Thoughts from an Eight Dollar Chair
I sit in an eight dollar plastic chair on a balmy, late spring day, and I begin thinking about death. I notice that I don’t find the thought particularly sad or dreadful: I just ponder how I might cease to exist in this incarnation.
It occurs to me, from the vantage point of my eight dollar chair, that my soul has been rather quiet on this matter of being; or perhaps, it is that I have not listened well. I have probably been too busy doing all of the things involved in mindless living, things which I recognize as insignificant, now that I am considering eternity. It is strange to think about eternity at this moment of my life – as though it is only relevant at the end of life – and perhaps beyond.
My entire life, this moment and all of the moments before now and beyond, are parts of my eternity. Perhaps, I should have had eternity in mind when I was making all those choices I’ve made – especially those made without regard to consequences. And yet, if consequences are the stuff from which eternity is made, then all of my choices and subsequent experiences need not be re-evaluated, just recalled and used to guide me into wherever I choose to travel as I continue on this journey through my eternity.
It is quite obvious to me now, on this particular day and from this eight dollar chair; all that really matters is this moment in time. I hear (or is it feel?) the message, “Let go of the past – all of it. Your future is bound to now – your next experience, your next feeling are now-bound. You are creating your own eternity. Choose well…”
The Dying Man
I talked with an old man who was dying. He is every man, but he has become more. He has become aware that he is a feeling-man and a thinking-man. The only man he isn’t is a doing-man. His doing man is tired, worn out, and used up.
He reminds me of yet another trinity – the feeling-man, the thinking man, and the doing man. He said that we can be more than one of these men, but seldom at the same instant, and if we are more than one part of the trinity at any given time, we are, and only then, as much a man as we could be.
Now that I am old, I think more mindfully and I am more sensitive to my feelings. When I was a young man, I didn’t always put doing and thinking in the proper sequence; and of course, I had to conceal the influence of my feelings. What kind of man allows his feelings to affect his thoughts and actions? On this day, I think and feel…a good man.
Random Thoughts
I saw the minute hand move and accepted the passage of another fragment of the final days of my life.
I heard the train blowing its warning one early morning, and I awakened from my sleep in the final days of my life.
The little white dog scuttled across the carpet, alarmed by some insignificant sound, and it. too, marked another of the final days of my life.
Along the course of my daylight walk, I thought about the final days of my life, and it was then that I realized that each day, the beginning of each day, each train’s early morning warning, and the movement of the minute hand on the clock have always marked a regular, though insignificant part of the passage of the final days of my life.
I saw the hour hand’s nearly imperceptible movement and I accepted the passage of an even greater segment of the final days of my life. The clock, the train, the little white dog, my morning walk are all measures of the inevitable.
It pleases me to know that I can think dispassionately about the final days of my life; I know that my personal moments and my casual observations go unnoticed by others. Those private moments and observations are significant in their insignificance to others, for they mark the final days of a life that is uniquely mine.
The Stage, the Play, and the Player
One of the tragedies of my life is that I shall be forever known as who I was. As though the passage of time has not had its effect and created of me someone renewed as a result of the unending synthesis and analysis of a lifetime of experiences. Perhaps, it is a greater tragedy when I slip into the role that others expect me to play. It seems obvious to me that the play has been rewritten and so my character with it. And, the greatest tragedy is that I have given up trying to be who I would like to be, for in that character I believe myself unacceptable to those with whom I perform. Perhaps, the play is not yet finished, and in the final scene, I will have the opportunity to play myself, as I have created myself, as the author, and not merely someone whom the play has cast.