Nest

Here’s a cliché observation: you spend the first two decades, more or less, of your child’s life trying to get a moment’s peace from them, but then, all of a sudden, the tables are turned and you’re trying to get them to hang out with you for even a minute.

Cue the cheesy Harry Chapin song: “Cat’s in the cradle and the silver spoon…”

Of course, it’s not all bad; there are increased opportunities for day drinking and you can extend that practice into the evening with impunity.  Also, no more having to attend Curriculum Night at their school.

But it is a little lonely to be sure.  After all, you’ve spent countless hours just being their for your young one and now they no longer need you; what to do with all this time on your hands?

You could take up needlepoint or model airplane building.  You could help out at the local soup kitchen.  You could write short essays about your experience that few may ever read.

Traditionally, I believe, one takes this opportunity to begin nagging one’s child to have children; you start pushing hard for grandkids.  I’m not quite ready for that, although I’m sure I’ll be an ace grandparent; I already have the collection of Pendleton wool shirts needed for the job.

One of the main things about this new phase of life is how clearly it illustrates the futility of all existence.  If you’ve done your job as a parent halfway decently, you’ve effectively worked yourself out of the picture. 

The whole point of the exercise is to render yourself superfluous.  And for those of us who have long harbored suspicions about the essential absurd pointlessness of the human condition, it really brings it home: perhaps the entire reason any of us are here on planet earth is to be done with the whole thing.

Admittedly, I’m being slightly morbid here; but why not?  I certainly have the time for it.

Weird

Human beings are strange creatures.  We congregate in places where we can pay to derange our consciousness slightly and watch images move around a flat screen as proof positive of an artificial reality, and then we care about what happens as if it really matters.

What?

I know, from days of watching football like this, that no one really determines the outcomes; we are all an expression of a huge tidal wave that could be construed as an expression of the eternal intermingling of various forces. 

It’s nice when your team wins, but rooting for that to happen is kind of like cheering for the sun to rise—not necessarily something to be frowned upon, but surely something that has no more effect upon the outcome than does wishing for tomorrow to come.

How strange it is to be so powerfully motivated by pictures of mere ideas; nearly none of it matters in the least, and yet so much of it seems like that’s all there is.

When you juxtapose what you really care about with what’s only a slight preference, it’s easier to see that the former only differs from the latter in your own heart; you can observe others being ridiculously excited by what you disdain; that’s both reassuring and humiliating, depending on your sense of humor about yourself.

Change is inevitable and yet, what qualifies as change keeps changing as well.  Just when you think you have something figured out, you realize that you don’t, which means that you do, which means that you don’t, get it?

The idea that it would be better not to have been born at all seems correct here, but given that we have been, then what is one to do?  May as well make the best of things, even if what is, in fact, superior, remains a logical possibility.

It ends up being what people care for, weird as those all things that we care for may be.

Naturally

My dog sleeps around sixteen hours a day, so I’m not going to feel bad about languishing in bed until nine, when I didn’t go to sleep until midnight.  Granted, she is the equivalent, in human years, of age 77, so I probably ought not to compare myself to her too much, but I can take from her behavior some inspiration—although not when it comes to sniffing the behinds of other dogs.

There’s no doubt that any of us could be a better person—even the Dalai Lama probably reads some trashy fiction from time to time; the point is to calibrate one’s goodness with an appropriate level of self-interest.  Maybe I can take from the religious model a kind of tithing standard: if I spend ten percent of my time in meaningful pursuits, that will be sufficient.  Thus, if I’m awake for sixteen hours on a given day, all I have to do is do something worthwhile for about 100 minutes.  Supposing my yoga practice takes an hour and a half or so, then, I’ve only got ten minutes I need to account for.  Doing the dishes a couple times eats that up, so I’m good nearly every day.

To tell the truth, I don’t really know why I worry about whether or not I’m doing anything worth doing anyway; shouldn’t it be enough to simply be a reasonably nice person who feeds his dog and doesn’t make babies cry?  After all, even on my worst days, I’m far more admirable than your average Republican Presidential candidate and a far less of a drain on the planet’s natural resources than probably nearly any Nascar driver.

It seems to me that one of the most effective strategies for satisfaction and well-being is to lower one’s standards; instead of aspiring to greatness, competent mediocrity will do; rather than feeling bad at not having achieved my dreams, perhaps I can be satisfied that I’m not living a nightmare.

Future

The future is my enemy.

In fact, it’s my number one adversary, way ahead of all others, including physics, luxury SUVs, and brunch.

Honestly, if it weren’t for the future, my life would be immeasurably easier.  I’d never have to worry about—well, anything, actually.  All my concerns have to do with what’s going to happen or not happen and if there were no future, then no concerns, voila!

Think about it: everything that’s worrisome, from the prospect of a hangover tomorrow morning, to the possibility of being broke and on the streets a few years from now takes place in the future.  All those things that bedevil you and keep your eyes fixed wide open on the ceiling at three in the morning are events that have yet to transpire—even the concern that you’ll be exhausted from lying awake all night belongs to the class of things that will only eventually occur.

If weren’t for the future, we’d all be able to live in the present; we could eat or drink whatever we want, kiss or hug whomever we felt like, do or not do anything we pleased without the prospect of any prospects.  The perfect in-the-moment life!

Anyone who’s seen the movie Groundhog Day knows what I’m talking about.  (Anyone who hasn’t seen it should immediately; it’s arguably the greatest film ever made.)

Once Phil Connors, the jaded, egoistic television weatherman, realizes that he’s living the same day over and over again and can’t die or be killed, he becomes completely liberated.  He stuffs his face with pastries, drives his car on the railroad tracks, and steals a bag of money from an armored car—each of those an item on my own bucket list!

Fear of getting fat, or of dying, or of going to jail: future events that prevent me from living life fully,

So, to the future, I say a big “fuck you!” 

I’m not gonna live by your rules anymore!

Thing

Writing is the only thing worth doing, or at least, it’s the one thing that, after I’ve done it, I feel as if I’ve spent my time well.

Compared to an hour of poking around on the internet, sixty minutes of trying to put my ideas down on (virtual) paper makes me feel as if I’ve actually done something, even if it’s something that no one else will ever read.

I still harbor the illusion, though, that my post-retirement income will be earned as a writer; I imagine that people will pay me for my words, given that they will be emanating from such an old man.

Or maybe I’ll just be dead and won’t have to worry about it.

It’s deeply confounding how much the future oppresses us.  It doesn’t even exist, and yet it’s constantly making the life that I lead today, in this moment, much more difficult.  It’s weird to worry so much about something that’s imaginary; I don’t, for example, find myself being overly concerned with unicorns, or leprechauns, or compassionate conservatives.  And yet the future, a similarly non-existent entity, bedevils me constantly.

Many people are troubled by the past; not me.  I’m enough of a determinist to cut myself a reasonable amount of slack for the choices I’ve made, given my intuition that I couldn’t actually have chosen any differently.  The future, however, seems to offer more possibilities, hence more possibilities for failure.  I realize that the choices I make or don’t make today, (even if they’re not really choices in the most robust sense), will determine what my life is like in the years to come.  Consequently, I feel like my potential for fucking up is quite high.  In fact, almost anything I do will result in an outcome far less than ideal.

So, ultimately, as far as the future is concerned, it doesn’t really matter what I do right now; may as well get stoned and buy a lottery ticket.