Life is short
Saturday, January 1, 2011 at 8:15PM 
We think of life as a continuous string of events, where in fact life simply happens, in instances that are not measurable with time, that occur out of the blue and make a lasting impact - lasting in our minds, not in reality. When we get pissed at it, when we try to rationalize why shit happens to us, when we refuse to believe it does - life doesn't change, it keeps happening. We never think of picking out the right color for our casket, or the type of wood it should be, or the kind of ceremony we would like our friends to arrange, or if we want to be cremated or buried as food for plants, a la naturel. We hope we will have a happy-ever-after always, without any interruptions, but then - bam! - we get hit by a truck one day, and we remember that life just is - one moment we're alive, another we're dead. And we can be pissed all we want about it - once we are thoroughly dead, there is no way back.
Several days ago I got hit by a truck. I had plans, I was excited about the New Year's celebration, I was obscure to anything bad ever happening to me - life was too good! I didn't even get scared - I was bicycling home on a very dark road, and I saw a truck pulling out of a narrow drive-way, assuming it would stop - when it didn't. I got pissed and I yelled at the driver. I only remember huge lights moving close fast, and seeing the fine rows of the plastic that covers the bulbs and protects them from the elements and other hazards. The actual impact was beyond my memory. If I would have died - I wouldn't have noticed. I might as well be dead now - but I am not. That would have been an easy way to go - but I didn't. It would have been an easy way to be crippled for life, but it didn't happen. Was I lucky? No such thing - simply another way we try to explain things to ourselves and why they happen. What happened then, and why? Nothing happened - we simply collided on our two life roads - the driver was on his and I was on mine. We happened to do it in a faster speed that people usually do, being confined to metal contraptions called a truck and a bicycle. Could I have swerved? Perhaps. Could he have stopped? Perhaps. Is there any use in mulling over what could have, would have, should have? No use at all. I only check what is happening now - I am alive, I am heavily bruised, no bones are broken. People say it was a miracle, at this speed, and at this collision factor involving me being completely unprotected. But was it a miracle? No. It was another event in a string of events that happen to us in life - like the bump in the road.
We wake up and send someone a message - bump. We walk on the street and look someone in the eye - bump. We hit someone with our elbow when stepping off the bus - bump. We kiss or hug someone we feel in love with - bump. We hit someone because we're angry - bump. A brick falls on our head or we get hit by a truck - bump. What do we do in between? We engage our brains in a game called "let's analyze the shit out of it and then maybe next time we can avoid the bump completely". Yeah, good luck. It only works to a certain extent, but we forget that we change, other people change, life changes - and whatever we have learned might not work anymore, yet we faithfully stick to it. It's hard to let go. It's hard to spread our arms and fall back, knowing that there might be a pile of pillows, or there might be a pile of rocks, and we will only find out at the instant of hitting it with our back. Ouch. By then it is too late to change our strategy, or come up at all - by then it's time to mend the broken bones. I try not to get caught up in the thinking about wheel chairs, or cut-off legs, or deformed face, or stupefied brain. I try to live it out, one moment at a time, shift my weight from what happened and from what will happen - to - now. I am alive now, I function, and life is short. I better take advantage of it and live it instead of thinking about living it, safely looking out the window, fully protected and decked out in the latest gear, surrounded by the latest danger detecting gadgets.
Photo by Anna Milioutina.
Reader Comments (2)
I think that we sometimes have a tendency to try to look at events in life from the perspecive we assume is outside of life - life is too short, life changes, but in the end it doesn't matter.
But it does matter.
We are here, we get to make choices. We rationalize because we are actually in the maze and not outside it. Ever noticed how much easier it is to rationalize someone else's problems, being external to it? We are not human without each other, and we need both the bumps and the analysis, I think, to really appreciate the life we are in until we no longer get to have it.
Like martial arts, the important part is not the forms you learn while practicing, but how you teach your body and mind to react when real situations arise. The goal is not to be perfect, it is to be enough. To do your best and accept that is what you could do...becuase letting go has a place too.
Beautifully said - thank you for your thoughts. I didn't think of it this way, but it makes sense.