2002.07.14 : Four Things
"Because you've got to do something while you're waiting around doing nothing."
- Joe Laltrello
- Joe Laltrello
Sunday evening, and swinging by Walgreens I picked up:
- A new, black, 200-page, 5.5x3.5 Mead "Fat 'Lil Notebook."
- Another $3.99 chrono sports watch, with alarm!
Had a stellar dinner/coffee out with Jeremy on Friday night. My agenda was to break the news of my departure, but of course the conversation was spectacular as always. From that conversation, here are two points I think are worth considering in making life trajectory decisions:
- LIFE IS LONG. This is a subjective view on my part. But, my sense of it
is that even a standard, old-style, 20th century, three-score-and-ten
lifespan is a long freaking time. (Never mind how long WE're likely to
live. As our extropian and biomedical scientist friends will point out: if
you're alive 40 years from now, you may be facing drastically reduced
opportunities to ever die of anything). But, either way, it allows for a
lot of activity. A lot of room to maneuver; change course; retreat;
recover. So, suppose you decide to take off for Borneo for a year. Or
three. Maybe you discover a new species, maybe you write the Great South
Pacific Novel, maybe you achieve satori. Or not. What's lost? A year?
Whatever you were doing before will still be there. A long life, I assert,
advocates for experimentation and whimsy.
- The existentialist notion of ABSURDITY. As Camus sagely noted, there is, manifestly, no point to human existence on Earth, and we haven't been dropped here (or, rather, sprouted here) to play any particular role. Of any sort. Whatsoever. One conclusion one can draw from this is: No, it really doesn't matter all that terribly much what you do. It usually feels like it does, but it just doesn't. There IS no Cosmic Rule Book from which to deviate. One might reasonably seek to abide by Vonnegut's "Rosewater Rule" in the matter. But, other than that, it's open mic night. Knock it out. (And don't waste any more energy than necessary agonizing about it.) Absurdity, I assert, advocates for experimentation and whimsy.
"Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies: 'Goddammit, you've got to be kind.'"
- Kurt Vonnegut Jr., God Bless You Mr. Rosewater (hide)
