Thursday 22 July 1999
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Pic of the day: Finally the American supercomics arrived! I saw recently on the Net, some dude claimed that online diarists in general were looking for "the person that would make everything all right" or some such. Duh. I don't think this is more common among us journallers than in the larger society; of course, that's still too much. Let me tell you out of hand, though: If I were trying to get the attention of the person that could make everything all right, I would be praying right now. That is, I think that's way too tall an order for any human. And even if I lowered my standards to someone who could make some things better most of the time, I'd still be racking up a phone bill rather than sitting here. So why do I write? Because I don't have children, I think. I am highly aware of my own mortality, the shortness of my human life. All I have learnt, all I have thought, my many questions and my few answers ... in a short time they will all be gone, utterly destroyed, as if they never were. Part of you will live on in your children, and their children, and so on - spreading like rings on the water - and some part of you will remain when even your name is forgotten. Not so me. So what? Well, basically I think getting a piece of me (as it were) might be a good idea. Because I'm a pretty happy person. No, that is not the right word - English may not have a right word for this. Not happy as in "let's dance" (though that happens too) but it is more like being content, thankful, feeling that life is good. That I would want to live for thousands and thousands of years if I could: Not just for fear of death but for love of life. Basically I wish that you could be like me, because being me is pretty good. I have a hard time justifying that: I don't have all that much money, by Western standard. I don't have status and prestige, a career, house and garden, car and boat and summer residence. I'm not married, I don't even have a sex life by any reasonable stretch of the word. I'm like the epitome of the loser you would not want to be if you had the choice between being a loser or shooting yourself. And I'm still basically happy. I often pray when I go to bed that I may wake up to another day, and thank my God in the morning that I'm still here. I look around and see how things are connected together, how they all fit. The world is around me like a giant puzzle that once was broken pieces, now fitting together in an awesome pattern. Lots of stuff that I learned when I was young but did not know really what to do with. Now it all comes together, from the unimaginable vastness of the cosmos to the flittering forces of the subatomic particles. From the tiny ants to the intricate rules of human societies. The rain that runs down my face is part of a pattern older than mankind, an endless circle that repeats itself and yet is always subtly different. And my own life is the continuation of a line so long and so incredible that I feel almost like a betrayer for not passing it on to another generation. Yet there is no guarantee that a child of mine would be like me. Then again, perhaps someone could be like me without being my child. Life is good and then you die. And others will live on, bitching and moaning, complaining as if life was a burden thrust upon them. They grow old while nagging and pouting, they become seventy and eighty while life is meaningless and they wish they could have lived another life. If only things were different! If only other people would change, then they could have been happy! Yeah, right. I am not a saint, not by any measure. But if you are richer than me and less happy, perhaps you could watch me and try to find out if I'm doing something right. You never know. |
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