Surviving!

Life is full of potentialities for pleasure and pain. Getting on with life is something we do without too much thought. We are here and we go on with the things on our agendas. But, none of us who have been around for a while can have failed, at one time or another, to question what we are doing here.

We read about people who have, almost carelessly, thrown away their lives seeking some nirvana, a drug high, climbing the highest peak, engaged in life-threatening pursuits. Is this exercising some kind of hidden death wish? Are they unable to bear life unless they are in danger of losing it? Have those who take their own lives found survival just too painful to bear? What agonies they must have faced to prefer the course they have taken.

Let’s not be Pollyanna! Surviving takes a willingness to face some stuff we wouldn’t wish on our worst enemies. Or maybe having to face stuff we would wish on our worst enemy, stuff we definitely would not want to have on our plate.  Purposelessness, public humiliation and overarching shame, insuperable pain of some kind with no prospect of alleviation; name your poison. Most of us prefer the come what may, and muster up enough courage to sustain ourselves. However, in these days of MAID, we always reserve the right to change our minds.

So, surviving can be a question of personal will. It is not at the top of our minds. Until it is. A recent poll announced that 23% of Americans consulted psychiatrists (or related medical specialists) last year. That compares with an earlier poll when the figure was 10%. What are these people talking to their doctors about? What has changed in our lives that has prompted such a rapid negative change in so many lives? Many more people are finding it difficult to survive without help in the fraught societies we are experiencing these days.

There are other larger questions of survival that affect humanity. We worry about the survival of humans on this planet. Recent climate conditions are adding to our paranoia. What about potential madmen holding our nuclear arsenals? How many people live in neighborhoods where they don’t feel safe? How many people live with companions that make them feel unsafe? How many worry about their next meal, their kids next meal, where they will be sleeping tonight??

As a Jew, I worry about the survival of my people. Human history over the last 3000 years seems to have been concentrating on the eradication of this tiny desert tribe. So many other tribes have disappeared without a trace. Each thought they had something unique to contribute. Some still alive today seem to be mere shadows of what they once were. Having made glorious contributions to the human story is no guarantee of longevity. It seems to be bad form, and dangerous, to have the world be too dependent on you for good ideas.

Trying harder has been the only thing that has saved Jews so far, but at great cost in lives lost and purposeful assimilation to avoid pain. Though we have been around all those years, we number only less than .02 per cent of the world’s population. Why do we find ourselves mentioned on every single news day?

It is the nature of living things that they have a strong urge to survive. One of its strategies has been to vastly expand the variety of  forms that life takes. As conditions conducive to survival of some are eliminated for many species, they indeed cease to be. The dominance of human needs and desires has played an important role in the disappearance of many species.

Species on this planet are dying out every day, many of them never to be seen again in our lifetimes. We humans have been taking extra measures to ensure some of our endangered species are preserved. Indeed, we have resorted using the DNA of some extinct species to bring some back to life. It has even been reported that we have managed to bring a dinosaur species back to life.

How are you feeling about your personal destiny? You may be early on the trail, just beginning to check off the items on your agenda. Talking about this stuff may seem tp you like just a waste of time. Some of us are in mid-stride, with little patience for this kind of talk, fully engaged in the battle. Others are looking around them to see who among us is still standing.

Personally, I have not given much thought to the question of survival. Life has been a blast, even with my share of down times.

 I have had some close calls, some I didn’t recognize until after the fact. I survived all the childhood illnesses. (I’m sure I had them all.) I’ve had cancer and have lived sixty years with diabetes.

 I was in my seventies when I was told there were signs of a traumatic brain injury. I remember once waking from unconsciousness in a deserted schoolyard, (crowded while my classmates waited for the fight,) after a fist fight. In Israel, at age eighteen, I was picked up hiking on a road by police who told me they had found an Army captain with his throat cut just over the hill. No car or plane crashes, though my Bride says I was a wild, careless, and inattentive driver. Life is what it is and it is glorious living with my Bride at near ninety!

Speaking as a survivor, clearly  I recommend an effort to be around for the long haul. The joys of having the offspring around to humor you and laugh at your lousy jokes would be a pity to miss. And, to have those tiny creatures related to you that you might have the good luck to meet, hug you, is worth all the pain it might take to get there.