Stand and Stare

 

 

 

A small group of members gathered last week to share self-penned anticipatory obituaries. My personal contribution featured three such life passings, one each for distinct lifetimes, with reference to catching the proverbial bus, as in waiting for, riding on, and getting off. Our discussion piece might especially resonate with those nearing the getting-off stage (click: Everything Is Fast).

It is then that the first two lines of that W.H. Davies poem ("Leisure") might finally come to life:

A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

There was no time to stand and stare when you were "full of care" waiting for the bus, from that first breath through the process of becoming “civilized.” You were captured prey, pretty much told what to do, how to think, who to be. Your grades revealed your progress. You were convinced that the choice of career and whom you marry would largely define your future. Your hamster-wheel existence was largely consumed by checking the boxes, more reflex than reflection. Don’t fret about missing the present, though, as the future would no doubt take care of itself. So went that obituary.

You’re now on the bus. Good grief, this is what I was preparing for? Whence came all those featuring blows of chance? Babies arrive and parents die, opportunities come and go, friends fade in and out, you’re as healthy as your last diagnosis. Is all this ultimately for the good or bad? (“Maybe Yes. Maybe No. We’ll see.”) Where, indeed, is this bus going?

Don’t bother to ask where it’s going, as the bus is moving too quickly to even know who’s driving. Welcome to internet speed. You’ve long abandoned the notion of living life deliberately, the way you might have once fancied back in your eighth grade english class. Who's kidding whom about escaping to that cabin in the woods or to that family farm or, for that matter, anywhere out of your cozy but isolating technology womb.

Things should ease up in a few months. Or maybe not. That raises the prospect of acedia, a condition in which the mind and soul are no longer at peace and seek to escape. The afflicted are allergic to even the idea of stillness. Blaise Pascal once said the sole cause of man’s unhappiness is his inability to sit quietly in his room, as this inability leads to the constant seeking of distractions and external validation, ultimately hindering inner peace and happiness. This obituary might read: he constantly paced and hated vacations.

Enter the spiritual dimension. We are introduced to another way of being by seeing the world more in terms of a question than as a project. The antidote to that restless paralysis is the courage to stand before what is not of our own making. The foundation of agency, you see, is contemplation. Real transformation is rooted in the ability to surrender to life’s mysteries.

This final obituary might thus read: he stood and stared through the window for what proved to be the most poignant trip of his life journey.

Please note the following RSVP Policy for Member Monday: RSVP sign-up opens up at 11:00am on Fridays via the City Club weekly Newsletter. Seats are first-come, first-served: the first 14 secure a spot at the table, the last 3 on the couch. Cancellations must be made 24 hours in advance or the standard Social Lunch rate applies.