Locally Infinite

I’ve always admired William Blake’s poem “To see the world in a grain of sand”. Although it has helped guide me through life, I find it more and more useful right now. How heaven, I discover, really is in that dandelion brilliant yellow in my lawn .

Our consumer culture has few advocates for common local miracles. No money in that! You must buy some exotic bloom, visit some distant garden, watch a feature on TV. The farther you travel, the more you spend, the more rare something is, the more the universe will smile on you.

But that grain of sand is composed of star stuff, the end result of billions of years and massive forces, just as much as any mountain, however high. In the proper frame of mind, just as inspiring. With proper regard, just as beautiful and meaningful .

And importantly for elders – more confined than we were in youth – that dandelion and that grain of sand are right here, right now. I need go nowhere. Simply open my mind and appreciate existence. The best things in life may not be free, but the definitions of both are flexible .

I’ve gradually become able to focus on the local. To be grateful for anything I can sense or think about. To truly appreciate “eternity in an hour” .

Mortal Moment

In a Roman triumphal procession, a slave rode the same chariot as the honored general, constantly whispering “remember, you are mortal”. Useful tradition. Perhaps we should reestablish it for our politicians and plutocrats. Death is still the great leveler .

I have both elements residing inside me. Logic is my general, domineering all it surveys, proud and glorious and quite imperiously smug. My body, on the other hand, plays the part of the slave and constantly reminds me of my true condition. Sometimes, like those slaves of old, it rises up in revolt to make me take notice .

For example, yesterday I had a couple of small bowls of potato chips for lunch, breaking my normal diet. The grease and salt combined for excruciating pain in the afternoon. These days, If I overdo a bit too much, I will strain joints, pull muscles, ache, lapse into a tired semi-consciousness.

Logic plans brilliant maneuvers and says “why not?” Body has the tragic answer .

I’ve learned to accept it all as part of the messaging of my universe. An easy (or relatively easy) way to control dangerous hubris. Even painful reminders can sometimes help put other good things into perspective .

The battle of the potato chips is over. Perhaps not a victory, but a good lesson in strategic dreaming .

Bartleby

Melville’s office clerk began to increasingly tell his employer “I would prefer not to”. Eventually he became unemployable. I find myself in a similar frame of mind. Although the “employer” side of my brain is equally horrified .

There are an awful lot of “terrible things” trying to gain our attention each moment. As massive as a dinosaur asteroid, as ultimate as a bioengineered plague. As tiny as residue cellular pesticides. As improbable as effects by electromagnetic environments. Partisans keep screaming I must know about these things! “We must do something !”

“I would prefer not to”. I don’t mind so much learning of people’s fears. They can be entertaining. Perhaps some are true, perhaps fewer have any importance. But I am convinced there is little I can affect. So I let them slide by without impact on my emotions or daily happiness .

It’s an old philosophy, encountered at all times and everywhere. Stoic acceptance and withdrawal. Religious mystics from ancient India to Catholic monks. Sit quietly as the world turns and burns.

And yet – life is magnificent and precious, and what we do can matter locally. Each moment counts in our universe. Not caring or moving at all is death, and early rejection of the gift of life.

That’s my employer mind talking, of course. It is right.

Sometimes.

Bugs and Features

When I was writing software and something unexpected would result, we’d laughingly claim “it’s not a bug, it’s a feature!” I’ve often applied the same logic to my own life, rather than complaining about things that usually cannot be fixed.

For example, I’ve always been nearsighted. I actually enjoy taking my glasses off to view the world in a different way. Lines and shapes may be blurred, but other things such as colors are richer and I often notice different focal points .

Being short is hardly fun in this culture, but it did keep me out of trouble since I knew I would lose any fight I was in. My genes fit my size well to keep me mostly healthy, and lately it’s been a blessing to be small in cramped spaces like airplane seats. And, often, it is useful to be unnoticed and non-threatening .

The various degradations and pains of advancing age are never any fun, but if they are minor and temporary they do remind me to appreciate whatever remains. Nothing makes one appreciate normal teeth more than a toothache .

Admittedly it is a shallow, pollyannish or Panglossian view of “the best of all possible worlds” But like many philosophies, when it fits it works very well. Why waste time cursing fate, or gnawing outlook with envy? Some ambition is useful, some anger cathartic, some pain unbearable. But for the rest – well I prefer to try to change perspective .

Features, not bugs!

Equilibrium

Balance and equilibrium are often regarded as synonymous, but I regard balance as more static, equilibrium as dynamic. A rock perched on a pinnacle is balanced. A healthy pond is in equilibrium.

That boulder will not move until something disturbs it. A tightrope walker, on the other hand, maintains equilibrium with constant adjustments or plummets off the wire.

So when we are told to balance our lives, it’s not very useful. Maintaining dynamic social and personal equilibrium is what’s essential. Work, friends, wealth, health, and so – all the usual suspects in constant movement, tension, countertension, and adjustment .

I realize that I’ve exaggerated somewhat. But my point is that whatever one labels it, the condition is fragile and when lost hard to regain. Once that boulder rolls into the valley it would take stupendous and often impossible effort to put it back. As far as a tightrope walker …

We live in a crowded world of homeostasis where we usually take equilibrium for granted. Sometimes that causes us to do rash things with consequences far beyond what we intend with one relatively minor effort. Once equilibrium is destroyed it may never return in the same form. Just review any ongoing ecological or social disaster .

I’m grateful for the massive, seemingly effortless, equilibriums in my own life, and try to be conscious of how fragile they are .

Certainly Flexible

In our teenage years, we become convinced we know everything and are consequently certain we are always right. We may learn more as time goes on, we may change our minds, but we remain just as certain all the time.

Science constantly tries to break this tendency. The worst scientist is one who knows what, how, and why. In many other careers, it is equally important to acquire knowledge, apply it, think out of the box, and flexibly move on to better understanding .

On the other hand, in society and politics, changing one’s mind is a “flip-flop” and a sign of horrible dishonesty. “How can you have deceived me so?” Friends, families, elected representatives are supposed to remain frozen in attitude and belief, as we once thought we knew them .

It’s understandable. After all, the core of a society must be relatively conservative to function at all. We need to believe that lives have fundamental organization. Total chaos is unsustainable .

The only thing worse than an ongoing movement in what we are certain of, is to be frozen at one point until a sudden internal revelation forces us to reject all that we know, start over, and be absolutely certain, once again, that we are right in whatever new belief.

Like most of our leaders .

Aging Sitcom

One of my semi-schizophrenic personalities has always enjoyed viewing my life as an ongoing situational comedy. Sometimes an office nerd, sometimes a “father knows best”, sometimes a secret Van Gogh. Currently, I play the star role as a bumbling senior gradually losing his edge .

Surely it’s helpful to laugh at the minor problems that come with age, rather than raging against the inevitable. Not finding the right word is common with anyone, but frequent as I near eighty. I walk in a room and wonder why I am there. I miss the usual moves in the kitchen. I stumble when I stop paying attention. And I often sit, doing little, not even wanting to do more. All that can only make me smile. Another cute episode .

Fortunately, I’ve been spared real tragedy so far. That will require a different viewpoint, I suppose. Although media long ago learned to twist horror into entertainment . Perhaps my secret selves will be able to do the same .

In the meantime, the laugh track adds spice and softens fear. I regard it as part of the glorious ability to enjoy a constantly changing existence . So I am more forgetful, clumsier, or less ambitious. Hopefully not too dull. Each day, hopefully, to be continued. Not at all ready for the grand finale yet .

Now, exactly where was I? And what was I trying to say?

No matter, chuckle and move along .

Self Limits

The young have sharp genius, grand ambitions, keen senses, and a clear mind. Those of us fortunate enough to age a long time find all the facilities dimming and eroded. We claim to be more experienced and wiser, but (even if true) it is not a great trade-off .

Visual artists generally notice these problems acutely. Sight is not as sharp, arthritis limits actions, muscles tremble. We notice the “decline” in the late works of most of them. Renoir with brushes strapped to his hands, Monet with nearly abstract water lilies, and oh so many who just stopped when they could no longer produce quality work .

But times change. Visual art is less bound to “reality” and any clumsy effort can be advertised as what was planned. I’ve taken a slightly different approach. I am drawing what I see and how I can do, not what anyone else sees and can do . I’m not in competition. My glory is in being unique, including accepting all the limits of being elderly .

Sure, that’s a self-serving rationalization. Pretending to be talented is not the same as being so. But the other thing about being old is that none of that really matters. That is simply a joyous activity filling time with art .

Finding my current limits, and using them as well as possible rather than concealing them or pretending they don’t exist is a kind of fun game. And I happily use it in other areas of life as well

Joy

In my same moments, I simply rejoice in being conscious and aware. A perfect enchanted unity. I reject the artificial division of body and mind, and the still more degraded notion of defining mind as logic. Down that useless path wanders the progress of AI .

We need not celebrate life itself so much as awareness. True awareness, of course, is built on life. An organism that is aware in any sense possesses consciousness. Without running off to deeper metaphysics, I find my own consciousness the ultimate glory of all I am .

Logic, after all, is a barren brittle construct. The joy in solving a puzzle has nothing inherently logical about it. The joy is an awareness of having achieved a solution .

My heresy is to claim that awareness – enabling that joy – requires life, requires a body. Whatever we’ve constructed without life will lack that. No joy. No awareness. No consciousness. Logic will exist, but never the actual exuberance of being .

I have a short “objective” window of existence as measured in years, although my subjective time feels infinite. During that opportunity, I joyfully seize the world and myself in the universe .

I pity those unaware of their own precious gift.

Science has value, as does logic, but that value is hardly logical. Without resort to dry ancient or futuristic metaphysics, I am free to expand into infinity.

New Year

I claim to love living in the Northeast because of the seasons, but the more likely truth is because I grew up here. I do like natural markers of time, such as a noticeable solstice to indicate when winter begins, and the cold weather affecting my usual walks and yard work .

This year has been snowier and much colder than recently. Flu season is immense, and has affected me in spite of vaccination. I sit housebound, almost happily, and rejoice that I live in an era of abundant energy and goods .

I usually enter December wrapping nostalgia around the previous 11 months. At my age if I do not take care the entire past blends into a golden glow, and I quickly forget recent highlights. I accomplish my memory scrapbook with internet cleanups, visits, all the holiday chores and rituals .

And then – January. Looking forward, and during winter but spring is in view. New season tasks popping up already – taxes, travel plans, medical appointments. And a few items – not quite strong nor large enough to be considered resolutions – having to do with lifestyle, hobby, and happiness .

At the moment, however, I look out at snow, cough frequently, and too often say to myself “maybe tomorrow”. I guess concentrating on enjoying each changeable moment is also one of the benefits of very noticeable seasons .