HAPPY ENDING
Sunday Dec. 8, 2013
Our future – we can mold, direct, create. And flourish we will. Our accomplishments, enjoyment and value cannot be calculated until later, at the end of it, but I think there is plenty of time to make our lives a work of art. Time to tell our story. Time to make and execute plans. Some of us will do better than others. Some will last longer. Some will be happy. Some not. Some will be together always, or for a while, and then they’ll all be alone. Old. Stone cold. Over, ended and quickly forgotten.
Life doesn’t make sense, until it does.
And then it doesn’t.
Then it does again.
It never ends until it does and then it doesn’t matter, but until then it matters plenty.
Sadness, madness, laughter and joy – opposite coin sides, ends of day or beginnings that collide with endings.
Recent discussions and ruminations leave me examining – as I think we all should from time to time – value of life from a ‘what would things be like if we had not survived?’ perspective.
Suppose your life ended.
It didn’t, but for purpose of a discussion – what if it had? If you’d died in childhood, how would the world, and those who matter to you have been? If you died last week, how would you be remembered?
Well, you didn’t – you survived. So did I.
My point?
If we view our life be ‘what we’ve done’, we will either bask in self-praise or sit under the cloud of self-loathing, but we must remember we cannot change a whisker of that. Not a bit.
But, our future?
That, we can shape!
Mark Kolke
200,704
P.S.: yesterday I made an error .. sorry . it was 27 years, not 28. But still, a long time.
column written/ published from Calgary
morning walk: -14C (wind chill -23c) / 7F, strong north breeze – ordinarily a formidable combo, but compared to recent days, downright balmy; light snow overnight and still falling (how can that be when the sky above me is blue?), drifting over the cemetery, smoothing out every dent, ripple and rut to make a new crust, obscuring everything under it from view, perhaps making those old dead bones warmer under a fresh blanket of insulation
Comments Received:
Happy re-birthday. Take care, BB, Vancouver, BC
Good morning, Thinking of you today as you honour what you sometimes call your "quiet" day..., SB, Calgary, AB
Mark: It takes courage to share personal secrets which is one reason why your muses are compelling, PL, Calgary, AB … PS “All of us are in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
Congratulations on your anniversary!, CJ, Fort Saskatchewan, AB
It is always admirable, to me, when a person recognizes those things in their life they must be shed of. The courage it takes to recognize and admit those temptations is far greater than actually setting them down and removing them from our daily decisions. I salute you for having recognized yours. Glad you didn't decide to analyze the whys and wherefores of the hold the disease had on you in an attempt to correct the outcome. Simply put the glass down and leave it empty. Wish more people could do that with their "Waterloos" in life. Would make for a happier world. GW, Brady, Tx.
My mind always seems to return to the saying, "no one will remember how quickly you did something, they only remember how well you did something." Some of your musings resonate with my thinking with fewer words and some scream out loud for more words to help the understanding of them. I think we can all agree that your readers all relate to life as you know it and get so much out of your self analysis with as many words as you choose to use. Concentrate, please, on life and not the length of it or the relating thereof. Thanks though for thinking of us. GW, Brady, Tx.
