ENDGAME
Saturday, Sept. 28, 2019
The last chapters of life are often likened to the 3rd act in a 3 act play – final act, where all that drama concludes, it’s where the lesson is stored, and the surprise ending explained. I’ve oversimplified, but you get that, don’t you?
Would your life make a meritorious newspaper story?
I was reading a lovely essay in the Globe & Mail obituary section recently.
Most obits are short, some a bit longer, because somebody is paying to run it for a day or two, sometimes three. But on the weekends the paper runs its own long pieces on famous people – and nobody has to pay.
I don’t like 3rd act thinking. I want my 4th. No pasted-on epilogue, but a full 4th act. This 3rd act I’m in is undoubtedly no slow-train to some dead end. Rather, re-group time, re-invigorate time, and re-imagine time. Time, indeed, to be younger, thinner, smarter, faster, and more fantastic than ever. Life can be like a chilled bowl of Jello on a hot day. Life is better and longer than you might think. Think more very long thoughts.
Maybe, when I’m gone, they will do a whole page, or perhaps half – yes, half would be excellent, because that way my family would be spared that expense. That could be my new motivation – to live my 3rd act, and then my 4th, in such a way that my family will be spared the cost of an obituary because the Globe will want to print a half-page. That’s something to live for, don’t you agree?
I want to live my life more abundantly than ever.
Much more.
