So near and yet so far.
In just under two months this blog will be seven years old. I wonder if it’ll make it.
I wonder if I will.
We have no promise of tomorrow, or even of today. All we have is this moment, and this one, and this one, a constant breathing in and out of earth’s atmosphere (78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.039% carbon dioxide) until we don’t do it any more.
Just think, that stuff in our lungs is 78% nitrogen, the liquid form of which was once used to remove a couple of warts from my fingers. I watched them turn black (the warts, not the fingers) over a period of a few days, then rubbery, and finally peel off, leaving no trace of their former nastiness.
According to some people, human life is like that. We are, and then we are not, and all trace of us is gone.
I beg to differ.
We live on in the faces of our children and grandchildren. We live on in the lives of those with whom we have come in contact. We even live on in old blogposts. We live on in ways we cannot fathom. Matter may disappear but it is converted to energy. E equals mc squared and all that. Our minds are too finite; we cannot take it in.
But we live on.
I’m counting on it.
I tied horse hair round my wart and slapped it with a bible. Never been bothered again. I could fly out and treat other afflictions for a consideration.
ReplyDeleteIt is hard at times but I found it much harder at twenty, thirty and forty than I do now in my twilight years.
"We live on in the faces of our children and grandchildren. We live on in the lives of those with whom we have come in contact." Yes Bob - I can go along with that kind of afterlife. It's the one with angel wings and fluffy clouds I can't stomach.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised you didn't mention heaven, which I had thought would be first on your list.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if other books--and other hairs--would do for wart-slapping. Given enough warts, one could go from the Bible to the Koran and slowly work one's way down to Christopher Hitchens.
Seven years blogging? Amazing.
ReplyDeleteI am quite looking forward to disappearing. Yes, memories might keep me alive for a while, but then I will be gone.
I beg to differ. It moved me.
ReplyDeleteWarts and the afterlife are a weird combination, Mr RWP. This life wouldn't amount to much if there wasn't something more and I, for one, am ever so grateful to our Creator that He sent His Son to die for ME!!!! I'm looking forward to Heaven for sure. My little mama is very fragile right now and our lives are ever so taken up by it all. We're gonna all celebrate our new bodies 'over there'. Oh, yeah.
ReplyDeleteThere's something quite beautiful about this post rhymes. You've hit a chord there, I hope you're with us for many more years, and I hope I am too, which means mt life must be much happier than it used to be, for which I am both grateful and appreciative. You will indeed live on. Perhaps I'll meet you in a hundred years time at The Small Gods annual Ball. That would be nice.
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