Brain Dump: Mortality & Meaning

Okay, I know this is going to be less a blog, and more a journal entry, but whatever. Consider it the first in a series of brain dumps.
<<--Look, i even made a graphic for it....

Onward.... I usually try to see the bright side of things, and when I can't do that, I try to see the funny side. Anyone who reads this blog knows that. And often the dark side can be funny, if you know how to manipulate the data.

But this morning, I think my brain is in some other gear....PARK, maybe. It hits me like this every so often when it gets triggered by news from loved ones, or dreams I have.

I dreamed I had my ex girlfriend's parrots. Like they were mine or I had inherited them or something. Maybe in the dream she had died...I don't know...(and no, i don't wish any ill toward any of my ex's. They all tend to merge after a while anyway...E Pluribus unum.*) But I was enjoying the parrots. I was always playing with the Cockatoo, named Sophee (that was her real name) but in the dream she wasn't crippled and her personality was more like Keegan's--the African Grey of the pair, who was talkative and personable. I was living in my father's house --have no idea why. A few days ago, I dreamed my father died, too...I'm sure all this came from finding out that another one of my ex girlfriends lost her mother. And once you hear that, there's this mortality bacteria in your brain...and it sort of infiltrates your life for a while, until you get back into the bliss of ignoring all those harsh realities.

When I woke from all this, I lay there with Shoes curled up with half her body on my shoulder, purring softly. (Yeah, my cat. Women don't seem to purr...well, okay, if I'm doing it right, they do.) For a long time I just laid there, and thought about things. Like you do when you're sleepy and just waking up and the brain starts to make that trip back to rational consciousness again.

I felt sad. Like why doesn't my ex, the one who lost her mother--why does she feel she can't be in my life somewhere? Why can't I be one of those friends to her that she seeks out during times like these, for support? Why does she continue to judge me by the person I was 10 years ago? And why does it still matter to me at all? Because she was the only woman I was ever so madly in love with? Because it was the only time I've ever had my heart ripped out of my chest and handed back to me as that person walks out of my life, while I hold my bloody thumping, dying heart in my own hands? Is that why?? (Okay, that was graphic, but that's what the emotion surrounding it is like for me).

And I thought of how sad it is that I am alone so much. Is it mostly my choice, or is it part and parcel of being an author-artist-songster- type person? Everything I do is something I do alone....And I stayed sad as my thoughts wandered to the two dreams of my father.

How tragic that I have a biological family who rejects me on the basis of who I am, (an oxymoron in and of itself) and that it somehow offends their sensibilities to the degree that they would abandon their own child; and I thought maybe it wasn't their sensibilities. Maybe they were all just selfish, shallow people, and I can still feel good about my decision to remove all toxic people from my life. Maybe it's a blessing that I might never know when any of them die.

And I thought of my own mortality. I coughed. I thought for the umpteenth time, that I should quit smoking. It was the last thing left on this "take good care of yourself" train. Addiction to cigarettes is so hard to conquer. I've stopped smoking a large number of times, (yeah, quitting is easy: I've done it a bunch of times) and it was okay for a while, but then I would need that---what? comfort? is smoking really like having a Friend? And I know it makes my brain feel better. It's like I can't think clearly without cigarettes. A crazy excuse from an addicted smoker?

And then I thought about all the weird things that happen to your body as you get older, and how it's a little frightening. The older I get, the more frightened I become. I lament the lost years--wishing I'd known 20 years ago, what I know now. Wishing I had more time. Wishing, as I've mentioned before, that I really could live forever. (Ironic, since there have been so many times that i wished to die). So many things on the horizon, other than a mushroom cloud (if we're lucky). Things I'd like to see and experience....but as each birthday comes and goes, I find myself lying about my age more and more...and I get this dread in my gut...knowing I won't grow old gracefully. That I'll be kicking and screaming the whole way. Never mind all those big personal cosmology questions that arise about death and life and life after death. Just dealing with your own declining vessel is enough to worry about....Like when you're driving a car that starts to have problems, and then there's a whole list of problems on its heels and you know at some point it won't be worth fixing and it should just be given over to the great junk heap. Is that my fate as well?

And will I face this progressing disintegration by myself, with no one to support me, care for me, love me? (I am so thankful for my best friend). Will I live out this timeline of mine without being able to give my heart to someone who deserves it? And why is it so hard for me to give my heart away? Why don't I fall in love easily? Why is it so rare for me to even be sparkin' on a woman? That's only happened a grand total of 2 times in....god...how many years? And the first spark was doused with water pretty quickly. Well, not water. Wine. The second one--I don't know about that. It's current. I have no idea what this woman feels toward me, and I'm too chicken to ask, so I'm focusing on the friendship, which is very important to me anyway.

But amid this, The same questions continue to arise. Will I never find my PERSON? Will I meet my ultimate demise without knowing what it feels like again to be so in love with woman that the thought of her not being there aches like a case of restless legs and angina, combined. After all I've done to evolve and become the type of person who would be considered a valuable discovery for some lovely, evolved, intelligent, and funny woman out there, will it not matter? Is fate just fate? How much control do we really have over how our lives go? And I wondered if maybe my high ideals and constant concern for the practice of sound ethics has gotten me here. Is it just subterfuge? Does it really matter if I'm a quality person? Finding love seems to have almost nothing to do with how great a person you are. Rude awakening, that. Maybe I'm having a mid-life crisis.

So today I must try to coax myself back over into my concerted efforts to ignore these things that simmer on the burner at the back of my mind.

R. D. Laing, a British psychiatrist noted for his alternative approach to the treatment of schizophrenia, once said, “Life is a sexually transmitted disease and the mortality rate is one hundred percent.” I wish I didn't resonate with that quote quite so much.

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*Latin for "out of many, one."

Brain Dump: Mortality & Meaning

Immortality or Something Like It

The concept of Eternal life (aside from the usual religious variety, and that of the usual vampire tale) is one fraught with profound implications. In the novel, Steel Beach, by one of my favorite authors, John Varley, these implications are explored in a unique way. After an Earth invasion, and the escape of survivors to the Moon, humankind again thrives, though they are now living on Luna, and their environment is provided inside high tech bubbles that maintain breathable air, and when they venture to the surface outside, they have to wear special space suits.

What if modern technology could provide us with instant medical cures and corporeal repairs? What if people could live 200 or 300 years, and almost everything could be fixed? What if you could have your gender changed as easily as you can go get a spa treatment? In Steel Beach, this gender switching, elongated lifespan, an Artificial Intelligence of a "Central Computer" that monitors everything and takes care of it, even on an individual basis, along with a government that provides for the needs of all its citizens, has resulted in a wave of depression and suicidal tendencies. These people find that there is no challenge, no sense of life as something tenuous and precious. The least creative of the bunch seem to suffer most, because they run out of things to be interested in, saddled with such a long lifespan.

Still, were those glitches somehow removed, i can say i would love the idea of living, without the aging process, a life of hundreds of years. I've always felt there is never enough time to do and be and investigate all that life is. I can always find something to be interested in and am sometimes depressed by the idea that i won't have enough time in one life to explore it all. It sort of pisses me off.

In the real world I live in, people who are okay with their lives, at peace with these things that don't exist for them except in some future incarnation, also seem to be those who have vivid memories of childhood. It's as if they are more aware of all the years they've lived. But since i can recall only scant snapshots of my younger years, I wonder if there's some correlation between those who can remember their current past and those who can't. Those folks can really feel their accomplishments in a visceral way--watching children grow, seeing the results of their parenting, getting the gold watch, seeing their stocks pay off, getting a raise, having the house, the new car, the financial security, the deepening partnership with a mate...my only sense of accomplishment seems to rely on the next book I have in print, the song i write and record, the next picture i paint, sculpture i create...and without those trappings of "success" to go along with them, it's an exceedingly personal accomplishment, without a great deal of validation given by others--it would take major validation like having a mainstream publisher and contract, or having my art placed in a gallery (I've only done that once), or someone famous recording one of my songs, since i am not chasing that musical fame train anymore. Why is validation important? I suspect it is because it helps engender a sense of PURPOSE.

Common among the usual variety of people in Varley's future world, is the statement: "I can't wait for a day when i can have a vacation, sleep in, stay up late, watch movies, socialize, rest, do what i want." That's MY LIFE EVERYDAY. So i am missing that purpose they get in day to day activities... they are missing that free time to do what they want, but i am missing the purpose. The grass is always greener syndrome. Why can't just doing it for the sake of it be enough for me right now? Is it because life is so limited? Is it because i can't remember a lot of it? Or because I feel I've lost those years and will never have them back, because my body will change, and i will get older and feel the effects of aging, and not enjoy things as i used to? (I'm actually in better shape physically than i have been in the past). Where does this mortality fear come from? Why is it so hard for me to be peaceful in about the limited time I'm given?

In one of the original Twilight Zone stories, "Time Enough At Last" the author (who is, incidentally one of my relatives) writes about how the world as it was known, has pretty much ended, and there's one man left on Earth, with nothing to do but read. Finally, he can just camp out at the huge libraries and read all those books he would have never had time to read before....

Then his glasses get broken.

He can barely see without them.

So, our bodies betray us, and the Universe or God often seems to betray us, when all we want is to do what brings us joy; to just wallow in the Pursuit of Happiness. Is that too much to ask? Why do we have to trade something we don't want to trade to have it?

Immortality or Something Like It