We are born with some measure of immortality. We like to think we will be here forever. In our minds, there’s always a tomorrow. But at best, it’s only an illusion. I’m sure the passengers on the Titanic had tickets to the theater waiting for them in New York. Yes, our eternal optimism.
I’ve written about the fact that we only have two things that are relatively sure – now and so far. The next minute is not guaranteed. Not tomorrow. Not even next week. At any moment, the ol’ noggin’ can decide it has run its course and won’t reboot again. The ol’ blue screen of death, as they like to say.
Before I get buried with emails of concern, let me say that, for now, things are fine. As far as I know. Yes, I did a half-gainer to the kitchen floor, and my son came home to a pool of blood. I hear I bleed beautifully. I am told I have a tumor up there somewhere and a lesion on my pituitary gland that I was supposed to be born with. And all that cross-bleeding has given me renewed clarity that it’s a miracle I am still here.
I am home now, on the mend (I hope) and have a greater appreciation for what is actually essential in our lives. When times are good, we allow ourselves to get sucked into a vortex of all sorts of bullshit and drama on social media. Programmers are very savvy at reading all the data we post online so we can revel in our ever-present false bravado and deepest fears. We willingly lap it up as if it is based on some reality. It’s not. It’s all made up to manipulate us and distract us into ignoring what is important and heading down a new rabbit hole that also leads nowhere.
A day later, we’re hit with other sensationalistic headlines that send us off the edge. The media doesn’t want us to have time to consider them because we may start to question the validity of everything they try to push our way.
It’s our choice, mind you. If we weren’t buying, they wouldn’t be selling. We are their dream consumer, sucking up everything they come up with so we can feel important and relevant in an increasingly disassociated and distant social order. In their world, they want us to be a continual dumpster fire, so we have no time to consider what is important or what we can control.
Being part of this universe for six-plus decades now, I have placed boundaries on what I will suck into and believe. I’ve been around since the late 1990s, back when dial-up was high-tech. At times, I long for the noisy modem that used to wake my family up at night. There’s something wonderfully soothing and nostalgic about the whirring, beeping and satisfying confirmation that a connection had been negotiated on the other side of the world. There would be a digital handshake, and then you’re off and running at the then-unheard-of speed of 14.4k on a phone line.
The hokey-pokey speed then gave you time to consider what you were going to say. You weren’t rushed into an instant exchange. There was no texting. Skype was still some years away. So even that wasn’t a bother. You could sit in a bar, enjoy a drink and have a lively conversation with the person across from you. Phones still rang, but you could choose to answer it or not. If not, the damned thing went to voice mail. If you felt no immediacy and more time you didn’t have your phone, you could enter a unique code and get it when you wanted to.
The main point is that we live in an unnecessary rush. We aren’t forced to move at this pace. This fear of missing something is false, deceptive and sometimes downright dangerous. We aren’t taking any time to enjoy the moment anymore. Shutting out the noisy world around us in an unfounded fear that we may miss something that we most likely do not know about anyway. Do we really need to know that an acquaintance is on a beach somewhere having the time of their life and didn’t just PhotoShop the whole thing? Will it bring us some sense of satisfaction to know right now? Will we be ostracized if we don’t immediately fire back a witty response? Or worse, be Unfriended?
Perhaps we should all come to terms with the fact that we are here for a very short period of time. Far shorter than we’d like to think. I know my own perspective has changed quite a bit in recent days. I may still be here 20 years from now if I don’t do something idiotic. But the belief that there is always another day to live is fully extinguished. The warning signs were always there. Now, there’s evidence behind it that I am lucky to be here still. I don’t see where I will fall for that false belief again.
The sad truth is we’re not immortal. We never were. Sure, it gets a good laugh whenever I say it in a bar. But it betrays the reality that life is short, damned short.
As I said, I’m not going anywhere for now. But I certainly appreciate all these little moments that I used to just put off until another day.
Somewhere north of the Emerald City, scooping my brains back into my head, one pool noodle at a time,
– Robb