Damn Us, Janus

The other day I was out for a stroll and passed two middle aged guys in animated conversation, “I remember high school like it was yesterday, and my best friend from there is now a grandfather!” That was interesting to me because I’d been thinking about how only with age do we see the makeup of that tumultuous phase- the cliques, the overlapping circles, passage from underclass to senior. At the time it’s all too much to fully take in- social rapids, interpersonal eddies, perilous falls. If we knew then what we do now, what would be different?

Which got me thinking about perspectives, given or gotten by way of time or shifted points of view. Semi-related, for some reason I can’t yet understand, I’m a bit unsettled by a thing I habitually do when seeing someone for the first time from behind. I try to guess what they look like head on. It’s kind of a game, but it’s not, probably harkening back to a reptile brain instinct. And it’s practically impossible to guess accurately. The human array is infinite. I’m not sure if the disturbing part has to do with being unwittingly judgmental, confused, or other measures that reside in the unconscious mind.  

File it all under bewilderment. Knowing less rather than more about what life is as I get older. Despite all the terms that’ve passed from specialized knowledge into common parlance; relativity, synchronicity, quantum leaps, black holes, polarities, dark matter…explanations without resolutions. All this heightened as we as a country, and world, are perched on a precipice, tipping points, event horizons…half the country holding views that seem incomprehensible. Yet we’re all bound to proceed, like earthworm burrowing blindly through the soil. Turning the world over in our wake. Feeding on fungi and scraps of cultural detritus, ourselves food for the crafty critters and mocking birds. And ultimately, the worms.

Mondo Monkey Mind, what Buddhists call the helter-skelter experience that itself is a form of order. I think the philosopher Chuang Tzu was on the money when he wrote the anecdote, “Three in the Morning”. A man tended a gang of monkeys. He offered them three chestnuts in the morning, and four in the afternoon. They were livid, furious. What does he do about it? He offers them four in the morning, and three in the afternoon. Now they were happy. Satisfied. Is that not the human experience in a nutshell? We fight, we swoon, we wait, we wonder. Strong reactions, the pinwheel of time.