“For me the world is weird because it is stupendous, awesome, mysterious, unfathomable; my interest has been to convince you that you must assume responsibility for being here, in this marvelous world, in this marvelous desert, in this marvelous time. I want to convince you that you must learn to make every act count, since you are going to be here for only a short while, in fact, too short for witnessing all the marvels of it.”
― Carlos Castaneda, Journey to Ixtlan
One day we will draw our last breath.
And there will be silence.
Absolute silence.
Until then (of course) we’ll try to make the most of the time left — god willing — but there are no certainties.
I know that most people have no wish to talk of death or endings. I’m not one of them. In fact, it’s one of the few things that brings me solace, knowing that this life ends.
The other thing that I continue to reflect on is the wake I’m leaving behind be that the trail of destruction by dint of my very presence, the words I utter and write or the things I say but never do. You see, one day, we’ll be someone’s ancestor and you only have to think about the generations that are no longer here to realise how little of their acts/omissions/messages have found their way into our psyche. I’m lucky that I lived with my great-grandparents but I wonder how much of them is in me that I carry forward?
I realise that there are many other things I could write about but nearly all of them are anthropocentric in shape. That’s not all bad but as I’ve written about a great deal these past few months, there really is very little to commend us to the gods when we’ve so traduced and changed the world.
So, this week, and I hope I can be excused for doing so, I intend to explore a few other subjects in and around endings — e.g. life, careers, marriages, relationships and status.
Have a wonderful day.
Blessings,
Julian
air and light and time and space
-- Charles Bukowksi
"—you know, I’ve either had a family, a job,
something has always been in the
way
but now
I’ve sold my house, I’ve found this
place, a large studio, you should see the space and
the light.
for the first time in my life I’m going to have a
place and the time to
create.”
no baby, if you’re going to create
you’re going to create whether you work
16 hours a day in a coal mine
or
you’re going to create in a small room with 3
children
while you’re on
welfare,
you’re going to create with part of your mind and
your
body blown
away,
you’re going to create blind
crippled
demented,
you’re going to create with a cat crawling up your
back while
the whole city trembles in earthquake,
bombardment,
flood and fire.
baby, air and light and time and space
have nothing to do with it
and don’t create anything
except maybe a longer life to find
new excuses
for.
Beyond the knowledge that nothing matters, there is no purpose - except the purpose of knowing that fact deep within, completely, beyond this ALL, I do think there is value in authenticity. Castenada unfortunately and as complex a man as he was, didn't have much. I studied Anthropology when his works were all the rage - but there were no trips to the desert, no old man Don Juan ... but he did make a pretty penny and had time for more excuses ...