It’s almost become cliche. Actually, it has become cliche. We’ve turned a profound question of introspection into one that bounces off our exterior, often finding it hard to penetrate the wanton shrouds we place on our every day life. Still, though, the question remains a powerful one, even if it seems lost to the swirl of our common personal insanity.
What would I do if this is my last day on Earth?
I ask mys elf this question while sitting in a whirlpool of daily existence, head throbbing with the weight of the day on my shoulders.. This time, though, I want to answer it honestly and without reservation. I truly want to discover my long-hidden truth.
The first thing that I realize is that I would not be wasting time as I do. I would not give a fuck about my job, although I would still care about the people I serve. I would not care about the mundane things I give so much attention to. I waste so much of my life in the mundane, struggling to grasp at golden rings that always seem just beyond my reach. I spend much of my life threading water in a mundane pool of worry. There, I worry about what would happen if my car broke down, or I got sick, or if something happened to one of my beloveds. Perhaps knowing that this would be my last day on Earth would free me from such worries. Perhaps I’ve enshrouded my life with so many veils of worry that I can’t see what life is anymore. Perhaps my throbbing head offers me an answer.
Yet it seems I’ve started answering the question of what I would do by suggesting what I wouldn’t do. That seems to be because I spend so much of my time doing things I would not do if faced with the end. Perhaps there is a sapling rose in the weed-filled garden of my life, a garden that I first must weed just to get to the flower. Maybe there is so much shit in my way that a clearing is necessary. It’s time, perhaps, to burn the fucking thing to ash just to clear out the trash. Maybe that is what my response is telling me. End the patterns that have never served you well, and let those that do bloom in their sacred majesty. Let me now pull out the most easily pulled weeds in my garden.
So, I would not be sitting at this desk wishing I was on a trail somewhere. I would not be looking out this window at the gorgeous blue skies wishing I was under them unimpeded by the glass, wood and nails of the box I am in. I would not be sitting alone wishing those I love were near, sharing in the glory of the moments we share alive and in health. I would not be asking myself questions the betray the misery of American human existence. I would not need to learn, or teach, or ask for the truth. I would just live, and life itself would be my teacher, my instruction and my honest breath.
I would be making love in the mud, dancing in the rain, searching for the rose in the weeds. I would be laughing an honest laugh and walking the hardest trail. I would hold your hand with all the vitality of a man in love with his mortality can muster. I would hold your face and kiss you with the knowledge that I don’t have many of those left, and I would cherish that kiss with all the attention it deserved. I would hug those I love with a heart wide open, and they would return the love because they, too, realize the frailty of our interaction. I would bask in such glory, having found heaven in my midst and hell in knowing I would be leaving it all behind.
I would write my book without the distraction that lives outside my soul. The words themselves would shout with the exuberance of a wild beast in his element, and they would shake your heart to its core. You would feel a pulsing in areas that may have been long-dormant and I would quake with you in an ecstasy of connection. You would tingle, and I would dance, and that majesty would wake up the world to a truth we’ve often left lost in the madness of our distraction. That rose would bloom in being free from the weeds. Free to bask in the sun of its day and the moon of its night.
If only I had the courage.
This morning there was such a sweet meditation. I was walking in a beautiful and lush valley, teaming with life and basking both in the light of the Sun and the shadows created by a ring of high mountains. I loved the way I felt in the valley, allowing the chill of the shadow to give the warmth of the light its meaning. My fingertips draw funny shapes in the dew that clings to the large leaves, and my eyes close in a silent prayer as nature plays around me. I can hear a distant waterfall mixing with the rush of a spring stream and I wonder if there is anything else I could want.
Those mountains. Their peaks begin calling out to me with a siren’s song, That is where I need to be. My heart pleads for me to go, but my feet sit idle. My soul screams at me to move, yet my mind stays still. All of me wants to sit on their summit, all but the part of me that needs to make it happen. That part of me holds firm to what it knows, what it was taught, lost in the fear of what lies just beyond. I am sure the view is beautiful. I am sure the climb is majestic. I am sure that the thought of moving scares the shit out of me.
My god, if I only had the courage.
I am awakened from this vision. Swirling in that brew created with parts of thought, parts of soul, and parts of heart is a stew meant for great consideration. Perhaps there would be no fear if this was my last day on earth. Perhaps the views would worth my final breath. Perhaps the climb would be worth each drop of sweat left in me. Maybe I could rise from this valley I feel stuck in if only I had no repercussions to face. Then I wonder what the repercussions would be if I stayed and failed to climb the mountains that promised at least a view of the promised land.
Now, however, I have no time to think about such things. I have to get to work, to meet my responsibilities. I have to bathe in mundane waters that keep the trail dust from settling on my skin. I have to hide in this box telling the world that “I am just like you” while knowing I am not like them at all. I have to lie just to find the truth, and I have to reconcile my wild nature with rules I had no hand in creating. If only I had the courage I’d have if I knew this was my last day on Earth. If only I could move.