(My Philosophical Evolution) This version (2.0) is my inner work of systematic deconstruction, deconversion, uprooting, and dredging up a lifetime of deep-seated conditioning, ingrained beliefs, and embedded dogma, much of which has been unconscious;
discerning trash from treasures and thoughtfully reconstructing a world and life view that reflects the shape of my heart.
As I go deeper and beyond, answers fade into questions, certainty into uncertainty, knowing into unknowing.
“Transience is the force of time that makes a ghost of every experience. There was never a dawn, regardless how beautiful or promising, that did not grow into a noontime. There was never a noon that did not fall into afternoon. There was never an afternoon that did not fade toward evening. There never was a day yet that did not get buried in the graveyard of the night. In this way transience makes a ghost out of everything that happens to us.”
— John O’Donohue (Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom)
We build our lives around permanency. Retirement savings is assumed to be permanent security. Homes and families are built on the human construct of permanency. Careers, income, and possessions . . . all create a sense of permanency.
I wonder why that is? We know that nothing is permanent. We trick ourselves into believing that stuff is permanent. But down deep we know it is not. We’ve seen it.
Everywhere, everything is dying. Flowers, grass, people, skin … everything is dying and making way for new life. New life is only possible if things are in constant flux, constantly changing, dying. New creation and new life come from chaos and death. This is the way the world is designed.
“Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have.” — James Baldwin
Saint Benedict said, “Daily keep your death before your eyes.”
It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart. (Ecclesiastes 7:2)
In the face of death, the straw man burns. When I realize that “no one gets out of here alive”, not even me, it makes me stop and wonder, really question, what am I doing, who am I, and what am I leaving behind . . . because no matter what, I am leaving. Nothing is permanent, including me. Nothing. So why do I cling so tightly to social status, to possessions, to money, to my home, to my family, to my life??? And on a level deeper yet, why do I cling so tightly to my loves, my desires, my abilities, my strengths, my gifts… for nothing is permanent… it all fades away.
Do I fear death so much that it makes me shun silence in this life? From silence I came. To silence I will return. But while I’m here, I make noise as much and as continuously as I can. I stay busy, I keep moving . . . Smell the roses? What roses? Take time? I don’t have time. I have to get here, get there; “too many people to see, too many places to go, too many ways to get there” (Lyrics by Bill Cooper).
Do I fear silence because it brings me face to face with reality, with me, with my end, and the silence thereof?
Why do I fight? Why do I fight what is inevitable? Why do I fear what is inevitable? I don’t fight the air that I breathe. I don’t fight the sunshine. I don’t fight the wind passing through my hair. Why do I fight the great circle of life as the old things pass away to make way for the new?
Why linger when there is no longer a reason for life?
Let go and let come.
That is the key to all of life.
Let go and let come. Befriend all of life.
Embrace the darkness so that I can fully appreciate the light.
Embrace the cold so that I can fully appreciate the warmth.
Embrace death so that I can fully appreciate life. “The living should take this to heart” while we can.
“An awareness of death is an ally for infusing our lives with a sense of immediacy, perspective, and proportion. In acknowledging the reality of death, we can more fully appreciate our gift of life.” (p. 121, Voluntary Simplicity, Duane Elgin)
IMMEDIACY: Making death an ally makes me realize that what I say is not as important as what is seen in my life. I must join soul and role, words and actions.
PROPORTION: I don’t need the lion’s share, I only need my daily bread. I’m not the center of the universe, I’m a grain of sand on the beach of the universe. It is not about me.
PERSPECTIVE: It is not about accomplishing things, it is about being. What I accomplish in this life is a chasing after the wind. Who am I? Who am I really?
“We need but look into the cemetery and see the ten thousand upturned faces; ten thousand breathless bosoms. There was a time when fire flashed through those vacant orbs; when warm ambitions, hopes, joys, and the loving life pushed in those bosoms. Dreams of fame and power once haunted those empty skulls . . .. Approach the tomb of the proud man; see the haughty countenance dreadfully disfigured, and the tongue that spoke the most lofty things condemned to eternal silence . . .. Behold the consequences of intemperance in the tomb of the glutton; see his appetite now fully satiated, his senses destroyed and his bones scattered” (p. 590 of the book, The Royal Path of Life, 1877 as quoted by Duane Elgin in Voluntary Simplicity).
https://youtu.be/eog8csgE1N4
“We do not need to grieve for the dead. Why should we grieve for them? They are now in a place where there is no more shadow, darkness, loneliness, isolation, or pain. They are home.”
— John O’Donohue (Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom)
When O'Donohue says "home" I see this as referring to being where we belong, where we all go after death in a very inclusive and humanistic way; probably joining the rest of nature in the dirt, or fire and ashes, without any consciousness or awareness. But, who knows, maybe somewhere that death takes us as so many of our human myths say. Who knows? Who cares? What will be... will be. What is... is.
Let's face the monster in the closet and see that the closet is only a closet and stop creating monsters to be afraid of in death so that death can be a part of the circle of life, nothing more, nothing less.
Conquering this monster illusion in death also shatters our facade in life. We hide because we fear that which we do not understand; the unknown, the different, etc. Living without fear, without hiding, is very freeing. It lets us live lives that are real, natural, and human.
“Transience is the force of time that makes a ghost of every experience. There was never a dawn, regardless how beautiful or promising, that did not grow into a noontime. There was never a noon that did not fall into afternoon. There was never an afternoon that did not fade toward evening. There never was a day yet that did not get buried in the graveyard of the night. In this way transience makes a ghost out of everything that happens to us.”
