Question Number Three

I had decided to call today the first official day of fall in this part of California. We had an unseasonably early rain storm last night and so when I awoke this morning it felt like fall. That feeling lingered through the day. Work was productive but both low energy and low key. The evening was nice, a hearty baked potato soup and a sandwich, then a lazy evening playing on the computer and listening to music, followed by good conversation with T.R. Let me dive right into Question Number Three:

If life is so short, why do we do so many things we don’t like and like so many things we don’t do?

Personally speaking, I don’t do many things I don’t like. It was a long journey to get the point where I can say that and it is a journey that I am still on. In the early nineties I was totally burnt out on many things and fortune conspired to give me an opportunity to take a rambling road trip of multiple destinations and multiple months and in that trip to contemplate, well, pretty much everything. Out of that trip came three simple decisions that have been guideposts for the rest of my life. One of those decisions was this – I would never again do anything I didn’t want to do. I’ve abided by that to a great extent. The few times I have not, I have regretted it.

Now, the second part of the question is a little tougher. For me the answer is this – there are only so many hours in a day, so many days in a week, so many weeks in a month and so many months in a year. The spirit may be willing and unlimited, but the world is limited, limited in resources, limited in time. As Ovid said – “Tempus Edax Rerum” – time devours all things. The limitations I feel are largely structural and mechanical limitations. For example, I may want to go to Las Vegas – but it takes a certain amount of time and consumes a certain amount of resources to do so, so I lay that up against my other choices, which are often equal in value to me, and I choose to do those things that bring me more happiness within the constraints of my resources.

Also, I will take a moment to disagree with the entire premise of this question – that life is short. As a matter of faith I believe that we are each possessed with an immortal soul that passes through this incredible journey for eternity. We have all the time in the universe. The experience of life is specific and local, but that life occurs within the framework of the quantum universe where all manner of strange and mysterious things can and do occur. I may not make it to Las Vegas because of the specific and local objects and events. But, in the big scope of things, that really doesn’t matter – I am sure that I will go out and have an equally wondrous time. The mystery and the wonder of the universe are everywhere. Everywhere.