Taking our lives in our hands
As I start this journal entry, it has no title because I'm not sure of all the ground I'm going to cover; I know it will be wide and deep. Perhaps the entry will have a title before I'm done.
About 6 weeks or so ago, a friendly acquaintance sent me a letter via Facebook, telling me that I'd helped make his life over the last few years well worth living, that he appreciated my friendship. I was delighted, if a little surprised, at this outpouring. I knew that he was getting ready to deploy overseas--he's in the military, with the Army Corps of Engineers--and would be gone for a year. We see each other annually at Norwescon, as we did this year, though we didn't get to spend much in the way of quality time; we didn't have a real visit for any number of reasons. We don't know each other very well, but well enough to have fostered a certain friendly affection--we each give good cocktail party talk, flirtationally (it's a word now) we each give as good as we get, and have learned a little about each other's lives over the last couple of years. He lives, I have learned, in a very different world than I do; I want to learn about that world because, in some senses, my friendship with him is a kind of experience of the Other that is rare. My primary reason to spend time and keep in touch with him, though, is that we like each other and have much in common. We've just experienced it in very different ways. I thanked him for the note, expressed my surprise, and he said that I shouldn't be surprised; he meant every word of it. A couple of days back, he texted me a picture of himself in camo, saying he was about to head out--he'd see me in a year. I told him to be safe and to come back in one piece and asked for an address where I could write. He promised one when he discovered where he would end up. I just received his Skype address. And suddenly his friendship is that much more precious to me.
I have friends who are veterans, but with one or two exceptions, their friendship came in the wake of their service, not during same. It has been said that convention friendships are years long and weekends deep; in this case, that is absolutely true. The convention space fosters strange, intense connections because of the kinship created by shared enthusiasms and shared energy. And so as this friend departs for parts distant and dangerous, I am worried, I am hopeful, and I am watching his Facebook page and email/texts to see whatever news may come.
As I temper my concern, I am put in mind of another friend who has decided that the best course for his life is to engage in life-threatening behavior as a recreational activity. There is nothing about what he is doing that is harmless. It is behavior in which he engages with complete awareness, provides momentary pleasure and comfort, and could kill him. I was ferociously angry when I learned about it, and terrified for him, and I find that I'm angry, still. I have compassion for him, I love him, and I understand why he does it, but none of that matters to my anger (or maybe the love does; maybe that's why I am so angry).
So here I have a friend who goes willingly into life-threatening danger for a cause larger than himself, and another who thrusts himself toward danger for the comfort and the thrill. I have friends who fight for their lives every single day as a result of illness over which they have no control. And I consider the idea of taking one's life into one's own hands.
It's a strangely vivid phrase, as if life were a tool--a knife, a plow, a wrench, a brush, or a pen. I think about the ways in which I have taken my life into my own hands: my travel, my weight loss, dating, editing and writing. Deliberate choices, all. They are such different ways of doing this thing that they could almost be said to be entirely different from the things I talked about above, and yet they are not. All of these choices are about behavior, about control--about, well, living. Sometimes, even when we think we've got control or we do things that guide this wild horse we ride every day, it's beyond us. That's what my dating life--what little there is--feels like sometimes. No effort at finding a permanent partner has ever panned out; it preys on me, lately, quite a bit. My travel has resulted in enormous rewards for me; I suspect it will continue to do so. True of my creative life, too, for the most part. My work life has always felt like a mixed bag, so much of it out of my hands. We control what we will, what we feel like we can.
I suspect--no, I know that there's a point beyond which we have control over nothing. That places greater weight on the choices we make that we can control. Which means we might want to be thoughtful about those choices. If we have one life to get it right, then we ought to make those choices mindfully. I don't suggest that there should be no spontaneity or serendipity; they are vital and necessary to a life well-lived. The unexpected opportunity, the magnificent discovery are what makes it all worth it. But we have to be present for those things, present physically, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually.
I'm not sure where all this thought is leading to. I know I want more direction than I have. I feel like, at my age, there ought to be more than there is. I look at these friends who have made choices to do these dangerous things, and part of me feels like, well, at least they made a choice, whether or not I agree with it. I look at friends who are monstrously ill and see them making choices about how they live, about how they'll die, choosing directions, taking their lives into their own hands.
Sometimes I am desperately afraid of that. Sometimes I desperately want to do it and don't know how. Sometimes I think what I don't need are hands to take control, but gills, fins and a tail to just keep swimming, as if movement itself were a kind of control--as long as I'm moving, I'm making decisions and taking control without overthinking the process. Maybe that's the key: to not overthink it. (Um, to the person writing this, I say, "Have you met me?")
If life is a tool that we take into our hands, the question becomes the greater one: what do we do with it? I want to create: love, art, family. I want to build. I want to make rhythm, rhyme, vision and thought. I want to foster experience--my own and others'. And I do want to move in some direction. I still haven't figured out which one yet.
About 6 weeks or so ago, a friendly acquaintance sent me a letter via Facebook, telling me that I'd helped make his life over the last few years well worth living, that he appreciated my friendship. I was delighted, if a little surprised, at this outpouring. I knew that he was getting ready to deploy overseas--he's in the military, with the Army Corps of Engineers--and would be gone for a year. We see each other annually at Norwescon, as we did this year, though we didn't get to spend much in the way of quality time; we didn't have a real visit for any number of reasons. We don't know each other very well, but well enough to have fostered a certain friendly affection--we each give good cocktail party talk, flirtationally (it's a word now) we each give as good as we get, and have learned a little about each other's lives over the last couple of years. He lives, I have learned, in a very different world than I do; I want to learn about that world because, in some senses, my friendship with him is a kind of experience of the Other that is rare. My primary reason to spend time and keep in touch with him, though, is that we like each other and have much in common. We've just experienced it in very different ways. I thanked him for the note, expressed my surprise, and he said that I shouldn't be surprised; he meant every word of it. A couple of days back, he texted me a picture of himself in camo, saying he was about to head out--he'd see me in a year. I told him to be safe and to come back in one piece and asked for an address where I could write. He promised one when he discovered where he would end up. I just received his Skype address. And suddenly his friendship is that much more precious to me.
I have friends who are veterans, but with one or two exceptions, their friendship came in the wake of their service, not during same. It has been said that convention friendships are years long and weekends deep; in this case, that is absolutely true. The convention space fosters strange, intense connections because of the kinship created by shared enthusiasms and shared energy. And so as this friend departs for parts distant and dangerous, I am worried, I am hopeful, and I am watching his Facebook page and email/texts to see whatever news may come.
As I temper my concern, I am put in mind of another friend who has decided that the best course for his life is to engage in life-threatening behavior as a recreational activity. There is nothing about what he is doing that is harmless. It is behavior in which he engages with complete awareness, provides momentary pleasure and comfort, and could kill him. I was ferociously angry when I learned about it, and terrified for him, and I find that I'm angry, still. I have compassion for him, I love him, and I understand why he does it, but none of that matters to my anger (or maybe the love does; maybe that's why I am so angry).
So here I have a friend who goes willingly into life-threatening danger for a cause larger than himself, and another who thrusts himself toward danger for the comfort and the thrill. I have friends who fight for their lives every single day as a result of illness over which they have no control. And I consider the idea of taking one's life into one's own hands.
It's a strangely vivid phrase, as if life were a tool--a knife, a plow, a wrench, a brush, or a pen. I think about the ways in which I have taken my life into my own hands: my travel, my weight loss, dating, editing and writing. Deliberate choices, all. They are such different ways of doing this thing that they could almost be said to be entirely different from the things I talked about above, and yet they are not. All of these choices are about behavior, about control--about, well, living. Sometimes, even when we think we've got control or we do things that guide this wild horse we ride every day, it's beyond us. That's what my dating life--what little there is--feels like sometimes. No effort at finding a permanent partner has ever panned out; it preys on me, lately, quite a bit. My travel has resulted in enormous rewards for me; I suspect it will continue to do so. True of my creative life, too, for the most part. My work life has always felt like a mixed bag, so much of it out of my hands. We control what we will, what we feel like we can.
I suspect--no, I know that there's a point beyond which we have control over nothing. That places greater weight on the choices we make that we can control. Which means we might want to be thoughtful about those choices. If we have one life to get it right, then we ought to make those choices mindfully. I don't suggest that there should be no spontaneity or serendipity; they are vital and necessary to a life well-lived. The unexpected opportunity, the magnificent discovery are what makes it all worth it. But we have to be present for those things, present physically, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually.
I'm not sure where all this thought is leading to. I know I want more direction than I have. I feel like, at my age, there ought to be more than there is. I look at these friends who have made choices to do these dangerous things, and part of me feels like, well, at least they made a choice, whether or not I agree with it. I look at friends who are monstrously ill and see them making choices about how they live, about how they'll die, choosing directions, taking their lives into their own hands.
Sometimes I am desperately afraid of that. Sometimes I desperately want to do it and don't know how. Sometimes I think what I don't need are hands to take control, but gills, fins and a tail to just keep swimming, as if movement itself were a kind of control--as long as I'm moving, I'm making decisions and taking control without overthinking the process. Maybe that's the key: to not overthink it. (Um, to the person writing this, I say, "Have you met me?")
If life is a tool that we take into our hands, the question becomes the greater one: what do we do with it? I want to create: love, art, family. I want to build. I want to make rhythm, rhyme, vision and thought. I want to foster experience--my own and others'. And I do want to move in some direction. I still haven't figured out which one yet.