Deliberations on the Way to the Gallows
To the young, Santa Claus and Christmas morning are like the mystery religions of old. As the secret followers of Dionysus or Mithras looked into darkness with blindfolded eyes trying to see a light that did not reveal itself in their own shadowed world, so too do children wait with grasping eyes for Santa Claus' wake.
Like catching a glimpse of a ghost, every child knows this is a thing they are never meant to see, but also as a ghost, they believe that perhaps they will be special, that perhaps they will be the one to catch sight of that grail of childhood.
One day, of course, the cherished illusion is destroyed. The magic mirror we sought to find our true love in shatters into a million pieces, impossible to glue back together. Our faith is tested, and although we put on a brave face, in truth a small part of ourselves goes hard and cold to protect ourselves from the inevitable disappointments of the life that is to come.
On that day that some of us stop waiting for Santa Claus, we start waiting for death. There need be no morbidity in this; rather, it is on that day that we at last understand the truth, that as childhood has an end so too will there be a day when our physical selves live on only in the memories of us left behind in the hearts and minds of others, or in the monuments we have built, or even simply in the molecules of corpse-dust left behind to become the stuff of life for others that will follow in our own wake.
Every step we take, every choice we make brings us closer to that inevitable day when Death at last takes our outstretched hand in her own and leads us through either the Gate of Ivory or the Gate of Bone.
In the face of this realization, some of us deny both future and past. As the philosophers would say, Carpe diem, live for the day, scorn both consequence and responsibility, and damn those who seek to shackle your thoughts and deeds in the prison of accountability. We justify our existence only in terms of the present moment, and seek to escape time by denying it.
Others of us descend into despair, the inevitable future of our own cessation hanging over us as a twilight hammer, crushing our hope in the present, the ring of its unsounded blow echoing into our thoughts and deeds. What is the purpose of anything when it will all someday be swept away? Anything we do is a fleeting zephyr, an echo of wind that will be scattered like ashes upon the sea.
Some, few of us, see behind this truth another truth, that present, past and future is an abstraction. We chop time up into pieces, naming this one a day, that one a year, but these divisions are of our own making; what exists once exists always. Existence itself, action itself, are what matters.
Most of us, of course, wander between these paths and others as we walk our path. We may seek solace one day in the embrace of ignorance, while the next grasp a precious moment of satori where we see the chimera for what it is. We step forward, one step at a time, one choice at a time, weaving the threads of our own identity by the fact of our existence. We make our own truth by our actions, and by those actions, both hero and knave we take Death's hand.
Like catching a glimpse of a ghost, every child knows this is a thing they are never meant to see, but also as a ghost, they believe that perhaps they will be special, that perhaps they will be the one to catch sight of that grail of childhood.
One day, of course, the cherished illusion is destroyed. The magic mirror we sought to find our true love in shatters into a million pieces, impossible to glue back together. Our faith is tested, and although we put on a brave face, in truth a small part of ourselves goes hard and cold to protect ourselves from the inevitable disappointments of the life that is to come.
On that day that some of us stop waiting for Santa Claus, we start waiting for death. There need be no morbidity in this; rather, it is on that day that we at last understand the truth, that as childhood has an end so too will there be a day when our physical selves live on only in the memories of us left behind in the hearts and minds of others, or in the monuments we have built, or even simply in the molecules of corpse-dust left behind to become the stuff of life for others that will follow in our own wake.
Every step we take, every choice we make brings us closer to that inevitable day when Death at last takes our outstretched hand in her own and leads us through either the Gate of Ivory or the Gate of Bone.
In the face of this realization, some of us deny both future and past. As the philosophers would say, Carpe diem, live for the day, scorn both consequence and responsibility, and damn those who seek to shackle your thoughts and deeds in the prison of accountability. We justify our existence only in terms of the present moment, and seek to escape time by denying it.
Others of us descend into despair, the inevitable future of our own cessation hanging over us as a twilight hammer, crushing our hope in the present, the ring of its unsounded blow echoing into our thoughts and deeds. What is the purpose of anything when it will all someday be swept away? Anything we do is a fleeting zephyr, an echo of wind that will be scattered like ashes upon the sea.
Some, few of us, see behind this truth another truth, that present, past and future is an abstraction. We chop time up into pieces, naming this one a day, that one a year, but these divisions are of our own making; what exists once exists always. Existence itself, action itself, are what matters.
Most of us, of course, wander between these paths and others as we walk our path. We may seek solace one day in the embrace of ignorance, while the next grasp a precious moment of satori where we see the chimera for what it is. We step forward, one step at a time, one choice at a time, weaving the threads of our own identity by the fact of our existence. We make our own truth by our actions, and by those actions, both hero and knave we take Death's hand.