yet I have often said that I believe our every thought and action moves the entire universe between the extremes of good and evil. And by the imperceptible movements representing the lives of billions we may arrive at our destiny.
Executioner
June 3, 2018
I am a prisoner waiting in his cell to hear the first faint steps of my executioner approaching.
D-Day
June 6, 2018
D-day a few hours ago and 77 years, the first of many young men began to die on European beaches and battlefields. They didn’t plan or want death but it was a sentence imposed by the powers of this world. How many of them would have reveled in the wonderful life I’ve led.
Human experience ranges between two extremes: The beauty of a Brahms symphony and the final horror of deliberate physical violence. I’m sure that all of us can feel the range of emotions on the horror side but can all appreciate the beauty on the Brahms side?
Sleep
June 12, 2018
I haven’t been sleeping at all. For weeks, I’ve been in and out of sleep. Some nights I lay still as a mouse and do not sleep at all. It is important to keep your eyes closed during these times. You would think it would be boring but it’s not, you just have to endure it
Contract
June 19, 2018
Today was the last day of my contract year. I will go back to work on July 2 and work 19 days, then I will retire. I am….what? Empty? Finished? Tired? I do not know what the future holds for me.
Just called my mother to wish her Happy Birthday. She told me her brother (my uncle) had recently asked her if if their mother (my grandmother) is still alive. He had a stroke a while back. She died in 1982.
You take a blow to the head and you stagger and reel. Losing balance, you fall. Rising, the pain is there and disorientation. Where are you and what just happened? In this state, you must make decisions that will affect you and others for a life time. This is what humans are asked to do in their feebleness. It is a lot to ask, I think.
I beg God for guidance but think of the Auschwitz dead who prayed for the same thing. You can pray but you’re on your own.
Early Warning
June 20, 2018
Today, I went for a biometric screening and found my BP was high…no surprise there. I figured it had been high since before Easter. Close coupled body and soul but no one sees it. I guess I’m hiding my existential anxieties better than I think.
Later today, I began digging out the flexible corrugated black plastic pipe that is out in the yard at the end of the basement floor drain. The drain began gurgling years ago and I should have known then that it would eventually cause problems. Last winter the humidifier water backed up in the drain and got the carpet in the bedroom and closet wet. I turned off the humidifier. This summer, it backed up again from the AC condensate and threatened the same thing. Why did I let this go that long?
I’ve found that you may ignore early warning signs but they will always get you in the end.
There are many lessons in life if you are observant. Often, we believe we are observant but we have only our current frame of reference and do not yet know the things we will learn later about life, others, and ourselves. When you DO have that new frame of reference, you see all the things you missed before. Emotional experience is not obtained a priori but must be lived. When it is lived, you necessarily open some doors through which you may not pass again, while others never were accessible.
This is the beauty and sadness of life…you can’t have it all. If you know what you want out of life, you are persistent, and you are lucky, you may achieve your goals.
The Big Book
June 21, 2018
Everything that we do say or think is written in a big book and remains there for all eternity. If you believe that, you may be careful about what is written there but still there are episodes of your life that impact others and their stories are written there as well….all joined or merged into the one great story of existence. Indelible, permanent stories of all the interwoven lives….for good or for bad.
People you don’t even know visit this book of universal memories from time to time and they see the direct or remote links to your own life. You become a part of their stories. Sometimes these links are so inconsequential, they are never reviewed. Sometimes, connections are life altering for generations. It is said that the sins of the father are visited upon the children to the 3rd or 4th generation. We see the effects of this in the coping mechanisms of those who suffer abuses. Then, their coping mechanisms: alcoholism, substance abuse, and failed relationships affect the next generation which adopts it own strategies which affect the next generation ad infinitum. The only thing that halts this procession of destruction is someone willing and strong enough to stop the pain. Only then can we avoid the emotional entropy which drags down all those lives that we touch.
Perhaps you lie awake at night thinking about your entries in the book and all the connections recorded there. All those you’ve loved or hated, all those with whom you’ve shared some of your life, all those for whom you’ve sacrificed and all those who have sacrificed for you. All of them are entered in the book and you can never break the bonds that bind you. How do you explain those bonds to others? If you’ve loved before, is part of your heart still bound to that person? Is love limited? There is a finite amount of mass/energy in the world; we can only change it from one to the other but we can never destroy it. Is love like that? You see in some relationships, the duality of love and hate. If you hate someone….or perhaps your own mental constructs….or even God, passionately, doesn’t that mean that you also once loved with equal fervor?
For the weary Earth-bound traveler, there are many descriptions of the travails and problems that befall all of us. Literature is filled with passages that you think were written with you in mind. They describe your predicament down to the smallest detail of insomnia, your inner most conversations with yourself there in the dark, your gut-wrenching realization that too much time has passed, the fear, the panic, and the suspicions that there are no answers for what ails you.
You read these passages amazed that someone else knows of your inner turmoil. It is as if they can decipher the cryptic language of your soul written there on the parchment of your heart that even you do not always understand.
You read on anticipating such perspicacity to yield resolution. Now that we’ve identified the problem, described every symptom, there must be a solution! Your emotion has been analyzed, measured, quantified, dissected in every way possible and now it’s time for the big reveal! The denouement. But in typical bait and switch fashion the problems described in such intricate detail are solved with a wave of the magic wand…you are instructed to “let go of your anger, jealousy, sadness envy, etc.” Every intrapsychic conflict is solved by LETTING GO of that which has caused the conflict. Just how one achieves that goal is never explained. So much for literature.
(Ed. Note – July 7, 2022. Today I stumbled upon the following quote by Vaclav Havel which mirrors what I wrote above in 2018.
“We are still incapable of understanding that the only genuine core of all our actions – if they are to be moral – is responsibility. Responsibility to something higher than my family, my country, my firm, my success. Responsibility to the order of Being [spirit], where all our actions are indelibly recorded and where, and only where, they will be properly judged.” – Vaclav Havel
Genetics
June 25, 2018
I’m taking my “vacation days” before I go back to work for July and finish up on the 27th. I had hoped to get a lot done during this period but it’s raining again so I can’t even complete my plumbing repairs – much less work on the barn electricity. My 4th electrician backed out on me today.
We are all actors who bring their experiences, thoughts, and intellect to the stage but who are directed by a genetic code that shades our responses and perceptions. Approximately 50% of Caucasians have a mutation of ADRA2B that affects emotional memory. Proust’s memory of the madeleines dipped in tea is a commonly quoted example. Serotonin is another suspect in our emotional responses to life. Gene studies will certainly reveal more of the characters behind the scenes working the shadow puppets which are the personality traits that define us. Socrates told us, “gnothi seauton” but that admonition becomes mired in confusion when we ask, “which thyself?”….is it the person I thought I was… or the one directed by a gene sequence over which I have no control? What percentage of my personality do I direct? What traits actually hold me in thrall? Do they command on my behalf or do they seek my destruction? Where is my soul in this quest for supremacy and what does God have to say about his fragile creation?
How will you look back at your life? Many start out life with a vision of who they will be and how events will unfold. Many factors may impact the reality – genetics, timing, and chance among them. And these factors are at work in the lives of ancestors long before we come upon the scene to play our small roles.
Perhaps you had perfection in your crosshairs? We use that word so loosely – as if it is really obtainable…..if only a few things had turned out differently. Well, let’s start with ourselves and apply the rigorous test of perfection. Do we really measure up on close examination? Only those who are narcissistic or particularly adept at deceiving themselves! Time is short and we should not engage in any delusion. If you think you are perfect or even close to it, you will do well to “know yourself” a little better. It may be that you know less than you think. Only one has no sin and it’s not you.
Morally Bereft
June 27, 2018
It is raining again today after a really wicked storm yesterday. We had high winds and got 2.5 inches of rain….the corn is all laying on the ground. I just did a search on a man I know to see if there is any recent news of his case. I stumbled on a blog written by an atheist whose purpose is to highlight sexual abuse by the clergy. This guy lists all those who have been arrested for child molestation, rape, etc.
The list is long and only covers a period from about 2010 to 2013. The stories are horrifying -absolutely horrifying.
When I go out into the world, the society of men and women, I imagine I can see their souls. Yesterday, while pumping gas, I watched a grass-cutting crew purchasing their morning snacks and walking back to their truck. I tried to imagine their lives – the apartments, girlfriends, their music, their interests. And I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt…. to remember that regardless of their personal code of conduct, there is little difference between them and the saints and sinners at the ends of the spectrum.
Reading the atheist blogger, I am forced to think that if church leaders are this morally bereft, where does that leave the rest of the world? Wallowing in drugs, pornography, deceit, abuse, instability, and hopelessness? Then I turn on the radio and every other commercial is for erectile dysfunction. This is by far the most common ad we hear on the radio now. Men seem to have deified their small appendages and now worship at the altar of pleasure. There may be another factor which is societal. Men are losing on many fronts. They are losing to women in the educational arena, the jobs arena, and the earnings arena. For all of recorded history, men were superior in a way that actually mattered – physical strength. Now in the information age, the digital age, the old advantages don’t matter and men fall further behind. So their virility becomes more important, they age, feel the loss of vitality, power, and their place in society and voila`, you have con artists offering to restore that which is ebbing away.
And that is why I only listen to the radio at times when I know I hear the weather. I don’t care about news, sports, or the latest social media post by some “celebrity.” I am only interested in things that matter, that have real meaning. Things that are pure and good and eternal….because I know in my heart that I am just like everyone else. though I try to convince myself otherwise.
I look around at the confusion and duplicity in the world and I think, “this can’t go on.” My father has used this exact phrase to point out how little things change over time. He reports that HIS father used to say the same thing as America left the depression behind and entered World War II.
I watched Ken Burns “Vietnam” last night and learned a lot about Ho Chi Minh and the French colonial occupation. Maybe Jane Fonda knew something I didn’t.
(Author addendum….as I type this entry on August 31, 2021 with the US reeling from the deaths of more service members during the fiasco the government called a withdrawal from Afghanistan, I feel even more acutely that we have been truly negligent in our oversight of an empire created by politicians, lobbyists, and a military industrial complex that has led us into two unwinnable wars that have lasted 25 out of the past 60 years, and which have resulted in the deaths of 61,000, the maiming of 320,000 more, the psychological trauma of many, and the enrichment of those who send our youth to fight for the profit of the few.)