Two weeks ago, Eve and I flew to the East Coast, anticipating her father’s funeral, but once again the doctors snatched him back from the jaws of death. Leon was in the hospital for the first week we were there, and at one point I was watching his heart rate bounce around in the 140’s, thinking I would witness his death at any moment. Then a week ago they sent him home, and Eve and I stayed till they found home health care for him, with me wiping his butt, etc., in the meantime. It was a fertile time for brain-watching—my own and others.
At one point, I found occasion to hold forth on my attitude toward death, which consisted of my telling stories about Chinese Zen masters who had voluntarily died—sometimes sitting, even standing—with no great regard for the end of their lives, and how I had come to identify with that tradition. That’s true enough, as far as it goes, but I was thinking about it this morning, and realized I had failed to mention another facet of my view of death that might be more broadly available, more helpful.
When Eve and I lived on Mandana Boulevard, the kitchen and dining rooms of our house had views of the sidewalk from a slight rise, and there was a lot of foot traffic with people crossing back and forth between Grand and Lakeshore. Eating or washing the dishes, my human-being-alert module was frequently activated, and I would look up to watch whoever was passing by. The spectrum of humanity was fairly broad, but the less fit were deterred by the height of the hill they had to climb in either direction, so that the majority were young, from babies in strollers to trim middle-agers.
The spectrum of emotions displayed was broad, too, from toddlers picking up fallen magnolia petals in wonder, to verbally violent arguments, and everything in between. My empathy module got a considerable workout, powered, perhaps, by mirror neurons, and I came to the conclusion that, to the extent that we identify with other human beings, we will live on as long as our species survives; as long as babies laugh or forsaken lovers cry. The joys and fears that have propelled us through life will propel those who remain, generation after generation: echoes of ourselves. Our immortality only requires that we de-emphasize those accidents of our personal histories that make us unique, and place greater importance on our commonalities with everyone else.
Who am I, after all? That’s a question I’ve struggled with most of my life, and everything I’ve written on this site is about the answers that have evolved. Biologically and neurologically, I am a fairly typical human male. My conscious experience is the result of chance encounters and forces beyond my control, and I have come to see claims of ownership or authorship of anything related to me as nonsensical.
The path to that realization was tortuous and difficult, but it is perhaps more difficult to incorporate that realization into my moment-to-moment experience. I’m engaged in an ongoing process of monitoring each thought and noting whether it is consistent with the truth of my existence, or a mindless incorporation of social convention. It’s easier when I’m alone in my apartment; more challenging when I’m surrounded and involved with others, as on the recent trip.
There were many occasions when I found myself reacting from old habit, especially during the first few days, becoming annoyed with situations or people to whom I was bound in close and continuous contact. When I felt my irritation rising, it would prompt a smile at the thought that I had momentarily “taken birth,” as Howie would say, as a conventionally defined person. As that person, I would fail to realize that none of the people who were annoying me had any control over their behavior. I held them responsible, blaming them for my reaction to their slights, taking their disregard personally, etc. The frequency of such reactions diminished over time, returning me to my more usual equanimity.
Fortunately, I had no such relapses in another area: the conventional reactions to bodily functions and effluvia that characterized my earlier life did not return; they’ve long since disappeared. As a result, it was my job to get Leon to the toilet, clean him up afterwards and apply barrier cream to his poor butt, abused by continuous sitting in a hospital bed. He was apologetic about not being up to the task, despite my continual assurances that I didn’t mind in the least, that I enjoyed helping him.
No one else seemed to have made much progress in getting past their aversion to human messiness, or seemed to think such progress was possible or even desirable. They hadn’t had the kind of life that would bring them to see their squeamishness as imprisonment. Fortunately for Leon and I, the universe has been more generous to me.
It has been generous in providing me with people and information that broadened my perspective, that gave me ways of looking at life and my self that have been wonderfully freeing and rewarding, and it has given me the opportunity and motivation to pass that information along. I hope it has been generous to you, as well.
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The Leaves Come and Go… The Trees… The Universe…
