When I originally set up this site, I never intended it to contain my serious thoughts on life. I had a vision of sharing funny stories from my interactions with people – sort of a long form version of the kind of thing that I usually share on Facebook.
Somehow, it never really got to be that. Rather, it has turned into a place where I share thoughts that might be too dark, or too controversial for that platform.
If that’s what it wants to be then, so be it.
Several years ago, I shared the following post on Facebook. A friend had died from a drug overdose. The news shook me to my core. He was a really good guy, extremely successful, generous, smart. And he died alone, sitting on the floor of his kitchen, with the needle still in his arm.
Thoughts on Life
Not my usual sunny self this morning, apologies for that.
The passage below is from a novel that I read when I was 13 or 14 years old. The details of the story have long faded, but these paragraphs have tickled at the back of my mind ever since.
Events of the last month or so have caused it to bubble back up to the front of my mind.
“…and too many others were gone, and I sought chill comfort in an analogy of death that has been with me for years. It doesn’t explain or justify. It just seems to remind me how things are.
Picture a very swift torrent, a river rushing down between rocky walls. There is a long, shallow bar of sand and gravel that runs right down the middle of the river. it is under water. You are born and you have to stand on that narrow, submerged bar, where everyone stands. The ones born before you, the ones older than you, are upriver from you. The younger ones stand braced on the bar downriver. And the whole long bar is slowly moving down that river of time, washing away at the upstream end and building up downstream.
Your time, the time of all your contemporaries, schoolmates, your loves and your adversaries, is that part of the shifting bar on which you stand. And it is crowded at first. You can see the way it thins out, upstream from you. The old ones are washed away and their bodies go swiftly by, like logs in the current. Downstream where the younger ones stand thick, you can see them flounder, lose footing, wash away. Always there is more room where you stand, but always the swift water grows deeper, and you feel the shift of the sand and the gravel under your feet as the river wears it away. Someone looking for a safer place can nudge you off balance, and you are gone. someone who has stood beside you for a long time gives a forlorn cry and you reach to catch their hand, but the fingertips slide away and they are gone. There are the sounds in the rocky gorge, the roar of the water, the shifting, gritty sound of the sand and gravel underfoot, the forlorn cries of despair as the nearby ones, and the ones upstream, are taken by the current. Some old ones who stand on a good place, well braced, understanding currents and balance, last a long time. A Churchill – fat cigar atilt, sourly amused at his own endurance and, in the end, indifferent to the rivers and the rage of waters. Far downstream from you are the thin, startled cries of the ones who never got planted, never got set, never quite understood the message of the torrent.”
–John D MacDonald; Pale Gray for Guilt
I wish he had taken it further
Something about this analogy grabbed me by the gut the first time I read it. I had to put the book down. I had to try several times before I could get through it without tearing up. He so powerfully captured the frailty of life, the uncertainty, the ultimate powerlessness.
As an adult, I wish he had taken it further – there are those who would *push* you off, either for their own gain or through inattention or lack of caring. Sometimes our bad judgment causes us to slip, and fall from our place. There are those who stand on the edges, who separate themselves physically and emotionally while they consider whether they should just go ahead and jump.
It’s not all despair and hopelessness though. We can make the best of the time that we have, even while recognizing that our time is finite. Most importantly, there are things that we can do to make the best of our situation. For some people, life just assigned them a shitty spot on the river – too sandy, too unstable. But we can reach out to those around us, link arms to improve our stability. And the magic is, that supporting others makes our position stronger too.
Reach out. To your friends. Your family. To your neighbors. Your community. Care about others – and let them care about you. Understand that everyone has demons, and some are better than others at fighting them. Say something.
Don’t just look.
See.
Photo by terren in Virginia
Leave a Reply