#420 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Wednesday August 3)
Good morning,
WE ARE HERE FOR SUCH A SHORT TIME
“No one gets out of this alive.”
I was joking around with a friend the other day about our respective surgeries, aches and pains. My conclusion is that we’re “out of warranty.” That said, through modern medicine, we benefit from the ability to live fulfilling, productive lives, after maladies that could not have been effectively treated even 20 years ago.
We all know that death comes for all of us. But we have an amazing ability to intellectualize that all life must end, while having difficulty grasping the notion that ours will, as well. A not insignificant amount of intellectual energy has been expended by theologians trying to articulate what our existence, if any, will be after our lives on this Earth. My view is that conjecture may be entertaining and perhaps even comforting, but it is irrelevant. Whatever the afterlife offers, the only thing we can control is our time here on Earth (and, even then, we control far less than we think). While we would like to believe our lives are permanent, we know intellectually, though we might not accept it emotionally, that most of our corporeal world will outlast us.
I had this thought the other day when down in our basement picking up a few supplies. As I peered out underneath our house, built in 1930, I admired the construction work of contractors and craftsman, all of whom are gone and most of whom died well before we acquired the house. They built this house in the midst of the Great Depression. And while the house doesn’t have the ice box still extant in the kitchen that our first home—on Highland—possessed, one can still appreciate that this house was built for an earlier time, and it was built to last.
And when I think about the construction, I think about the families that have lived in this house. I know of the family that sold the house to us and I know of the prior owners. And we are friends with the family that lived here before that. But there were other generations of families that lived here, brought newborns home from the hospital, raised families here and died here. I often wonder about that first family that moved into this brand new home in 1930 in this tiny neighborhood in a still relatively small metropolis. What were they like and what were the subsequent families like? The house remains as a sentinel to that past and those families. As I said, the house was built to last. It sometimes gets me thinking whether we are building buildings, institutions, and a world that are built to last (but that’s another musing…).
It is humbling to accept that our lives, important to us, are relatively insignificant within the context of this structure. Someday, hopefully far off, our furniture, artwork, family photos and the various items we have accumulated over the years will be dispersed among family and friends, and eventually sold in estate sales and contributed to charity. The house will remain for the next families, who will live here and wonder who those people were who lived here “back in the old days.”
THE TOP REGRETS OF THE DYING
We often think of our legacies. But we also think about what we might have done if we had more time. Few people wish that they worked harder or made more money.
As some people consider their stage in life and what they seek in the coming stages, it bears considering what others, who came before us, had to say. Here are the most common wishes of residents of a nursing home who knew they were near death. Thanks to Afshine Emrani for digging this up:
1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
3. I wish I had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish I had let myself be happier.
We have the ability to make our lives better and make ourselves happier—if only we focused just a little bit on what it is we desire from life. We should navigate through life without a focus on the rear-view mirror. Nor should we look just in front of us. Just like driving a car, we have to be mindful of what is immediately in front of us; yet we should always look outward into the future, anticipating hurdles ahead and taking in everything in that vast panorama. We should try to live lives without regret.
MEANWHILE, IN KANSAS
Amidst a flurry of election results from yesterday’s primaries, the overwhelming vote of Kansans not to remove from the state’s Constitution the right to abortion was the big news. Kansas is a solid red state, heavily Republican and turnout was high. The legislature was all set to pass a broad abortion ban if the voters voted to amend the Constitution. But it wasn’t to be. There is a larger lesson here—that as much as red state legislature want to deliver abortion bans to their base, the majority of their voters aren’t too sure—it turns out that a lot of people aren’t crazy about giving up their rights and are willing to come to the polls to keep those rights. Perhaps this portends more to come, a rethinking of the calculus of legislatures to significantly restrict abortion rights, and a stronger Democratic performance come November.
AND WE LOST A LEGEND
Apropos to today’s musing, 94 year-old Dodger play-by-play announcer Vin Scully passed away yesterday. His voice—not just its timbre, the familiar baseball banter, and his encyclopedic knowledge—but the way in which that voice seemed to insinuate itself, with endless anecdotes and stories, into every fan’s life—will be missed. His genius was not only the way in which he knew when to spin a yarn like he was sitting around with his pals, but also knowing when an announcer’s voice could only detract from the wonder and to just let the crowd noise be comment enough.
Have a great day,
Glenn
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