Longevity
Given the news these days, wouldn’t it be helpful to have a simple reset button, upon engagement transporting you back to right where you started? — yes, it would, and no, there isn’t, which doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty of repetitiveness of the wrong kind. Quod erat demonstrandum (- look it up). Sad.
Shameless self-promotion is a big thing on social media, which is why I’d like to keep it classy and start with my own, excellent proverb: When you walk a circle, you eventually get back to where you started® — Duh. So, in the interest of avoiding boredom to set in any earlier than it absolutely has to, my suggestion — — chose a very wide circle and wear decent shoes. This brings us to longevity. Bezos & friends aside, who would want to live forever? — well, I do — and, let’s be honest, so do you. Won’t happen of course, but I would like to be considered, with the usual disclaimer: in more than acceptable health, especially South of the Border, and with plenty of disposable cash. Turns out, there’s a long line on the check-out counter for this “premium” package so why don’t we ask us first if it’s worth the wait.
To borrow from professional sports, did you ever consider that after ‘35’ it’s basically just about running down the clock? … hmhmhm … you don’t remember your own birth (Thank God!), but high school, college, grad school, first job and often your first marriage are over by then (not mine). So, why on Earth do we tag on another 50+ years, on average ? — even more if you live on Okinawa or Sardinia — years that mind you are full of work only to realize that the career ‘ladder’ really is a ‘wheel’ and that the super cute but flea-infested hamster with his enviable BMI clearly outruns you on his way to absolutely nowhere; heartbreak and eventually loss as you and/or people around you are hit with all sorts of ailments and setbacks. Unfair ? — agreed. Perhaps, you drive a sports car that you can finally afford but have noticeable trouble getting in & out from without popping a handful of over-the-counter help that is bound to upset your stomach. It’s always the same, when you’re young you feel like living in a mythical hut on Tahiti but sure as hell can’t afford it, and once you can, you think twice about taking your luck in your carpal-tunneled hands with a 9-hour long-distance flight to decent healthcare in LA. True, there is a fair chance that with the onset of dementia, your tau protein turns ninja on your noggin so that you simply forget worrying about the future … probably OK, as, at the end, why would you want to return your organs in perfect working condition and half-used like for a rental car or skiing equipment contract? (- do you feel me, liver).
In the absence of anyone ever coming back from the afterlife to confirm that there’s decent internet speed in addition to the heavily advertised abundance of light, the answer is: You want to hang around on Earth because it sure beats the alternative! — because you can write literary crap like this without any consequences including the threat of assault in public (unless you’re joking about alopecia, that is), and because fate is the proverbial b*tch. The ‘party’ can be over at any moment, as we have seen unfold in a never-ending string of horrific and seemingly random events around the country, subjugated to the 2nd amendment, also known to the founders back in 1791 as the constitutional right to bear an arsenal of fully automatic weapons to protect your breezy trailer park home and, once its secured, to attack schools, supermarkets and hospitals. So, let’s make every minute count — get off Medium for a change, don’t worry about likes & shares, and smell those roses. If you can, you know you don’t have Covid (currently) and that the Russians haven’t yet dropped a smallish tactical nuke to take out your smelly capitalistic trash cans in the back. Comforting, both.
In closing — some sh*t is so deep, even Marie Kondo on an all-expenses paid retainer can’t help you clean it up. Lifelong search for meaning can therefore become an affliction; at the very least it’s a process of attrition followed by repositioning, finding out what doesn’t work for you, on your own ‘circle’ of life. And, since choices matter, use what’s left of your moral compass as now is probably as good a time as ever to remember, cosmetics and plastic surgery aside, the fountain of youth is several sheets in the wind, and a click to the left.
[Ponce de Leon, unfortunately, must have gone to the right (- which led to him dying and us having to deal with ‘Florida’)].
© Tom Deisboeck, 2022. All Rights Reserved.
