DEPARTURE LEVEL
Wednesday Nov. 6, 2013
Do we each have an Achilles heel, some fatal weakness in spite of our overall strength?
Weaknesses, of course!
Fatal?
Given we’ll all die, I guess the question is whether we let our deep-rooted failings be the cause, or not, the catalyst, or not, the downfall of us, or not.
Can’t our troubles – ones we carry with us be our cause of life rather than our cause of death?
Troubles, like so many turds, can just pile up and pile up, and the only person responsible for dealing with them is I/me or you.
We have to clean up our own piles or bulldoze through them and leave them far behind us.
Our choice.
Our actions.
Nobody else.
Somewhere in the fine print in the back of plane tickets (when we still had them) or on the back of old boarding pass, those disclaimers told us about risks we took, that nobody else was liable for our misfortunes. Each was written by three lawyers specializing in gobble-speak. Now we find those disclaimers on everything from a coffee cup to an amusement ride, everywhere we look – we PROCEED AT OUR OWN RISK.
Because life has danger, risk and trouble in it – and there is always somebody or some corporation telling us it isn’t their fault. They aren’t responsible for our misfortune in any way, even if they had a hand in it ~~
Thank you, especially, to our lawyer friends … we owe you a lot, but please – don’t consider reading this as a billable hour.
Seriously, there is no guarantee of anything – written or implied – that we can count on.
We can’t count on life, on others, on software, hardware or people to work, work out or work for us as promised. Ever.
The only one we can count on, truly, until we die – is us. Yes, I/me or you, only ourselves can be trusted, reliable, responsible, accountable – for anything. The rest is illusion created by clever magicians and long stretches of fine print (thanks again to the lawyers) leaving us believing we can count on something. We can’t.
We can ship our troubles to Mars, leave them behind us as we escape for parts unknown – or we can face them, one annoying diddlysquat fecal dropping at a time.
Life without them seems impossible – perhaps absurd expectation.
Life requires us to be s-turd-y, not by avoiding it but by confronting it.
I remember good old days where an extra bag didn’t cost extra when flying – smile and thank you would usually suffice.
Now, it seems we pay dearly for every extra bit we haul with us. Too many of us, I fear, are paying a price for our baggage without actually going anywhere. What a glorious mess we make – and when we stir this all up it doesn’t land back down, neatly folded in a suitcase ready for storage, or for shipping away.
I’ve thought I should write down every thing I’ve ever done wrong, put that all in a small suitcase – then ship it off, addressed to myself to General Delivery at some remote post office in small out post of civilization I’ll never visit (middle of the Australian outback come to mind), then mail it off without a return address. Like a note in a bottle sent out to sea, a way of getting all of that away from me . . .
Or maybe I should send my baggage on a plane ride in one direction while I go off in another.
How much baggage are you carrying?
How much am I?
Some people burn symbols of bad memories in fireplaces or fire-pits, or dispose of them in the ether – texts to wrong numbers, emails to non-existent addresses, or conversations with imaginary friends, counselors, priests, barbers and bartenders . . .
Would any of those methods get by baggage/issues/people out of my hair, out of my life and off my plate? How about yours?
Baggage – as I mean it here – is what I would describe as the package of self-doubt, second-guessing, re-hashing, re-living and not-escaping every mistake we ever made. Every bad idea ever pursued, every good one passed-by, every good person let out or fired from our life, every bad person let in. Every regret ever had, every hurt inflicted on anyone that we didn’t care to fix, every injury ignored or left unattended, every rose garden ever left untended . . .
Moving forward without a bag of rocks lashed to our feet or a heavy pack on our back, that’s the ticket.
Q: Am I cooking with life-juice?
A: Yes.
Our lives can take-off for destinations that would amaze even Joseph Conrad fans, in search of what they’ll find beyond the lagoon . . .
Departure time is all-the-time.
Or, wait in the terminal.
Your choice.
My choice.
Nobody else . . .
Mark Kolke
291,460
column written/ published from Calgary
morning walk: -3C/26F, sunny and calm, footing still treacherous .. Gusta seemed to get enough exercise – I need more today but I think mall-waking will be safer and easier on my Achilles …
Comments Received:
THANK YOU ! From the deepest place in my heart for this perfectly timed post. Ah, I love when that happens ! Go Mr. Possible ! Best, DP, Waltham, MA …. p.s. I have commented before, many moons ago. I read your post every day, it’s an automatic daily routine that I look forward to…
Good for you for sticking with it! Maybe try more of a grey approach instead of an all-or-nothing approach. Nothing is forbidden - this seems to add an extra special allure to the 'forbidden' food. Make healthy choices when possible, keep the tough-to-moderate foods out of the house, and if you do indulge in something - make it good, make it a smaller portion and really enjoy it - sit down and focus on it and savour it. If you try to say you're never going to have XX food again, it makes it hard not to focus on XX food. But if cookies are allowed when they're really good cookies and you have to make a special trip to get one, you'll enjoy it even more and be more likely to make healthier choices to allow for said indulgence. Just don't keep those really good, tempting cookies in the house ;) You're doing great - awareness is one of the most important steps. If it were easy, everyone would do it. :) CJ, Fort Saskatchewan, AB
