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What? You Want to Live Forever?
If you die within the next six months, it will not be from the Coronavirus. Caveats for septuagenarians with pre-existing respiratory problems and/or compromised immune systems.
I cannot top @cliffordbrown or @rodin at racking and stacking the statistics and infection data about this virus. Instead, I find the all-American freak-out worth remarking on. One can hardly blame the Great American Public for its trepidation. The reporting by our junk-bond, partisan, hysterical press is one more piece of evidence for the contention that we have a garbage media. I understand that “if it bleeds, it leads,” but the hair-on-fire, doomsday plague reportage impedes our citizens’ ability to perform a decent assessment of the situation.
All that, though, is not the source of my frustration. We’re Americans; a full-fledged freak-out over a rooty-poot virus is unseemly. As quantified on other Ricochet posts, the swine flu, the bird flu, and the M1A generic, seasonal flu reap lives in numbers that are orders of magnitude greater than the Coronavirus.
There is a profound lack of perspective evident in the freak-out. Every morning when you wake, and you haven’t died in your sleep is a gift. Every morning, as you prepare for your day, you should be cognizant of the myriad ways you could face an untimely requirement to shuffle off this mortal coil. Some of the risks can be mitigated. Many can come out of the blue, and whatever risk mitigation measures you’ve employed, you’re going to wind up deader than fried chicken.
Most people, I think, are intellectually aware of the fact that they will die. Too, most are aware that their ticket might be punched far earlier than they would wish. That is a myopic view of life. One needs to accept mortality on a visceral level.
Not accepting, and contemplating, the uncertainty of life prevents a full appreciation and celebration of the gift of life we’ve been given.
Every dawn we meet hale, whole, and hearty is a cause for profound gratitude, and every sunset should evoke the same. I don’t like the term carpe diem, because it hints at an excuse for wanton hedonism (now, carpe per diem is a whole different proposition). But, one should treat each day as a gift, love family and friends as much and as hard as we can, and be ready to meet our Maker.
There is some wisdom to be gained from the philosophy of the samurai of yore. That wisdom is limited, in that upon the initiation of the Tokugawa shogunate and the melding of Zen Buddhism and Shinto, the samurai became members of a pseudo death cult. Still, I found this quote to be relevant.
Every morning a warrior should recommit himself to death. In morning meditation, see yourself killed in various ways, such as being shredded by arrows, bullets, swords, and spears, being swept away by a tidal wave, burned by fire, struck by lightening, dying in a earthquake, falling from a great height, or succumbing to overwhelming sickness. An elder warrior said, “Once out of your front door you are surrounded by death. Once you leave your gate you are surrounded by enemies.” This saying is not merely a parable, but a way to prepare for your fate.
Don’t forget to put life into living.
Published in General
Hey, isn’t that a lady’s sword? We should tell Andrew
KlavenKlavan . . .Dos Equis is a good choice when Corona is not available. It’s a reasonable second choice.
It’s supposed to taste like when I was a little kid and Dad would offer me a taste of his beer, and it would set my teeth on edge. What with all the microbreweries around here I’ve tried a lot of the “sweet” beers, as I call them, and finally decided they just weren’t right.
I’ve never heard of Dos Equis Dark. I used to like Dos Equis Amber, but you don’t see it much anymore. My favorite beer is Negro Modelo, but it’s always a struggle to keep people from putting a lime on it. I blame Corona for making people think Mexican beers are supposed to have a lime. It’s only Corona that needs that because it has no flavor.
Being as I gave up alcohol for Lent, I want to thank you bastards for so much beer talk.
One thing I constantly admire in reading you, Boss, is your commitment to discipline. I, on the other hand, gave up Lent for alcohol.
@jimbeck, I wanted to think about this a bit instead of just whipping out an answer. I don’t know what the different impacts are between receiving a date certain versus a terminal window on the human psyche when it comes to dying.
My own perspective, formed by experience and informed by reading, was gleaned during/after multiple near death events. Some of them (channeling Jules from Pulp Fiction) might not have been “according to Hoyle” miracles, but I was pretty amazed at the fact that I wasn’t dead or dying after the smoke cleared. Also, one cannot help but note in that environment that you can be exceedingly well trained, do everything right, and still get killed. The shrapnel/fragmentation from a rocket or mortar round don’t care how high-speed you are; the blast effects from an IED or EFP don’t care how badass you are. There is always a significant amount of randomocity in who lives and who dies. I guess this could lead to depression. In my case it lead to a determination to be as grateful as I could for every moment I wasn’t dead.
Back at home, the Lovely and Talented Mrs. Mongo and my kids, at various times, have seen me respond to potentially dangerous situations without getting rattled (although, you don’t want to be with me in a car if a plastic bag gets windblown off the top of a roadside trash pile). I think part of it is that I’ve been desensitized. I no longer get that chemical dump that gives you the shakes. I no longer suffer the danger breathing I call “panic panting.” I don’t think I really even have a flinch reflex anymore. I’ll be interested to see if all that comes back over time. But what I tell the wife and kids is:
I’m not even on borrowed time anymore. I’m on gifted time.
I am talking about Amber. I call the beer “dark” because I think of the color amber as that of the material . . .
Uh, can’t be. There’s no such thing.
I do like Modelo Negra, though. Yeah, the suffixes sound wrong. I have to self-correct often. It’s my go-to beer in Mexican restaurants if I’m not having a margarita.
Sorry, @bossmongo, but Lent is for penance. Sounds like it’s working. (:
Interesting.
I have no military or deliberate danger exposure that would have desensitized me, but I’ve come through a couple should-have-been-dead accidents, and been a private first responder in a couple violent crimes, and a few medical cases. In all cases, I’ve been clear-thinking through the worst, and only had the rapid heartbeat and shakes an hour or so later. Based on the behavior of those around me each time, I think my fight-or-flight reflex is defective. I’m not sure if I’ll eventually regret that.
Negra is correct rather her than Negro; but I’ve always heard it Negra Modelo. I think they’ve changed the labeling lately.
Nah, you’re not defective. You’re just not a victim of our society telling us we are expected to become catatonic when there is danger.
@bossmongo has BTDT; this seems to be the t-shirt:
I’m no tough guy.
But I’ve noticed something in the last couple of years. I run 3x/week, with ear buds, listening to music or (frequently) the Ricochet podcasts. On these runs, I will often run past yards that feature, as I’ve discovered, dogs – dogs that want to charge the fence that I’m running past and bark maniacally.
I never jump anymore when this happens. My gait doesn’t change. It used to startle me, now it doesn’t at all. As you would expect, the barking stops almost immediately if no reaction is shown. It seems to confuse the puppers, a bit, this lack of reaction. I’ll typically say out loud “Nice doggie”, too, as a little extra sauce for said woofers.
I’m not sure if this is apathy but I just don’t react anymore. Which makes me wonder why I was reacting more, in prior years. Stress or anxiety, maybe, or maybe I’ve just gotten a bit dulled to it over time.
Morning Boss,
Thanks for your reply. Another question, when you consider life as a blessing, some service folks are troubled with the question “why me, why did I survive”; this question seems to work against gratitude. I gather you view is more on amazement and gratitude, maybe increased faith. I ask this because, my wife is the best model of making the most of life I know, and this in part maybe because she has had some rather tough prognosises for almost 40 years. It seems since she did not expect a long life that she thought she would make the most of what she had. Do you think that when one fully understand that life can end at any time, that it can free one to more fully appreciate living, I do. Another characteristic she models is living in this moment. I note that she appreciates even the most common things, rather like I appreciate chewing normally after the Novocain has worn off. We understand that we all are mortal but we often live as if we are oblivious to that fact. I am not so good at living in this moment, I am often thinking about another moment, or the next movement. This is probably not so good, in that I am not so appreciative of what is happening now. Thanks for the post, it prompts worthwhile reflection.
If the doggies aren’t behind a fence, you can try saying, “Hi, puppy! Wanna go for a run?” That’s what I sometimes do when bicycling. Sometimes that’s exactly what they want to do, and sometimes I lead them a long way from home.
But some dogs have other things in mind. Sometimes it works to say, “Come, puppy!” To a poorly trained dog, “Come!’ means Not Going There. Sometimes that stops them in their tracks, but not always. Some are more determined than that. I’ve been bitten twice in the past three years, followed by the obligatory call to 911 and a visit to the ER.
In general, if some situation doesn’t startle me, it’s because of my poor reflexes.
Going riding in the fall, say in the week before deer hunting season, one can get used to the frequent sound of gunfire, as hunters are getting in some practice at rural gun ranges or in their back yards. At other times such sounds are less frequent. One gets used to it, but when I can I try to figure out where these sounds are coming from and in which direction the guns are pointed. Never been around someone shooting across the road, which would be illegal.
The simplest explanation might be that since you’ve gotten used to those dogs, they are no longer a surprise. And it may also carry over to other dogs in other locations. But hopefully if something still unexpected were to happen, you might react with more surprise.
I wisely just gave up beer this year. Whew