Tuesday 23 October 2001

Pic of the day: This little tree is facing the autumn all alone, back against the wall.

Facing the autumn

Actually the Norwegian translation of More than you take (from the animation DVD Joseph, King of Dreams) is not so bad. After a slightly awkward start, it goes on to actually improve on the chorus, in my humble opinion. I'll write it here with a near-literal translation, so you can see for yourself.

For du må yte enda mer enn du tar
(For you must contribute even more than you take)
og etterlate enda mere enn før
(and leave behind even more than before)
og er du stolt av alle evner du har
(and are you proud of all the abilities you have)
så vit hva du gjør:
(then know what you do)
Du er en brikke i en langt større plan
(You are a piece in a far greater plan)
hvor du er ment å gjøre alt hva du kan
(where you are meant to do all that you can)
for selve målet på din sjel står på spill
(for the measure itself of your soul is at stake)
og du kan yte enda mer hvis du vil.
(and you can contribute even more if you will.)

I know it was probably just to make the rhyme resolve, but I still feel that the last line is a lot more fitting than going back to the banal "more than you take". Yes, giving more than you take is a good start. But when you realize your potential, and then realize that you are part of something far greater, and then realize that your soul is at stake ... then you would surely reach even farther, exert your will to do even more. (Hey, don't look at me. I'm just in this for the theory.)

***

Oh, I do feel the pull. To do something with my life while it is still here, in this world. To improve my education, while I still have most of my wits about me. Perhaps even get a job where I can do more good than harm. Oh yes, I feel the pull. But I am confident that I can overcome it by just waiting it out. I am good at that.

It's probably just the "midlife crisis" anyway. I hear that this happens to people from around 40 upward. They loose their moorings and set off to live a new life, as if to deny that their life is already behind them. Usually they fail, even if they succeed, because the price they have paid is so great compared to what they get for it.

***

I took a day off and tried to sleep off an infection today. (Incidentally, I feel much better now.) While I slept, I had some vivid and strange dreams. I shall just mention one little point here. In a flashback scene, I saw a psychiatric report that concluded that I was mentally unstable (or was that abnormal? It might have been abnormal) because I did not react normally to my mother's death. Well, duh.

In the above mentioned animated movie, Joseph complains: "I never even got to say goodbye to my mother!"

Tough break, hero. How would you have felt about saying goodbye to your mother over and over and over and over again? Each time thinking it would be the last? There is a (French?) saying that to part is to die a little. I guess it is. But to part when you don't know if you'll ever meet again is to die a lot. And it's not something you really get used to either.

And yet, ironically, when I last saw her alive, I did not say goodbye. It was too late for that. I think there were moments where she knew I was there, and had a vague idea that I was someone she knew as opposed to the hospital staff. But nothing more than that. All I could do was witness her pain, her fear, her confusion. And after 25 years I stopped praying that she would survive. 25 years of malign melanoma, a cancer that was until months ago considered incurable if spread. 25 years of dying is pretty much for one human. She bore it with a lot more strength than I could have. But there is to all things an end, in this world.

The dream snippet was almost certainly caused by something I read yesterday, or perhaps the day before, about how important it was for our health to work through grief. Yes, I suppose that would be the case normally. But do you truly honor the dead by not living?