Essays: The Horse Hollerer | Our Thelma and Louise | Sharing Onions | Un-connected
Metaphysics Over Easy (Hold the Toast) | Another Day at the Office of Life | Can't We All Just Get Along?
Can I Die Now?
As I wrote the title to this essay I realized that I would live a lot longer than I deserved. Just a hunch. We all get them, that moment when we ‘know’ something. Furthermore, it fit right into the thesis of my essay.
I’m a struggler. At least that’s how a lot of people who know me would describe me. Despite good looks, brains, talent, ‘that body’, etc., I struggle. Personally, financially, emotionally, you name it. And no one knows why, least of all me.
I was pondering as I sat in front of the television this morning devouring a peanut butter and pickle sandwich – hangover food (don't knock it 'til you try it) – and staring off at the neighbor’s house through the window just above my television. What happens when you finally “make it”?
I was in a mood as you can tell. A thinking mood. I also procrastinate when I‘m in a thinking mood. And I’m always thinking. Ergo, I'm always procrastinating (but I'll get to that later). I’ll think something through until the end and all of a sudden the urge to do it goes away. Like exercise. So much work, or effort, or time, and for what? Why bother?
This state of pondering is common hangover ground. I really shouldn’t drink, but then where would my writing ideas come from? When I’m all tied up in the middle of something else, there is no time to write. And when you get used to being busy, there is never time to write – you hear authors saying “I get up at 3 in the morning and write for 3 hours, then I go to work.” What?
OK. Back to my thesis. As I was sitting there I did take in some of the program on the television, the 'Create' channel I think. A decorator was discussing a room with the host, an expert in room design. I never knew there were so many ways to talk about a glass table with four legs. At the end of the interview the designer was asked what his ‘moment of luxury’ was after creating a beautiful atmosphere for others. I did respect the response, as it involved a good martini, but I was left in a predicament. To wit, he said: “I sit in the room I just designed and take it all in over a great martini.” Okayyyy. What then?
Here’s where I landed on that. He’s a lush in a designer suit pacing his drinks by designing. Furthermore, some of our presidents were just womanizers who ran out of women at the state and local level, and most very rich men are so tight they squeak! These men did not aspire to these places. It was something they stumbled into while getting away from their wives!
So, back to when one decides they ‘can die now.' More specifically, I tried to imagine the feeling I would, or should, experience when I had accomplished 'that thing' that would make me great. Or respected. Or wealthy beyond even my eccentricities. This, by the way, is exactly what most of the new age programs try to get you to do on a daily basis. I call them programs because you have to buy into them it seems, like Jenny Craig to lose weight. Buy her food to lose weight. What?
Feel rich, feel healthy, feel thin, feel sexy, feel powerful – and you become so! Even if for just a fleeting moment, you can feel that way, and you recognize it. And all ‘wanting’ vanishes.
Bullshit. I always want more. Something else. Something new. If we would just slow down and get pensive in the middle of the busy day we would realize that this shit never ends. Today never ends. The grind never ends. So you had better enjoy the grind. Because there is no feeling that completes you.
Let’s say you write a beautiful poem. People read it and weep. The accolades start pouring in and the next thing you know you are nominated 'poet laureate of the world'. How much you wanna bet your next poem sucks?
Here’s the point (besides avoiding hangovers if you’re a glass half empty kind of person); there is no feeling, including happiness, which allows you to die happy. And there is no level of wealth that allows you to cheat death (and many have tried). The longest living people on earth are dirt poor. And therefore, there should be no amount of sadness that causes someone to die of unhappiness. Nor is there an amount of money in the bank so low that you can die of being broke. Well, that last statement is what the (abundance-oriented) metaphysicists would have you believe anyway. They say things like 'If you envision it, and set it in motion, it must become so.' I believe that, by the way, although at some point we all need a bit of charity. So why do we work so hard to have more, or work so hard to keep from being poor? Either way, you’re going to die.
So I’ve decided that the phrase ‘Can I die now?’, as in “my daughter finally married a nice Jewish doctor, I can die now,” is not a ponderous future state. There is no event, nor destination, nor state-of-being which allows one to feel so complete that they would accept death as a tribute to their accomplishments. Right now is all you have, and as good as it needs to be, and wanting more is a waste of time, because it won’t change a thing. You are who you are, and you feel happy or sad, no matter where you stand.
So be poor or be rich, but by all means, be. In the end you can’t answer the question ‘can I die now?’ Sure its a euphemism for 'am I there yet?' But when you first read it, yes you, you went to that ‘place’ where you were heading since the moment you got out of bed today. Where was that? You want to answer that question? Death? Nirvana? Are they diffferent? And now you feel better knowing you can’t know. More importantly, it doesn’t matter. Tomorrow doesn’t matter. And for that matter, yesterday does not matter. So get back to work, or the couch, or your daughter's wedding so we know where to find you when your time is up!
© Jefferson Rowland, 2010
Essays: The Horse Hollerer | Our Thelma and Louise | Sharing Onions
Metaphysics Over Easy (Hold the Toast) | Another Day at the Office of Life | Can't We All Just Get Along?
