At fifty-five I begin to see the necessity of courage and the lie.
For years now I have been asking people about death -- mostly
contemporaries, but some older, some younger. I find almost universally
that, like me, people would perfer lying in their graves, asleep for
eternity, no longer having to cope.
The consensus is, it
(life) is not much worth it, but either they're 1) afraid to die (Are you
afraid of going to sleep?) or 2) find it (life) interesting enough, in
spite of the pain, to stick around to see what happens next. A few hypers
-- like the lovers of greed and lust -- keep themselves so busy
excercising their powers they don't think about now -- or later.
So here we all are. And it's burdensome on the rest of us for you to
act like a victim, to seem pathetic, unhappy, depressed. Keep up a front
of good cheer. Don't form anxiety in your neighbors' breast. They long
for rest, just like you. We're all sad and in pain, but let's laugh about
this joke of a world.
You'd think if God were going to think
up a world, He/She/It would do a better job than this. HSI could have,
when creating humans, made a happy, loving creature full of constant joy
and helpfulness, tested by good cheer instead of pain. HSI could have had
us test one another by happiness not hatred.
O, I see how the
pain functions: you test me, I test you, and it goes round robin. "Our
finest hour" comes out in war, earthquake, famine, flood. But it could
have been different. Or we could tell the truth: we could admit out love
of war, pain, disaster, the opportunity to show off our courage,
demonstrate our magnanimity -- if only for an hour.
Ever met
anyone who got rich and wanted to move closer to his fellows? O, many
send money from a distance, from behind their high walls and gardens. But
nobody wants a homeless human, especially not with a starving baby,
squatting under their rose bushes. Nor would one with a billion bucks in
the bank, pay her an "excessive" wage -- say enough to feed herself and
her babe -- to pick the roses, dethorn them and put them in a vase. It
would spoil her character, raise her expectations, make her love and trust
a fellow human. What DO the rich tell themselves when they see people
starving in the streets? What excuse do I use?
It could have
been different. So the last recourse is to admit we like to do what we
are doing. We enjoy the earth the way it is -- or we would change it. So
remain of good cheer. Don't haunt your family and friends with anxiety.
They, too, would just as soon be peacefully asleep in their caskets.
Make everyone's life as cheerful and pleasant as you can. Make
your own cheerful and pleasant. The goal of life is death, we'll get there
soon enough and sleep gratefully forever. Lie
still, lie quietly, no one
asked you to tell the truth.
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