Death, Attitude, and LIfe

When you've got to go, you've got to go....

I've been thinking about death. Alot.

I think this comes from getting on the dark side of 40. My parents are aging, all around me senseless events seems to invade the lives of many people whom I care about. Death, violence, accident. Sometimes people die from these events, sometimes not. Always I feel the brush of what's coming.

While I can't control death, I can control my attitude toward it.

When I was a little boy, I was afraid of death. Like many children, I was afraid of the dark and all that it implies. I outgrew that point of view when I understood that the world existed beyond me, that everything I see is real, not simply a stage set constructed for my pleasure and edification. Since then, while not exactly happy about the idea of death --- I want to be here a good long time; there's great stuff to do; barbecues, sex, sunsets, hanging out with my nieces, music, theater, the list is endless --- I somehow have come to understand that my ceasing to exist as I am is not a tragedy of epic proportions.

I've come to feel that death is a process to be faced with humanity and compassion. I need, for my self-respect and the comfort of those I love, to be brave as I approach the dark.

I also know from my minimal dealings with the dying that there comes a point when the soul lets go. I saw it with my grandmother. I remember the moment; she chose to leave, to let go. Where she went is, your guess is as good as mine.

I once had a friend (who is now dead and gone) who said "life is for the living". I try to stick to this maxim to the best of my ability. I feel I didn't begin to fully live until I hit my early 40's. It feels of critical importance to me that I love the remaining time I have left. Since what comes next is a mystery, I stay focused on the now.

None of these thoughts are new to me. What is so striking to me is how similar all our thoughts are when we are faced with the ultimate unknown, "the undiscovered country" to coin a phrase.

PIE IN THE FACE

Sometimes someone does something I love. Jonathon May-Bowles lobbed a pie in Rupert Murdoch's face today. I couldn't be more delighted.

I have been digesting my visit to my parents, thinking about my next blog post but then this incident emerged and I couldn't help but blog on it. It's topical, it's stupid but I don't care.

I love it. Really love it. No shouting, no violence, no nothing. Just simple clowning, designed to embarrass the mark. Which Murdoch certainly is. It's pretty reprehensible that anyone could create an organization where the need to create content superseded basic morality. While the people directly responsible are directly responsible, Murdoch set the tone. And he should be punished for that.


So what does this have to do with me? Nothing, really ---- except for the clowning.

In my ideal world, clowns would administer all non-corporal punishment that didn't involve violent crime. Clowns would punish insider trading, lying under oath, all sorts of administrative transgressions, and just plain being a fathead.

Clearly, I'm a bit pent-up. I don't care. May-Bowles is my hero du jour. He even had the stones to tweet this just prior to landing the cream on Mr. M's puss;

It is a far better thing that I do now than I have ever done before #splat

Vengeance is mine, saith the clown....

YARD SALE FOR THE SOUL....

Knowing what to sell, what to give, and what to keep....

This weekend I was out at my mother's house on Long Island helping her with a Yard Sale. You all know yard sales, of course; endless lines and piles of used stuff that you don't need but are tempted to buy simply because it's there. Goldfish bowls, golf clubs, Ray Mancini Sings The Blues records and God knows what else, all there lying in wait to suck your wallet dry.

I had never really thought about what it means to the person running the yard sale to get rid of all this stuff.

For my mother, and by extension me, it was the beginning of major change.

As my parents age, they are looking to sell their home, move back into the City, downsize, and simplify their lives. This sale of endless tchotckeys was the beginning of this movement to a new life for them.

My parent's lives are changing.

Buddha wrote that nothing is permanent, that the ultimate illusion is stability. I remember feeling the truth of this when I was with my mother on her last day in the apartment I grew up in on the Upper West Side of Manhattan prior to she and my father's moving out to Long Island. All around us the movers and workmen were quickly and efficiently removing any trace of the life we all led in that place for the prior thirty years. My mother asked me if I was upset. I started to cry but something inside of me stopped and I answered:

"No, it's just a place. A place we loved, but just a place."

That moment stays with me. I can never quite get as attached to people, places or things as I used to. I know it's all going to end, myself included ---- and somehow, that's not a bad thought. Of course, this clarity comes and goes. Like the rest of us, I'm human. I just feel lucky to have this sense of distance at least sometimes present in my life.

And you? These are big thoughts, particularly when you're talking about a yard sale...but then again, we get what we pay for ---- and we all pay, one way or another. What do you think?