“What we think, we become.” The Buddha
The precise moment the one sperm out of thousands seeks out that alluring egg, both with your name on it, the clock of infinite possibility starts ticking. Don’t ask me why I think about things like this, but I do. Wondering about “why” has become my mantra in this shrinking future that is my life. The variables that make up your next moment are infinite. Swim back with me in time to that moment when two people came together, incorporating absolutely everything from passion to calculation, exchanging their precious bodily fluids, my homage to Sterling Hayden in Dr. Strangelove.
From that razor splitting, precise moment, an infinite number of totally disparate coincidences make up your life. Anything, absolutely anything, imperceivably changed, even microscopically nudged in one direction or another, could unknowingly place you in a world you never could have imagined before.
When I think back about my own life, I sometimes wonder what would have happened if my mother and father’s path never crossed, when he made a sales call on her office, where she worked as a bookkeeper in the early ’40’s. They could have decided they didn’t want to have another child, after my older brother was born. Of all the places to move from lower Manhattan, they chose to buy a home in Queens, 69-30 179th street. I grew up in this wonderful neighborhood, completely at ease with myself. I took it for granted, like it was meant to be.
The sign for infinity is a lying down eight, but everything else about it is incomprehensible. From this crowded, vantage point of all that has occurred in my life, I sometimes wonder what would have happened if just one thing out of the trillions of moments had been off by just the tiniest fraction. I know for certain I would not be writing this to you right now and that is the least of it all.
I have repeatedly shared that this whole writing business of mine is based on leaving my young grandson some words that might be of some value to him as he navigates through this terribly complicated world of ours. In indigenous cultures, the elders occupy a special place in the pantheon of their mythology. In this country of convenience, folks like me are meant to be put out to pasture, munching on the grass of numbness. Sure, we elect old people to run the country, but the disconnection between them and all things vibrant is palpable.
I never imagined being this old, believe me. You know, it’s a funny thing, our eyes always look outward. We do not see ourselves in life’s mirror. However, internal vision improves with time, at least I hope so. I now see differently than I ever have before. Looking out at the landscape of my life, efforts to make sense of it are futile, while thinking its all been a series of accidents feels delusory as well
I began losing my footing in my early thirties. It felt like life was happening to me and I didn’t understand. I was not the most introspective person around. It seemed like I was being forced to look inside, but had trouble seeing what was going on. I used to think therapy was for crazy people and was rather dismissive about it. A friend of mine at the time, who was definitely pushing the boundaries of predictability, suggested I go see his shrink.
I spent around ten years getting shrunken, seven with one calculatedly, larger than life character, a proponent of transference and the last bit with a much quieter, introspective guy, who tapped into the magic of it all.
I have always been a terrible reader, books requiring more of me than I had to spare. During those ten years of therapeutic self-flagellation, I began reading about Buddhism and dabbled with meditating. The idea that Zen makes no decisions for you and always leaves you stuck with yourself, seemed to make sense to me. You don’t fight for your life, you give into it and live it.
I have lived through most of the decades one can possibly be awarded and I have found how each one brings with it unexpected ways of engaging the world. I have to wonder if there are any accidents or if everything that happens is supposed to happen. Sometimes, we think,“ I am going to make this change or that change and my life will take the unexpected turn I have been longing for.”
I have come to believe there is nothing random and the idea you can interfere with the trajectory of your life is futile. Whatever is supposed to happen, will happen. Before you start thinking to yourself, this kind of justifies going along for the ride, not participating in the moment, because it doesn’t matter, hold your goddamn horses. It is exactly the opposite.
Age is this terrible gift, allowing you to appreciate all there is and all there has been, while your time to revel in it rapidly diminishes. I encourage you to enjoy your life and to understand the only purpose to your life is what you choose to give it. Your life is not your plight, it is your chance to make a difference, the fleeting opportunity you were gifted when a bona fide miracle occurred. Everything you do, you were supposed to do, but you owe it to yourself to do it. What else is there?
PS: I am not high, I swear.