Thursday
Aug192004
Thursday, August 19, 2004 at 8:14AM
Random Thoughts on Life and Death
Today I ran. It was warmer today and much more humid. The haze resembled fog and seemed to soften and quiet the normal early morning sounds. I ran hard and the sound of my breathing and the feel of the street hypnotized me as I went along my route. When I got home, I walked my geriatric dog. He has been falling more and more lately and has lost most all control of his bowels. I find him more and more on the floor, helpless to stand, with piles of poop around him. He often gets it all over him and I have to clean him and the floor. I think about when he was a puppy, full of life, bright eyes and coil springs for legs. Now his hind leg muscles have withered and he stands as a wobbly old man.
Then I watered my plants. The annuals are beginning to show their age. Mother nature exacts her price. What were once thriving, lush plants have grown spindly and have shriveled some. Their blooms are but a shadow of their earlier glory only a month or so back. Soon the fall annuals will appear in the garden centers and these plants will be replaced with new ones. It has been this way for many seasons. Everything has its time; its glory and everything will die.
I thought of the sadness and waste of death. A man spends his whole life learning, growing, building, and relating. Then, all of a sudden, it is over. My grandfather was a skilled mechanic. He could fix just about anything. He had a sense of humor. But he died and all of that knowledge went to the grave with him.
Death is the element of danger, the consequence, the due date, if you will. If it were not for death, we would have no challenge or incentive. We are given a measure of time. We know that time is limited so we do not sit on our rear ends or if we do we never accomplish anything. Life is not fair, but it is pretty predictable. There is a time to learn, a time to live and develop, a time to share and pass on what we learned, and a time to leave. We will all die. Death, however, is not as tragic as an unlived life. Some never live because of fear or self-consciousness. Some never live because of anger and resentment. "The soul afraid of dying never learns to live." A life can be wasted on addictions like drugs or alcohol. Life is surrendered to the pursuit of a feeling one's actions only make more impossible to obtain. Freedom comes from surrender. True wealth arises from letting go. Attachments imprison us. Have you ever felt that your possessions really possess you?
Somewhere there is a new puppy full of life with bright eyes. He has coil springs for legs and he will carry the torch Hobo lays down. My grandfather passed on a lot of himself to his loved ones who have handed it off to others who would listen. This is how we live on. Our influence proceeds our departure. Life will go on, if we live the right way, it will go on better.
Until the next time
John Strain