YOUTH OF DISTRACTION, AGING OF DEATH

We find much “purpose in life” in youth and middle age, in family and career. It is the “normal distraction of life,” it could be said. Such distraction = purpose and meaning. A very apt carrot hung before us that is truly motivating. And we tend to live our lives accordingly and engaged.

          When family and career fade and we are then left with ourselves in old age, we lose the “inherent distraction of youth and middle age,” and, left with ourselves and perhaps a spouse as well or even still with children, our bodies begin to reveal themselves as a painful limitation to our activities, even to ourselves “as we are,” or so is our interpretation. We begin to “bide our time,” to become more aware of our lives “slipping away slowly” (or perhaps even quickly). We find ourselves waiting to be out of these pained bodies that we still inhabit.

          “Life” in itself does begin to become invasive and demanding as the culture and society changes, dumbs down, loses itself even more in falseness, becoming even more violent and cruel and downright stupid, electing a representative president and government who takes pride in lying, falseness, violence, cruelty, and stupidity. The world goes merrily to “hell in a handbasket.” It becomes ominous and hateful; one begins to feel this weight upon oneself. The Kali Yuga brings us down on “all fours”; we find ourselves barking and biting.

          But then, it is the weight of the crumbling, the deterioration of the body, of the mind too—of the life one has defined for oneself and lived, be it partially or fully, according to one’s retrospective. Such is normal; it is preparation for actually looking forward to leaving the body. Some religions celebrate such a parting. My own perspective is at least an appreciation for the unfolding of my life, even in its strange and often painful ways. But the pain of life leads us beyond itself into something much more real, much deeper, so far within that it is beyond; it may be called the “underlying life” not just within the outer life, but which is the matrix of all life itself. It is not a belief system or doctrinal though it finds its way into those institutional contexts. I, with the suggestion of John Gardner, the author, may call myself an “opportunistic fatalist,” or what could be a “positivistic nilhilist.” The notion of “life’s unfolding” I see as “fate,” and I am a student of fate, a follower of “what is,” of what reveals itself in each moment, including my particular hopefully evolving, contextually expanding, response to it. It’s not so much that I see life as a “good thing,” rather, it is the “happening thing.” It is thus not to be denied, simply because it IS. One must participate, so why not make the best of it? And one makes the best of it by knowing what it is. And “what it is” is not what it means or how I feel about it, though those may be by-products of knowing what it is. And, of course, one cannot know what life is unless one knows what one is in this context of living. So, “knowing fate” is based in knowing oneself in the context of one’s life, which is the only context in which one can be known, for it is the only backdrop, the only comparison available that we have. We can only see ourselves in the context of our existence. That said, “our existence” is of a multi-leveled nature; we “exist” physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually (or, taken as one, psychologically). This is my particular perspective. I also see that there is some kind of “matrix” or “living structure” in and through which we exist, such “structure” permeating all existence, all life, in some way. This “matrix of being,” as it were, has myriad names, mostly religious. This would define me, not as an atheist, I suppose, but as a deist. But the deity is not inherent self-conscious and could be Nature, or the permeability of life, or even perhaps the “storm god” or “mountain god” of the ancient Hebrews. Do I “worship” such a “god”? No. Rather, I am aware of such a “matrix” upon which all like “hangs” and depends, like all children upon their mother, though I also see this matrix as fundamentally and completely existent within each person or thing, which is a central notion of pantheism, though my running joke is that I’m a “pantyist.”