Each person’s life can be envisioned as a kind of trajectory or arc, and it’s customary at this time of year for each of us to attempt through introspection to fix where we are on life’s arc as well as where we’re going and how fast we’re getting there. Because it is both difficult and – for most of us – humbling to rigorously conduct that sort of self-scrutiny it’s tempting to apply Werner Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle in this – that you can know a particle’s position or velocity with great precision, but that the more you know about the one, the less you can know about the other. But that really only applies to matter at the sub-atomic level and is little more than a convenient dodge to deflect away the necessary analytic tasks.
Does that mean that we are subject to classical Euclidean geometry? I don’t think so, and in any case I reject all notions of mechanistic determinism in the human sphere. I will freely concede that much of what we call “fate” is only a deeply human inability to grasp the entirety of the variable influences one is subject to, but even given that, free will endures: I chose to write this blog post, you chose to read it. Neither choice will affect anything in the sweep and span of time, but the decision to do so – or not – illustrates the limitless power of free choice, especially when applied to significant nodes of possibility.
Freedom and free will, wrote Sartre – and no, neither am I an existentialist, but I agree with him on this – are intrinsic and fundamental to our humanity, they in fact define us as human, even if the physical world steadfastly refuses to conform itself to our choices, indeed our very existence. That refusal on the part of enduring physical reality induces the sensation Sartre described as “nausee,” or nausea. With nausea goes vertigo, which he illustrates as the fear embracing a man has who stands at at the edge of a great precipice: He does not fear that he might fall – he fears that he might jump.
When I stop to think about it, I see the world like this: In every conscious moment we are surrounded by a near infinite series of overlapping possibilities, dimly lit tunnels of expanding radia, each of them subject to our smallest choice and most of them quite trivial. We choose one course – today I will write a blog post and I enter that tunnel, while the alternate binary possibility – I will not write a blog post – grows smaller and eventually collapses with each act towards completion I take, really, with the first stroke of the key.
But this is surely meaningless, the reader may object, and who would I be to disagree? But suppose that having once entered into that tunnel, and being faced now with new, overlapping and expanding possibilities radiating out in every direction that exclude only the choice not taken, I further decide that, having hit “publish,” I will go on a long bike ride. It may be that choice will lead me into a fatal interaction with a distracted person talking into a cell phone while speeding down a lovely country lane in their SUV – this is a non-trivial possibility in North County Coastal – an event that would not have occurred if I went on the bike ride before posting to my blog, or hadn’t decided to go on a bike ride at all. And what, gentle reader, could be more significant than that?
But to engage in this kind of thinking is to drown in causality – the alternate may very well be as true – and as a method of shaping our choices in an uncertain world could result only in disastrous immobility. We must choose and we must act. Of course there will be consequences.
Picture this: Nearly 30 years ago, a socially awkward young man, not quite 17 years old, is sitting in his car, suiting up for a soccer game – he is in fact tying up the laces on his cleats. CCR’s “Lookin’ Out My Back Door” is playing on the car radio, a song that is upbeat and makes him smile. At that very moment a fetching young lass walks by, and hearing the music looks within the car and is greeted by a smile. She smiles in turn and encouraged, the young man opens up his glove box and displays a bumper sticker that he keeps meaning to put on the back of his car, but which he has not yet earned: “Virginia is for lovers.”
Do you feel the tunnel opening before them? Can you sense the others closing behind? Each choice shapes what follows after, and now the two, having become one, have created between them – with God’s blessing – three more separate and distinct windows on the universe, each looking out into a near infinite series of overlapping possibilities, and all of them linked and intertwined. Because he laced his cleats in the car instead of on the bench? Because John Fogerty of CCR wrote an upbeat song? Because the disk jockey chose that moment to play CCR? Because the radio was turned on? Because she chanced by?
Yes, yes, yes – because of all those things. Choices.
It is also customary at this time of year to take stock of last year’s resolutions, and compare our track made good in life against the course we had shaped for ourselves. But this kind of restrospection is perhaps less useful to me now than ever before, even given the natural suspicion I hold against New Year’s resolutions in general: Last year ended in a blur, I was in a bit of a funk and made no real resolutions apart from a dedication to live with a fuller comprehension of the tissue-thinness of the veil that separates “life” from “not-life,” as well as a vague idea that it would be useful to lose some weight. But the first resolution leads to the kind of “live every day as though it were your last” philosophy that sounds attactive in theory, but if followed to its natural conclusion is a damned good way to end up living on handouts in your old age, should you make it that far. As for the second resolution, well, suffice to say that will have to be a carry-over from last year to the next. But professionally and to a degree personally it has been a year of marking time. Which is to say it has been a lost year because “time runs on, cried she.”
Oh, things aren’t as bald as all that: I had hoped that certain of the sinusoidal tribulations attendant to the raising of teenaged daughters in Southern California would dampen out a bit, and if that hasn’t been entirely true, then at least things have gotten no worse, which I’ll take as a kind of victory. And if I didn’t get to play but two rounds of golf this year – life being so very full in every other direction – then at least I know I’ll have no negative swing thoughts the next time I take to the links. The weather is fine and the scenery lovely and there still is joy in family and friendships, even if these too come with appurtenant trials. And I have progressed an unlikely further year down track on my master’s degree, with only six months left of academics and a thesis to write. Only.
With retirement beckoning – this time next year I will be sending out resumes for the first time in my life – I live with the sense of one set of possibilities winding down now, and another whose outline I cannot fully grasp looming in the middle distance. That being true, I feel as ill at ease making resolutions as ever I have before. Still, we must observe the forms.
So, be it hereby resolved: I’m going to get that fricken’ thesis written, and lose a pound or two per month.
You know me: Keep it simple.
When you wrote The Road Not Taken, I wondered if you would ever write as to how you and the Hobbit met. Mystery solved.
Ever wonder if “mid life”, for lack of a better term, is just a warped repeat performance of that first time in your life, when you finally finish school and set out to pursue your dreams? Once again, that itch to take on something new, move on to that next step, perhaps for some people to even become something new…… except that this time around you are no longer so young, so wild, so free. All the best in the New Year to you and your family, Lex.
“The annals say: when the monks of Clonmacnoise
Were all at prayers inside the oratory
A ship appeared above them in the air.
The anchor dragged along behind so deep
It hooked itself into the altar rails
And then, as the big hull rocked to a standstill,
A crewman shinned and grappled down the rope
And struggled to release it. But in vain.
‘This man can’t bear our life here and will drown,’
The abbot said, ‘unless we help him.’ So
They did, the freed ship sailed, and the man climbed back
Out of the marvellous as he had known it.”
—THE LIGHTENINGS, by Seamus Heaney
A toast to new experiences of the marvelous in the coming year, for you and yours.
Lex, I’ve often done much the same. I told the wife week before last, while we were on our Christmas cruise, looking out over the blue sea, that many times in my life I’d wondered why I was born here, at this time. Others have wished that they had been born in times past, when ships were powered by sail, and Nelson was most admired. Others wish they were born in the far future, casting their lives among the stars. I am simply amazed that I was born in a crossroads time, for when I was born, six years after Hiroshima to the day, there were no satellites, nor computers, man had not even dreamed yet of walking on the moon, so many things have happened to abruptly change the world in those fifty-five years. And more importantly, that I’d been born in America of all places, where so much good has happened, where life and liberty is a guarded right, where my family and myself have so many opportunities. No, my convergence is just right. I wouldn’t trade what I have or what I’d experienced for anything. Nor would I change any of what I’d done, for if I had, I might not have the wonderful life I have now.
Have a happy New Year, Lex, and trust that the years just keep getting better!
Oh, the resumes: forget them. Just start collecting your scribbles here, polish them a bit, sort them out a tad, and publish them. Every one of us here would gladly purchase your novel, and enjoy every moment spent turning the pages!
Agree, Byron. Wouldn’t change much at all in my time here – it’s been a miraculous time. My resolution? Try to stay on this side of the grass and enjoy everything!
Happy New Year, Lex, and to your wonderful commenters from whom I’ve learned so much.
Happy (and safe) New Year to you, Lex, and everyone else here. I’m glad to have found this place.
One resolution for 2007 approved by my wife: Skydiving. Can’t wait.
lucky dog you are to have gotten CCR looking out the back door as your song.
i’m stuck with “Tainted Love” (the version by Soft Cell).
life is like that sometimes.
“time runs on, cried she” is obviously an anagram of “crimson uterine shed” which, though clear enough, is apropos of I-have-no-idea.
Happy new year to you collection of miscreants and ne’er-do-wells. Or am I just projecting?
Dave
Lex – perfect reflection on a life well lived. And it’s not about resumes anymore…it’s about who you know. Cultivate dear man, cultivate.
The hubby and I are lucky – our song is “Up Where We Belong”, from the movie Officer and a Gentleman. Might be a bit treacly, but it’s not “Tainted Love”…poor MajMike!
Happiest of New Years to all here – miscreants and otherwise – safety this evening and peace in the New Year.
Lex, great stuff, thanks.
“It is also customary at this time of year to take stock of last year?
Lex, great stuff, thanks.
“It is also customary at this time of year to take stock of last year’s resolutions, and compare our track made good in life against the course we had shaped for ourselves.”
As I take stock I find myself troubled for 2006 – a year in which the nation muddled toward an uncertain future – I certainly expected to do the same.
Yet, it was for me in the end, both personally and professionally, a terrific year.
A heavy guy, now 50 lbs lighter – a job in building done and not too badly – a Command board looked more favorably than I could have imagined – a promotion – a non-athlete, who ran a marathon for a great cause.
Like you, a bride who after 21 yrs is the love of my life and my passion.
Three children doing quite well – Daddy’s little girl now the managing editor of my alma mater’s campus rag, a HS sophomore wrestler, and a middle school teen full of life and humor.
A balanced year spent well with friends and family – a Disney cruise – a weekend in Key West with my heart – a week at the lake with them all – if only the berry would stop chirping – oh well.
Yet this Holiday Season is clouded with unspoken tension – for Jan 2 begins 80 some odd days of Army training followed by 365 of my boots on the ground and the responsible for the lives of others as well.
2006 gives me pause – what will 2007 hold? Only the All Mighty truly knows. Resolutions be damned.
Almost forgot…our song is “Strokin’”, by Clarence Carter…ISYN
Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu!
(Happy New Year! Congratulations!)
Kotoshi mo dozo yoroshiku onegai itashimasu!
(In this year too, please favor me!)
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Lex,
Ironically, our song is “Brown Eyed Girl.” It’s ironic, because my love is a green eyed lass. Whatever.
The arc of my life this year has been more like several small arcs caused by my skipping across the waters of life. My suggestion to you vis a vi future careers-
Don’t work for someone else.
You have a decent retirement and some health insurance to use as needed. When you work for someone else, you are subject to many forces beyond your control.
As a Naval Officer, I never knew for sure my future, but I could count on the fact that those who steered my destiny were almost always moral and usually looking out for me (whether I needed it or deserved it or not.)
I now find myself working for a company so devoid of leadership and morality that I think I am pretty close to quitting- without anything else in place. I don’t say that looking for pity, I say it as a caution. When I left the fold, I thought every company out there was like “Big Blue.” (I mean USN, not IBM) How could a company survive without morals, be profitable without doing the right thing? (Turns out they couldn’t!) I found just such a place and it is time to leave. My new years resolution is to find new work- I hope you don’t ever have to make the same resolution.
Happy new year to all of you. Hope 2007 is a great year.
Nose
We’ll be calling the kids tomorrow; they’re all growed up and out of the house. (They were all just toddlers a couple weeks ago…how’d that happen?)
Life goes on without them underfoot, the which is a mixed blessing.
We’ve been married now for 33 years, looking for another couple-three dozen to come. Wonder what’s on our path ahead?
Happy new year, and happiness throughout it, to all.
Happy New Year, Lex!
Thank you for this site, your insights and stories. May God grant you and yours peace, health and happiness as well as a completed thesis and a clear path to your new calling in the coming year.
If it were our wishes to make for you, we’d wish for a publisher to beg you to wrap up the Rhythms in a book, for instance. But my resolutions can’t muck with your karma
I’m going to be shedding a few pounds myself, good luck in your progress!
Happy New Year to you and yours Lex! And to all your wonderful commenters, as well. Like Miss Birdlegs, I’ve learned a lot from those who hang out here. Some of it has been useful, too.
Happy New Year Lex. Maybe you should turn the blog into a diet club for the next few months… Seems there is a demand for it.
Hmmm, sea storys and weight loss advice!
I met my wife 20 years ago in a night club where I asked her to dance and then get a drink, forgetting that I hadn’t any money on me. Somehow I managed to hang on to her in spite of myself and as we move through our 18th year of marriage we are fortunate to have had many good times enjoyed and hard times successfully weathered.
When I look back from this early 40′s perch I marvel at the amount of good luck I’ve been blessed with – from the time I rolled a car at 16 and by all rights should’ve died then and there but simply walked away bruised, to the amazing happenstance that brought our first daughter to us (we adopted). I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve this amount of luck – oh, I tell myself that I work hard and I’m a decent guy and all so I probably make some of that luck – but it almost scares me sometimes. Will it run out? Most certainly at some point – I thought it had 8 years ago when I was diagnosed with cancer. But even then The Luck held and here I am, continuing to move down these various tunnels that open and close with my decisions. My resolution is to try and make good ones that are deserving of continued Luck. And to drop a few lbs myself.
For you, Lex, I hope your future outside involves the pen/keyboard – you have such a gift with words and storytelling. One of my best decisions was to click on your blog. And forget the resume as a prime medium for job-hunting – networking, my good man, it’s all about connections.
Good luck to you all in the New Year.
Oh and…”Melt With You” by Modern English.
Brian
It’s a longer parabola than you think and you’re at the apogee.
2007 is going to be a great year. Saddam’s finally gone and the ’08 election entertainment begins. Yes, it’s a time of uncertainty for our country but since when has it not been?
Keep on moving on.
b2
Appropriate perhaps??
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
T’was The Diet After Christmas
T’was the day after Christmas, and all through the house
Not a damn thing would fit me, not even a blouse.
The cookies I’d nibbled, the eggnog I’d taste
At the holiday parties had gone to my waist.
When I got on the scales there arose such a number!
When I walked to the store (less a walk than a lumber),
I’d remember the marvellous meals I’d prepared;
The gravies, and sauces, and beef nicely rared,
The wine and the rum-balls, the bread and the cheese,
And the way that I’d never said, “No thank you, please.”
As I dressed myself up, in my husband’s old shirt,
And prepared once again to do battle with dirt -
I said to myself, (as only I can),
“You can’t spend the winter disguised as a man!”
So, away with the last of the sour cream dip,
Get rid of the fruit cake, each cracker, and chip,
Every last bit of food that I like must be banished
’til all the unwanted ounces have vanished!
I won’t have a cookie, not even a lick…
I’ll just have to chew on a celery stick.
I won’t have hot biscuits, or corn bread, or pie;
I’ll munch on a carrot, and quietly cry.
I’m hungry, I’m lonesome, and life is a bore -
But isn’t that what January is for?
Unable to giggle, no longer a riot…
Happy New Year and to all a good diet!
Happy New Year, Lex!
I’m late writing because I didn’t know what to say about all those lovely comments above. As for all those who think they’re lucky, you are. Beyond friends, blood-family and roofs over your heads, you have so much. Cherish it.
I thoroughly enjoy not just Lex’s writing, but all the funny/insightful comments and personalities on display in this great blog. So to all of you: may this new year exceed the last in all the very best ways.
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