Precious

 In her poem, “The Summer Day,” Mary Oliver asks, as everyone who’s ever been in the greeting card section of Wal-Mart knows, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

As I sit here on Midsummer’s Eve (which oddly enough, occurs in spring—remember that for your trivia contests), I’m perfectly happy to answer: enjoying a Swiss cheese on rye sandwich while watching a World Cup soccer game between two teams I don’t really care about.

Granted, that’s not ALL I will do with it, but for now, it’s sufficient.  Of course, before the season is out, I hope to realize my essential nature as identical with the fundamental ground of all being and with any luck, make a major contribution to solving the homelessness crisis, but in the meantime, mustard, mayonnaise, relish, tomato, lettuce, and Swiss does the trick.

You only live once—thank goodness—so you might think that one’s plans for this wild and precious instantiation ought to be about maximizing experience and accomplishment at every moment and there’s much to be said for that, of course, especially if you’re in the business of selling vitamin supplements or even college course, but there’s also plenty to spoken about in favor of a life that isn’t treated as nearly so precious.  

Consider one, by contrast, that’s just kind of everyday, one that’s more like the flatware and less like the silverware, one that you don’t have to worry so much about breaking, one that stands up to day-to-day use and can still do its job even if cracked and dented a bit.

What this looks like in practice is open to interpretation, but perhaps it opens the proverbial door to such possibilities as afternoon naps, beach book reads, the occasional bout of day-drinking, and maybe even watching sporting events that one doesn’t care particularly much about in the basement on a sunny day just before summer begins.

Nothing

I suppose you could do something, but why?  

The sun’s going to deplete its fuel in a couple billion years, become a red giant, and burn up the entire solar system, so what’s the point of yard work, really?

Besides that, (and much sooner), global thermonuclear war is looking pretty likely, so I can’t see why one ought to reorganize their sock drawer, even though it’s kind of a mess.

Plus, I’m going to be dead in a couple of decades, so does it really make sense to spend the limited time I have left taking bags of books and clothes to Goodwill?

Plenty of great art created by human beings has already been created; I’m certainly no Shakespeare, but even I were, I’d already have more than three dozen classic plays in my oeuvre; would another couple really make a difference?  Probably not.

It might be noted that there is an endless number of social or political causes that are worth fighting for, but as a pacifist, how can I do so?  Much better to remain peaceably ensconced in this here easy chair, right?

Some say that we are put on this earth to fulfill a purpose, but that suggests that there is something or someone who’s in the business of handing out said purposes.  That’s a job I’d consider doing, but then how would I know that that was my purpose since I was the one handing them out?  Who shaves the barber, you know what I mean?

Passing on one’s wisdom to future generations might be a thing, but given how royally screwed things have gotten during this lifetime, it’s probably better for everyone if I don’t even pretend to have anything of value to impart.  Let it end here.  Or over there behind the bushes as the case may be.

None of us ever asked to be born but if we had, Dolly Parton would likely have a lot more kids. 

Thanks, Mom!