Your entire life, death is with you. You know it’s coming. It knows it’s coming. It’s just a matter of when.
Death is your neighbor, and one day, he’ll come over. The funny thing is when he does, you’ll be the least affected.
“Interesting expression, ‘taking your own life,’” Sherlock Holmes once remarked. “Taking it from who? Once it’s over, it’s not you who’ll miss it. Your own death is something that happens to everybody else.”
We tend to think death is the worst thing that can happen to us, but actually, it is the worst thing that can happen to the people we love. Our death, that is.
When we live in fear of death, we often try to take ridiculous precautions, like working hard to build “a legacy,” whatever that means, or amassing a fortune we’ll never get to spend. Ironically, we might neglect the very people who’ll bear the brunt of our departure in the process.
You, in the park, feeding the pigeons You cheering for the bees
You with cats in your voice in the morning, feeding cats
You protecting the river You are who I love delivering babies, nursing the sick
You with henna on your feet and a gold star in your nose
You taking your medicine, reading the magazines
You looking into the faces of young people as they pass, smiling and saying, Alright! which, they know it, means I see you, Family. I love you. Keep on.
Nick Cave, lead of the rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and author of The Ass Saw the Angel (to name only a few of his accomplishments) writes the Red Hand Files, a newsletter for his fans to ask questions.
His writing is informed by the loss of his young son, who died from a fall while climbing in England a few years ago.
Below Nick responds to Valerio, a mother who is concerned about passing her current cynicism on to her son.
Following the last few years I’m feeling empty and more cynical than ever. I’m losing faith in other people, and I’m scared to pass these feelings to my little son. Do you still believe in Us (human beings)?
I have been an independent and voted for both Republican and Democrat candidates for decades, so a Republican in office doesn’t throw me. But after listening to Trump’s masterful manipulation during and after the campaign and his “snort and lifted-chin leadership approach” coupled with his flagrant abuse of power, my psych background got the better of me and, yep, I am stepping into the political ditch again.
So here we are – in a mess. And here we deserve to be, folks.
Many Republicans behind closed doors actually acknowledge that Trump is wacko. But the desire for personal power has become more important than their character or their ultimate place in history. Bottom line, the politicians who put their better judgement aside in order to remain in power are now our country’s most visible pimps and most of their constituents their prostitutes.
“You Vaccinated?”
I was in a grocery store this week wearing a mask when a man in the neighboring check-out lane shouted across the way at me, “Hey, are you vaccinated?” I nodded that I was. At which point he came toward me, aggressively yelling that he relied on God to keep him safe and that I was daft to be wearing a mask.
Really? In Whole Foods??? This kind of brazen aggression starts with one’s mouth but isn’t far from ending with one’s gun. It’s what causes me to agree with those who fear there will be blood in the streets before “it” is over.
The Exhausted Majority: How did we get here?
I read a piece this week about our country’s “exhausted majority,” reminding me as did columnist Frank Bruni, that Trump didn’t win the majority of the vote.
So how did we become such an inept blithering complaining powerless majority, so disillusioned that many of us are becoming disinterested?
We could chalk it up to the fact that we are all a bit ADD, but more importantly, I don’t think anyone ever thought the United States of America could sink this low on so many fronts.
A Worthy Consideration
A friend recently suggested Congressional decisions should be presented and debated in chambers that include young children. That is, all presenters and debaters should have to look directly at young children’s faces and declare the policy they are defending is good for each child’s future– and provide the specifics as to why it is.
It may seem like a limp start – but it’s better than anything I have thought of lately.
Oliver Burkeman got me again. He is just good. From a psych perspective as well as from Mid-west common sense: remaining positive at all costs is a ridiculous goal because the “plane has already crashed!”
Read his take, lift your head and find some joy in the middle of the dreck we face daily.
You can do it!
Yep, a lot is definitely wrong but think about it, and then ask yourself: “Right now, what is going right in my life, right now?”
Oliver Burkeman got me again. He is just good. From a psych perspective as well as from Mid-west common sense: remaining positive at all costs is a ridiculous goal because the “plane has already crashed!”
Read his take, lift your head and find some joy in the middle of the dreck we face daily.
You can do it!
Yep, a lot is definitely wrong but think about it, and then ask yourself: “Right now, what is going right in my life, right now?”
Oliver Burkeman got me again. He is just good. From a psych perspective as well as from Mid-west common sense: remaining positive at all costs is a ridiculous goal because the “plane has already crashed!”
Read his take, lift your head and find some joy in the middle of the dreck we face daily.
You can do it!
Yep, a lot is definitely wrong but think about it, and then ask yourself: “Right now, what is going right in my life, right now?”
Are you finally old enough to stay in bed on a Sunday reading until noon?
I have had this guilt thing over doing nothing my entire life. It probably comes from my Midwest roots – roots deep into the mindset that if you aren’t working you are worthless. The mindset that whispers “if someone rings the doorbell you had better have a dust rag in your hand when you answer or the neighbors will know you are a slacker.”
But these cultural attitudes don’t come out of nowhere.
There was a reason farm people never stopped working: they never knew what “done” felt like. There was always something more that begged for their time.
In today’s world of modern appliances, innovation and technology, we do have the luxury to simply kick back for a few hours now and then and not work.
I know I will always “look for work” (as a friend of mine recently said), because I love to experience what my work brings into reality. But I have decided that I can stay in bed on a lazy Sunday morning and read until noon.
Oliver Burkeman addresses this subject in the Guardian this week. He says it better than I just have. Enjoy!
