BOOK #^ JUNE/22

         Infinitesimal!

It’s hard to believe, much less admit it, that human creatures are so insignificant in this world in our universe. The enormity of where fate has placed us in this universe is not comprehended by the vast majority of we humans.

Personally, I am totally consumed with the grievances I bear in this world we inhabit. They may, in fact, be picayune when considered against the challenges we humans face in trying to live together on this planet. I may hold them fiercely to my breast, but they are so irrelevant in the larger picture of a society destroying the very atmosphere in which we, as humans, must maintain to survive. It’s hard for me to surrender the cudgels I have been carrying, but the reality of our situation must give us pause.

We live in a solar system where there are (currently proposed) some 12 planets, including Pluto, Charon, and 2003UB713, not officially named. There are an estimated 3200 solar systems in our galaxy. Our scientist have found an estimated 100 billion galaxies with the current capacity of our telescopes, and further estimate that this figure could reach 200 billion when they are able to improve them.

Wherefrom comes this creation we are struggling to comprehend? Can we imagine that we are the sole sentient in the universe? Can we continue to conceive a creator who is busy assessing our individual transgressions and virtues? Is this not the height of a colossal arrogance?

Humans are a marvelous phenomenon in our own eyes. The progress we have made since the first amphibian ventured onto solid land and began the evolutionary process that has resulted in the splendor of the humans that we are. We can be rightly appreciative. But we cannot fail to wonder, though we have become mighty in our significance on our home planet, whether we pale to non-significance when we examine the backdrop against which we are performing.

Could we be the sole focus of a creator who has built such a vast creation, one that beggars our capacity to even comprehend? That would be wondrous indeed! Of course, it would not be surprising that we humans do not yet have the capacity to comprehend the infinite. We cannot escape the reality that our physical presence in this world is infinitesimal.

This does not change the strength of our attachments to the issues that daily fill our lives. We remain with our competitive struggle for what we deem to be our shares of the good things of life. We like to think it is not a zero-sum game, but most of the time it sure looks like that. What I have may be held at the cost of what you don’t have. What my people have may mean there are things that your people don’t have. Is it surprising that we often come to blows when it comes down to dividing up the spoils?

Does it help if we look at the bigger picture, the one where we are in it all together in a universe where we are infinitesimal?

It may be hard for us to think of it in these terms. It may seem even comical to some. Some have estimated that our sun has the life of another billion years. We will have to move before then. But till then we have to find the means to ensure we do not make our present home uninhabitable. Our efforts in this respect have been the thing of a comical nature. So we need to get working on that.

Once thinking on a global basis, we have to find a way to satisfy the basic needs of all peoples so we are not continually threatened with the dog-eat- dog that sets us at each other’s throats. That is less about altruism than protecting our interest in a universe that may ultimately be hostile. We have the example of how people on our own planet have behaved, do behave. Why should other sentient creatures be any different?

And what about planetary defense, looking outward rather than inward? That’s just a pipe-dream these days. I am dreaming in technicolor!

So, in these days when every nation is turning back toward thinking inward, when the “pax americanus” that existed after World War II that guaranteed relative international harmony and trade, is now officially dead and buried, is there a chance we could think globally? What do you think? I think the chances are infinitesimal!

 

 

                      EXTRAORDINARY!

That’s what I think of the lives we have lived. Overcome with gratitude, approaching our ninth decade, it’s hard to believe that it’s really true. Who could have foretold our fate when we were youngsters, raised in humble circumstance, encircled by ethnic prejudices, troubled by whether opportunities might be available to us. My father, with no formal education, went from shoveling coal, to being an engineer by dint of home study, supervising a vast industrial plant. I became a professional economist, working my way through college, raising a family, and improved the lives of thousands, even millions, consequent on my work.

We were born at a time of world economic depression, which we felt deeply in our own environment growing up. We grew up into a world war, with nearly one hundred million victims, to say nothing of the devastation, the damaged and tortured lives of survivors. And we learned of the genocide of our European kin.

And yet here we are in 2022, a little more than seventy five years later. We pursued careers, and lives, with relatively little interference. A PAX Americanus, arising out of the power generated by that country in pursuing its war effort, has given the world a relatively peaceful three-quarter century. We are appreciating it more now that it no longer exists. And we have seen the emergence of Israel as an important factor in world affairs, out of the crucible of its wars of liberation, a precious haven for the eternal wandering Jew.

As the curtain falls on the relevance of our generation, our grandchildren face a future more troubled than the world has faced for two generations. This reality highlights for me how extraordinary our passage on the ramparts of democracy has been. It has been extraordinary for the importance of our accomplishments, personally, and as a generation. Some of this could not have occurred but for the impetus the world’s leaders acquired from the wholesale slaughter, the guilty and the innocent, causing them to conclude they had to construct a better world.

Consider where we have come from! The world was abrim with injustice. Millions were bound by governments they had no voice in. Millions were effectively in bondage to rulers they never saw. The War’s destruction and destitution had millions on the edges of starvation, many indeed starved. Those who ruled saw their own best interest in lifting up both foe as well as friend. World institutions were created to make it possible to more equally share the wealth and potential of the planet. Democracies appeared offering a greater capacity to tailor policy to the needs greater majorities of the people, and new ones appeared. What happened after World War II in comparison with the practices after World War I was extraordinary.

Now after some of the products of those wise policies have played out, what we see now in our time is again extraordinary. The pace of technological advance we are witnessing is breathless, and beyond our comprehension in many respects. So many of us have very little appreciation of the new forces that are at play in re-imagining our futures. We see some of our children and grandchildren in the forefront of the changes we see, and we count ourselves lucky and wise for any contribution we may have made in preparing them for the tasks they face. We find them extraordinary, and are amazed to discern that the little we had to give has been transmuted into a performance at such levels of excellence.

But the tide of events seems to have turned in recent times in a number of political arenas. The democracies seem more tentative, facing a re-think by some of their constituents, consequent on the changing demographics that have resulted in the freer movement of peoples from areas that lagged behind in offering their peoples greater opportunities to improve their lives in a number of important ways. Faced with the danger of a loss of hegemony  on the part of native peoples, the basic principles of the democratic idea, equality of opportunity, and even, one man one vote, are now being questioned. At the same, important actors are present in the world community for whom adherence with the principles of democracy has never had a start. Others with similar ideas are coming to power in countries which were formerly attempting democratic departures.

This is an extraordinary event, the questioning of the basic principles which lie at the foundation of the aspirations of millions, even billions, of people for the last two hundred years. It was the wave of democratic ideas which created the kind of world we have now. This is what we see our children having to confront in the next while. How these questions are answered will determine the kinds of lives our children will be living. We may even see the drive for technological advance throttled as a threat to down from the top rule.

Hold on to your hats! Shall we just watch the show or get ourselves into the action? This is an extraordinary time!

                  The Atlas of Your Life

When you look back at your life, do you have an inkling of the chart you have drawn with your comings and goings? Do you have an insight into the atlas of your heart, what it was that drove you down the pathways you have actually charted? Wherever you are on that pathway, take a moment to check the atlas. Are you anywhere on the trail you originally intended to forge? Is all that for the better or is it time for a course correction? We can be the master of our own fortunes, ….or can we?

When I was wee one, my ambition was to be a cub-reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press. In those days the Press was one of the great newspapers in the world, with many of the world’s notables opining for us in its pages. I had stories to tell, messages to send, and I wanted to send them. I never even got close to that, distracted by my struggles to right the world’s ills, and ambushed by my drive to assemble some semblance of a professional status, I veered far off that course.

In my early years I saw myself as a willing sacrifice, ready to risk life and limb to achieve goals that were more important to me than my own life, my own future. I was a zealot for my causes. I always knew I was going to be a hero, that’s what I demanded of myself. I read about how to do that, learned about that, from the books I read in the library. Then I, unexpectedly, became the father of a child, and all that was nonsense to be put aside to achieve the humdrum. Not that I did not feel resentment that the fate I had brought upon myself had forced me to become an adult instead of a symbol.

Are you getting a picture; do you begin to see the outlines of the atlas of your life when you think a little more about it? If you are only part-way down the trail, checking the atlas, you may still not be far from the turn in the road that will make all the difference for you. Up until a few months ago, even in my latter eighties, I thought I still had time to achieve the wonders I dreamed of. Now I am beginning to wonder if my strength will hold out. So you see, by comparison, the world you dream of still remains to be your own personal oyster, the one with the big shiny pearl.

An atlas is a map. It can be useful to trace the path one has taken, but it can also be useful as a planning tool, permitting us to design the trail we wish to take. In the latter sense, isn’t it worthwhile to give some thought to determining the path one wishes to take. And of course, it is useful to have some idea of the point at which one wishes to arrive.

It doesn’t hurt to have lofty goals. Why not dream big, while one is dreaming. Life has a habit of coming down hard on us if we dream wildly, but there is no limit to what determination and grit can allow us to accomplish. If we want hard enough, then try, try and trying again can find chinks for us in the armor of the future. We all know about those who became an overnight success after twenty years of trying and trying again.

So, isn’t it always a good idea to check where one is on the atlas of one’s life. It’s always a good idea to see where you are on the atlas; whether it’s time, maybe, for a course correction, or a change in the plan of attack. This could be unconscious, instinctive or an act of will. I wish I could say I offered a good example in this respect. I always responded to my gut. Whenever I could no longer stomach the situation I was in, or I saw what seemed like an opportunity I could not refuse myself, I would jump, even if it looked like I was jumping into a fire-storm. I always managed to come out relatively unscathed.

My atlas is the one I look back on rather than the one I designed and followed. There was a rough plan, but my life followed the atlas of my heart more than any plan.

All of us have our passions. Consciously, they are often what drives us in the directions we choose. They may be ambitions, or people, or causes, that capture our hearts. They may the motivations for our actions, but the element that may binds us to places we arrive at may be much different than the things that hold us in the places where we are. Don’t we all need that agonizing re-appraisal to determine whether we stay or go? Don’t we need some exercise of will in determining the traceries that our lives make on that atlas? Otherwise we are merely buffeted about by external forces without any personal control over our destiny. Can we live with that?

This is a message from a survivor. Those less fortunate are no longer present, or, will not be eager to engage in the conversation. Those still on the trail can, perhaps, usefully think about the propositions espoused, or continue happily on their way in the full confidence that they have everything well in hand.

Godspeed!

     Preparing For Take-Off-#2

I first wrote under this title in the spring of 2016. Here we are in June 2022, and it appears to me the subject deserves a responsible reprise. Now six years later, and my Bride and I approaching our nineties, the subject at least needs a re-think. Way back then we were crooning over our blessings, and counting our fingers, expecting one or two of them, at least, to drop off. We had had a few health scares and we believed we were acting sensibly and appropriately in totting up final scores. Well, look at us now!

Life is just too much fun to consider handing in our papers, and as organisms, we keep on keeping on. Don’t get me wrong, we are occupying a full platoon of health care providers. They are busy keeping our scorecards up to date. But so far, we appear to be more make-work projects than serious tests of the system.

When we last focused on these issues we recounted the background of a study of couples facing terminal illness on the part of one of the partners. Researchers were seeking to learn how people faced this challenge and worked around them. We appreciate better now how different was our situation. We did not have that overt notice of termination, and all the contemplation that was so present in our minds, study of the issues at that time has now been proved to be theoretical. The hullabaloo of daily life has cast those thoughts far from our minds.

We have from time to time thought of ourselves as occupants, with others of our peers, of the virtual waiting room, on the very edge of departure. And we have certainly noted that there are fewer of our contemporaries there with us. We find it a little surprising when some of the youngsters in our crowd suddenly check out. We ourselves have noticed a change in energy levels, and the arrival of a chronic pain or two, but having so much fun just being around, we have taken those troubles, so far, with a grain of salt.

What is even more surprising to me is how hard I have to work to encourage adopting some vices. We need those to depart in a blaze of glory. I feel I must be such a dull and boring person that I find no particular pleasure in carousing with liquor, or with those who find such things enjoyable. And though I have a terrible sweet tooth, and I am a type II diabetic, I get no particular pleasure in overdoing things. And my doctor is complacent with blood sugar levels that would once have sent me running to the emergency room. I worry about blindness and amputation and he poo-poos all that.

 

Today we participated in a community choir presentation, singing the old songs for other oldsters in our community. And when a string band began to play some jazzy danceable music as part of the program, we danced ourselves silly. Strangely, we were almost the only ones, with all the younger ones sitting on their hands on the sidelines. Why were only the old ones acting like youngsters? Is that why we are alive today when the younger ones are dying off?

Having survived the imminent threats to our mortality, we have cast off all thought of preparation. (Mind you, I do have a draft obituary on my computer desktop, to prompt my would-be diarists.) So we are now content to bluff the come-what-may.

For now we take comfort in every sunny day, and bear the rainy days with good spirits. We seek out family and friends without, I hope, making a nuisance of ourselves. We seek to bind them to our sides however we can, with good food, good company and good humor.

The sight of children laughing lights up our lives, and familiar music is set to play automatically on our TV. We wrap ourselves in our clothing familiars, and worry less about appearances. We are confident in our soft landings regardless of the inherent realities of our numerous sinnings. We are more relaxed with fewer demands or expectations. We have grown in confidence that our offsprings, and our offsprings’  offsprings, have the future well in hand.

 

We are not Pollyanna, knowing that the world we inhabit is full of threats, as it was very much in our salad days. But we take from our surprising survival the somewhat unreasonable belief that the tide in human affairs will always be a rising one.              

We make no projections, but we await further miracles of survival with hopes that our passage through our future times together will continue to afford us the pleasures of the companionship of those we think of, those we care for. What more can one ask?

What’s happening at your house?

 

                     A Future, Dimly Seen!

So, here I am, and here you are. Here we are. Do you find that we are too much on this subject? Approaching the age of ninety as we are, so many of the travelers who began this journey with us having given up the ghost, we sometimes ponder our future.  But for now, I, and my fellow travelers still on the trail, while facing a future only dimly seen, we remain EAGER TO SEE WHAT IS AHEAD AROUND THE TURN. My Bride and I, trudge on, not fully hale and hearty, but mobile, thinking, in spite of this missive, not too often about the future.

We are blessed with the capacity of joyfully appreciating life’s pleasures still within our ambit. The beauties of the world, we need not travel far, bring joy each day. The warmth and love of dear ones, the appreciation of friends and companions in the daily round of life, the sun on the skin, the exercise of the mind, the touch of a loving hand, we have so much!

We have noted that the circle we began our lives with has been growing smaller with each passing day. One need not be very wise to ponder the significance of that fact of life. Willy- nilly, our good times must come to an end, as it does, has, for all humans, since time immemorial. Indeed, it is more the circumstances of the passing that engage the mind. And we know that a few choose to dictate those circumstances based on their own choices. We are content to await the call of nature.

There remain many things of interest, not to say, passion, that exercise our spirits. We mourn when things that engage us emotionally go awry. We have strong opinions about how others should organize the affairs of state, advance their individual affairs, go out to dinner with the crowd, or decide what we are going to have for breakfast tomorrow. We take an interest in the noises from the apartments around us. We sometimes have singing sessions with a crowd. We go out to walk and exercise and watch our weight. (I sometimes (?) eat ice-cream.) We choose to make changes to the plants we have on our balcony, and even water them. We remain fully engaged. But still, we worry about tomorrow, some unforeseen event that will upset our applecart.

When the doctor calls, inviting us to enter his/her inner sanctum, to examine some part of our bodies, (or minds,) we are always eager to be in attendance. They may voice some objections to a peccadillo that happens to brighten our lives, and we are all ears. We listen carefully, nod wisely, and even follow advice, at least for a time. We are quick to read up on miracle cures and miracle diets. Our file is so full we no longer know where to store it. Sometimes, we even buy equipment and attempt their operation. My Bride sternly watches both my intake and my out-take. Definitely, if we are going anywhere, we are going there together.

Yes, yes, but what about tomorrow?

My children have taken to calling me at regular intervals when we used to talk only on annual occasions. It can’t be our possessions which have ground down to only a widow’s mite. Maybe they are competing to see who will be the ones who are there when I breathe my last. I always tell them how terrible I feel to keep the calls coming.

My step is no longer as spry. When I run for the bus, the various parts of my body move at conflicting rhythms with each other. But so far, I usually catch the bus. I’m usually able to get the point of a joke, and if I don’t, I laugh anyway. Better still, I try to make the jokes. My Bride insists I don’t hear well, alert to ensure I’m wearing my hearing aids. I still hear only the things I want to hear. I sense a slight vibration in my extremities that I won’t admit to even to myself. But, I insist my singing voice is as good as ever, and I never wanted to play golf anyway. My mind is a sharp, aside from the odd memory lapse. But, that’s what computers are for. Who needs an encyclopedia anymore?

So what do we see out there?

Let’s face it! Eventually, even the best machinery will show signs of wear. Our offspring will be happy to have been bequeathed even some of what is carrying us forward. We have remodeled eyes and ears, slimmed down from chubbiness, kept our teeth in good repair. There is evidence of wear and tear as with any well-used tools and equipment. We have experienced most of the popular expiry mechanisms, and overcome them in the immediate, awaiting only a second or final act. Our lives have not been unduly constrained, for which we are grateful.

We are being kept alive, we think, because our lives are so full of joy and pleasure that we see no reason not to keep on keeping on. Our eyes have not grown fully dim and we see what we have and what we hope will continue. The future is too cloudy for us to discern its details. We can only hope and wish that those we care for can inherit some of what we have lucked into. Fellow travelers, keep on keeping on.

Are you there? Follow us into the indeterminate future!

                     Light and Shade

The quality of our lives seem to contain alternating waves of good and bad, hard and soft, light and shade. If we are lucky enough to appreciate that this is the nature of existence, we can bear much better with the shady parts of our lives. We can have faith that whatever it is we are having to bear with, no matter how painful it may seem at the time, the good times will roll around again. And the good times can be so good, so full of richness, pleasure, joy, lightness and brightness, that they are worth any price we may ultimately have to pay for  the good fortune we have the luck to be earning.

The dilemma we have to cope with is that sometimes we do not realize that what we are passing through are the bright times, the good times, the best times, that we will ever experience in our lives. That only comes with survival and retrospection.

I remember that I left home at the age of eighteen to spend a year of work and study in Israel. I did not think to ask for the permission of my parents, I just made my plans and informed them of those plans. I never thought to do otherwise, and I was never questioned. I saved up the money I needed from the odd jobs I performed as I wended my way through my high school years. I applied for the assignment, paid the price, counted my pennies, and off I went, travelling across the world.

I was a part of a group, but I felt very much alone. I remember that, being  alone, on that ship sailing across the ocean, my mind full, brimming full, of speculations about the nature of the world. I wrote incessantly about that on every scrap of paper I could find.

 I have some of those scraps in a file I have kept to this day. So much of it, seems to me today, to be a load of nonsense. The gist of it was I was a solitary sailor afloat on the sea of life and that life was incredibly sweet. I was full of wants. I wanted to find a true companion. I wanted a country of my own. I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to save the world. I was going to do it all myself if I had to. At the time I could read it all in the palm of my hand, and it was all going to happen. I was totally free from obligations, except for those that I chose to lay upon myself. On myself I laid the responsibility for creating the perfect world. All of us are heroes in our own eyes, and we have to try as hard as we can to live up to that image of ourselves.

How was that not the most superlative moment of my life to that date. And at that time, and too often in the future, I had not the merest clue as to the nature of the importance of those moments in my existence. I was unconsciously writing an agenda for my life.

 I am no different from others, and all of you have had those moments in your lives, those moments whose importance  is only appreciated by you with the passage of time and the gleanings of experience, given the survival you have earned.

I remember holding a child of mine in my arms, and feeling like I would burst with joy. I remember when I was leaving my first job, hearing that my superiors were frantic about who they could find fill the hole I was leaving by my departure. I remember the moment when I realized that I had succeeded in resolving the dilemma that would yield years of success at the impossible task that I had taken on, knowing that no one else in the world knew what I knew to be true. I remember the instant when I had recaptured the love of my heart after fifty long years of disappointment when I had not found the companionship I longed for. I remember the moments when I began to understand what elements of my behavior prevented my Bride from feeling the depth of my love for her. All these momentous events, events that cast other parts of my life in the shade where they belonged, I could  only truly appreciate in retrospect. The   thrill they yield when I recall them I relive over and over again. So it must be for so many of you out there, looking in through this window into my life, when you recall your own experiences.

Surely there are lessons to be learned by sentient beings from these experiences. Don’t they tell us  when we find ourselves in periods when there is shade all around us, that the moments we hope for,  and will cherish all the days of our lives, will surely arrive for us if we carry on? Just as day follows night, our turn at good fortune will arrive as long as we put in the necessary effort to survive what may seem to us to be the worst of times. Isn’t that the secret, that we try, and try again, to confront the challenges we face, and we never, never, give up?

What’s happening at your house?

      Living With The Plague

Here in the middle of the year 2022, we are entering the second (third?) year of the appearance of this virus that has already killed over seven million of us on the planet. We have witnessed the miracle work of our scientists and researchers who have miraculously found medicines in mere months, instead of years, that have saved the lives of many more millions.

We have seen how Israel has turned that whole country into a pilot test for us as to better ways to tackle this unseen enemy seeking to strangle us with the very air we breathe. We have seen how Sweden has opted to allow the virus free reign regardless of the cost in lives which statistics have verified, an approach Trump toyed with in the U.S. Where are we at now?

In the developed countries many have now had three shots and are working on a fourth, at least for the more vulnerable. In Israel they are delivering their fifth. It is clear that our booster shots have only a limited-time effectiveness. For billions, just getting a first shot has been a challenge. We have come to realize that if all are not safe, then no-one is, as the virus continues to mutate in the bodies of the newly-infected. But we have yet to effectively find the means to protect everyone.

There are positives. The virus has mutated in the direction of being more infectious while at the same time becoming less lethal. The phase where it threatened the functioning of the world economy has passed with wider application of treatments being available, and more and more people developing natural resistance to the virus. Those with health-compromising conditions remain vulnerable to its lethal effects, but most of us face only flu-like effects if we contract the disease. And new remedies are appearing for the stricken every day.

So mask mandates are being lifted, and for more and more of us, life is returning to a semblance of normal. But it is clear that there will continue to be more remote employment from central locations, and we will continue to see masks on the faces of people we meet every day. As well, we can expect a continuing regimen of booster shots at least annually, just some of us have been taking for the flu. Many thousands fall victim to that disease every year.

Inevitably, life has changed. Despite the outcry from anti-vaxxers that have become more vocal, we know now, more than ever, that most of us will be dependent on outside intervention in drug form on a regular basis. We may not have thought about it that way in the past, but our planet is a dangerous place to live in.

Although a virus is not a living thing, it requires us as a host to continue to exist, and it never ceases to strive to do so. And there are untold others out there which may be looking for a human host. This will be added to the climate worries that we are grappling with as we seek to survive here.

Further, our experience these last two years brings home to us how political considerations can be lethal when they are allowed to interfere with the administration of our health care. This was always true, but it has been brought home to us these past two years in a most powerful way. When politics blocks the truth from being told, people die needlessly. This is true for us on a local basis, on a national basis, and on a world basis. And we know the air around us is full of lies about many of the things that are important to us. But, in the end,  none are as important as those devoted to the administration of the nation’s health needs.

It is a matter of record that the US had in place planning for responses to meet emergencies like that country confronted with the advent of the virus. It also is a matter of record that those plans were dismantled with the arrival of the Trump administration. Why we do not know but likely in response to a lobby’s requirements in return for political financial support. That scandal has yet to be fully exposed.

We were saved because scientists were able to translate new discoveries into rapid medical responses to the virus attack. Yet thousands died needlessly in the U.S. at that time because of that administration’ refusal to take responsibility for what had to be done. Need I mention Trump’s name again?

Life has become a little more complicated. Many have left the jobs they had. There may be many reasons, but a feeling of insecurity about working condition may surely have been a consideration. Many are insisting on pursuing work from remote locations. Many are preferring the continuing receipt of unemployment benefits to gainful employment’ Now the Federal reserve in that country is accepting that higher unemployment will be a necessary corollary to curtailing inflation in that country.

In our daily lives we will be more apprehensive if somebody near us will cough, or appear to be ill. What we might have ignored before may now prompt us to flee our surroundings. We may pay more attention to our own sniffles. Many of us have become more sensitized to the dangers to our health, and to the health of those we care for, than we ever were before.

And there are worries about “long COVID” that have not been at all resolved. Things are different in many ways now after the arrival of the plague. Endemic, like the flue, we will continue to be dependent on our neighbors protecting themselves just as we do. More than ever, we are interdependent, not just locally, but internationally. We are all in it together!

                     A Future, Dimly Seen!

So, here I am, and here you are. Here we are. Do you find that we are too much on this subject? Approaching the age of ninety as we are, so many of the travelers who began this journey with us having given up the ghost, we sometimes ponder our future.  But for now, I, and my fellow travelers still on the trail, while facing a future only dimly seen, we remain EAGER TO SEE WHAT IS AHEAD AROUND THE TURN. My Bride and I, trudge on, not fully hale and hearty, but mobile, thinking, in spite of this missive, not too often about the future.

We are blessed with the capacity of joyfully appreciating life’s pleasures still within our ambit. The beauties of the world, we need not travel far, bring joy each day. The warmth and love of dear ones, the appreciation of friends and companions in the daily round of life, the sun on the skin, the exercise of the mind, the touch of a loving hand, we have so much!

We have noted that the circle we began our lives with has been growing smaller with each passing day. One need not be very wise to ponder the significance of that fact of life. Willy- nilly, our good times must come to an end, as it does, has, for all humans, since time immemorial. Indeed, it is more the circumstances of the passing that engage the mind. And we know that a few choose to dictate those circumstances based on their own choices. We are content to await the call of nature.

There remain many things of interest, not to say, passion, that exercise our spirits. We mourn when things that engage us emotionally go awry. We have strong opinions about how others should organize the affairs of state, advance their individual affairs, go out to dinner with the crowd, or decide what we are going to have for breakfast tomorrow. We take an interest in the noises from the apartments around us. We sometimes have singing sessions with a crowd. We go out to walk and exercise and watch our weight. (I sometimes (?) eat ice-cream.) We choose to make changes to the plants we have on our balcony, and even water them. We remain fully engaged. But still, we worry about tomorrow, some unforeseen event that will upset our applecart.

When the doctor calls, inviting us to enter his/her inner sanctum, to examine some part of our bodies, (or minds,) we are always eager to be in attendance. They may voice some objections to a peccadillo that happens to brighten our lives, and we are all ears. We listen carefully, nod wisely, and even follow advice, at least for a time. We are quick to read up on miracle cures and miracle diets. Our file is so full we no longer know where to store it. Sometimes, we even buy equipment and attempt their operation. My Bride sternly watches both my intake and my out-take. Definitely, if we are going anywhere, we are going there together.

Yes, yes, but what about tomorrow?

My children have taken to calling me at regular intervals when we used to talk only on annual occasions. It can’t be our possessions which have ground down to only a widow’s mite. Maybe they are competing to see who will be the ones who are there when I breathe my last. I always tell them how terrible I feel to keep the calls coming.

My step is no longer as spry. When I run for the bus, the various parts of my body move at conflicting rhythms with each other. But so far, I usually catch the bus. I’m usually able to get the point of a joke, and if I don’t, I laugh anyway. Better still, I try to make the jokes. My Bride insists I don’t hear well, alert to ensure I’m wearing my hearing aids. I still hear only the things I want to hear. I sense a slight vibration in my extremities that I won’t admit to even to myself. But, I insist my singing voice is as good as ever, and I never wanted to play golf anyway. My mind is a sharp, aside from the odd memory lapse. But, that’s what computers are for. Who needs an encyclopedia anymore?

So what do we see out there?

Let’s face it! Eventually, even the best machinery will show signs of wear. Our offspring will be happy to have been bequeathed even some of what is carrying us forward. We have remodeled eyes and ears, slimmed down from chubbiness, kept our teeth in good repair. There is evidence of wear and tear as with any well-used tools and equipment. We have experienced most of the popular expiry mechanisms, and overcome them in the immediate, awaiting only a second or final act. Our lives have not been unduly constrained, for which we are grateful.

We are being kept alive, we think, because our lives are so full of joy and pleasure that we see no reason not to keep on keeping on. Our eyes have not grown fully dim and we see what we have and what we hope will continue. The future is too cloudy for us to discern its details. We can only hope and wish that those we care for can inherit some of what we have lucked into. Fellow travelers, keep on keeping on.

Are you there? Follow us into the indeterminate future!