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Impaled on Time's Illustrious Arrow [1]
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Date: 2023-05-09
As much as tyrants and demagogues are justifiable targets for our collective anger and distress, they are powerless without the many who support their efforts and give credence to their crazed and distorted thinking. They are, after all, mere individuals and without their mindless following, their insipid dreams of invincibility and omnipotence, their fiery pronouncements are simply the rantings of a disturbed mind.
If the species is to truly and meaningfully survive into the future, there is an inescapable need to collectively escape and transcend the limitations placed on human advancement by the machinations of the lower brain that is designed to react to threatening stimuli by “striking out” in an attempt to destroy that which seems to be provoking fear. These urges must be corralled and constrained so that intelligence and reason can effectively mold and direct the human experience.
Within each of us there is a deep-seated longing for peace and harmony, stability, and security. It is these aspects of our humanity that need to be nurtured and perfected. We are, after all, members of the same species. This is an essential and inescapable truth. If we continue to ignore this reality and support systems that buttress the inherent fallacy of racial, cultural or economic superiority, then we effectively doom ourselves to repeating again and again the same destructive behavior that has haunted human progress over the millennia. In reality the avenue to peace and social justice is well-charted and readily attainable.
Currently, my wife and I are in the midst of preparing our last will and testament and giving thought to how those who follow us will absorb, distribute and mostly discard that which we leave behind. This an arduous task that magnifies the material nature of the modern human experience. Material possessions though palpable and substantial do not reflect the wondrous nature of existence. To the degree that we “live” for wealth and an imagined state of happiness, we deprive ourselves of an appreciation of our inherent connectedness with the living world.
The underlying reality of existence as a sentient being is that we own absolutely nothing. All that we think we possess leaves us instantly when we no longer exist as individual beings. Unless you propose that somehow magically we carry on as disembodied spirits, when our marvelous yet transient brains begin to disintegrate upon our demise so does everything that we identified in life as singularly our own also evaporate – all the collective knowledge and memories codified by the those intricate neural networks, all the feelings that we identified as uniquely our own, all the tribulations, joy, pain, sorrow and pleasures that we so fondly embrace, all of it is lost forever into the chaos that is an integral part of existence. While living, the brain masterfully orders the sensory input that floods our senses within the chaotic matrix of the shimmering cosmos that we inhabit in a way that makes living manageable, that makes us convinced that we actually exert a modicum of control over our immediate environment. The central role of our fantastic organic onboard control unit (OOCU) is to create a semblance of order. Without this capability, civilization as we know it would be impossible. What we ordinarily take as a given are pre-conceptions that shape our sense of reality. For example, the wondrous sensations that we associate with love in general and the orgasm in particular come from the interpretation of the sensory input coming into the OOCU from certain pleasure receptors throughout the body. Likewise, the excruciating experience of intense pain is an interpretation conceived by that same organ as a result of the input coming from pain receptors within the framework of the body. Outside of this interpretative process, both pain and pleasure originate from electrical impulses generated by neuronal activity. Pleasure and pain are sensations that are a direct result of programmed processes within that fabulous neuronal wonder called brain. These feelings have absolutely no reality outside of ourselves, yet they drive the very essence of human behavior.
Following our individual deaths, what is left behind, however, is our impact upon other beings like ourselves that we have touched in some way or another in our lifetimes. Passing through life, we constantly connect with others in ways that are often incomprehensible.
Like all of the countless generations that have preceded us, we are remembered by some, but mostly forgotten. I do not say this with any sense of malice or outrage, nor do I feel that living is for naught. Quite to the contrary, I find that living as a conscious and sentient lifeform is a most treasured gift. It has been and continues to be a wondrous experience – to witness the unfolding of time through the portals of my senses and to appreciate all the magnificence of existence with a receptive mind.
This thought stream reminds me of a poem I wrote a long time ago –
There is a Certain Cataclysmic Beauty in Every Moment
There is a certain cataclysmic beauty in every moment,
a certain dream-like way we have of propelling ourselves about.
Space and stars and the cosmic wind eyed by poets
and admirers of faraway things.
Rushing wind of tree light amber carries wild ponies along the crests
of fiery dreams,
capricious captains of wayward sails and blind wood bearers worship
visions of god and the chaos he engenders,
the seasons mark the weathering of earth in time's embrace as Homo
sapiens tentatively walks its surface.
Light transfigures the islands of the sun
in the voluptuous ring of fire where
Vulcan maintains his kingdom,
the earth sails round and round in its arc of heaven where the greeks
once nimbly held the rudder,
sail on sail on proud earth though your rulers be forsaken.
Two guitarists at the window by the night,
the moon glides gingerly over the sounds of humanity,
the air is filled and we awaken to it like gypsies.
Moon glides into the vault of the sky,
frog cadences push up into the still air
beneath the cloth of darkness,
oblique shadows briefly interrupt the moment,
life stands like a calamity above the birth of spring,
a lonely scotch broom catches the air by the side of the highway,
two billboards disguised by nightfall wait until dawn
to capture the eyes of motorists who have
forgotten the majesty of trees.
Life is a chain of light and dark,
brain shapes meaning from escapades of form and shadow,
without night there is no detail,
no delineation of beginning from its end,
no respite from the merciless truth.
There is a certain cataclysmic beauty in every moment,
a certain dream-like way we have of propelling ourselves about.
Existence is not just a journey. it is ceaseless adventure lasting as long as life persists. It is an ever-changing kaleidoscope of form and color, of texture and light, of sound and nuance, of rhythms of delight, and joy and sadness. It is a dance that flashes across the horizon of vision and visits us in the profoundest of dreams. It is a string of memories coursing through the mind like a symphony, like a concerto, like a blues ensemble, like a rock opera. It is the present moment – moment by moment.
Existence has no requirements other than the ability to take in the air to breath and all the sundry details of the workings of the body. There is no master plan; it is a state of being that carries no guarantees. It is as profound and meaningful or as insipid and wasteful as we choose to make it. There are no rewards or punishments coming from some other place in regard to the choices we make. The inevitable consequence is death that comes to all living entities to ensure that life carries on. Our existence is both timely and brief; our conclusions are entirely our own.
Existence is a profound reality that carries with it a remarkable opportunity to live fully with our eyes wide open – to take it all in, to be alert and nimble and agile and fully awake, to be leery of pre-conceived notions, of delusional thinking, of belief systems masterfully engineered to exert control over the wondrous gifts of imagination and the insights that flow freely within the thinking brain.
Existence is what we all truly possess. All the material objects over which we may claim ownership are not ours even though they may constrain us and narrow our vision. Even the children we may have conceived in a lifetime are not ours. This earth and the piece of it we may call our own is not ours. Titles and deeds are fictions created long ago to buttress the affectations of civilization. We may pay homage to them, but we do not possess anything except the moments and the feelings that come with them and the consequences of all our myriad and sundry choices.
Existence is an exploration of time’s unfolding from the first breath inhaled at birth to the final expired puff of air. Impaled on time’s illustrious arrow we are launched into the midst of an extraordinary universe, on an uncertain journey with indeterminate duration and a medley of plausible and not so plausible outcomes. The finality of death will most likely not lead to closure for there is always unfinished business. At the boundary between living and not living lies the joy molecular where we enter into the dance of the atoms that had their origins within the stars. There is no consciousness here, no airy soul finally released from its earthly shell, no admission to spirit world, no ethereal beings ready to embrace us, no deity stationed at its place in heaven prepared to level judgment, no malevolent creature at the gates of perdition. The ordered state of being that life requires would have simply surrendered to the chaos that is nature’s hallmark. The disintegrated organic mass that constituted that brain that was the essence of ourselves would have been dispatched into a molecular frenzy where all data stored is instantly lost without the benefit of backup or retrieval. This is, after all, the frightening aspect of dying – the absolute cessation of the individual persona and the point at which many religions pull out all the stops and try desperately to assuage this gnawing fear that there is, in fact, no afterlife, no eternity filled with that ever-mysterious beatific vision, no perpetual feelings of magnificent bliss, no feelings of any kind. There is, however, the persistent and dogged reality of the cosmos that continues as always but minus our singular presence. The present will continue to unfold into the future, and ultimately our sun – our star and giver of life – will run out of its precious fuel and its furnace will bring a catastrophic end to itself and its planets and the earth will be no more.
If existence is so ephemeral, what is the point; what is the purpose of living? Maybe the answer to that is quite straightforward – It may be up to us to give it purpose and direction. It may be in our best interest to surrender to what is real and enjoy the ride and partake of all the nuances and particulars that present themselves to our often-disbelieving eyes. Maybe it is up to us to take in the beauty of the natural world, feel the love that constantly surrounds us, accept the pain and the sorrow, embrace humanity, and appreciate the wondrous nature of the human family.
At my age, it should be no surprise that my thinking would gravitate towards mortality. I am now safely beyond middle-age and have entered the penumbra of the aged. Middle-age – that interesting time of life where those well within its boundaries deny that they have been recruited - displaying a near complete disregard for basic mathematics.
Whether or not I have matured like a fine and pedigreed wine or simply one of those off-the-shelf blends with the eye-catching label is a matter for others to judge. Whether or not I have learned all the appropriate lessons from my precarious bundle of past mistakes remains an open question.
Whether or not I am fully prepared to surrender with grace and some aplomb when that time comes is something I cannot honestly answer. What I can be sure of, without hesitation or doubt is that once my brain’s internal mechanisms finally and irrevocably cease their orderly function I will not care one wit.
[END]
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