Thursday, February 10, 2005

What can you say?

What is it about a little virus that it has the ability to make a person so introspective? Not that I actually thought I was going to die or anything, but maybe it’s that the temporary breakdown of our bodily systems remind us (at least subconsciously) of our own mortality. Hell, maybe it’s simply because you don’t have the energy to take part activities which would otherwise distract.

I spent most of the last few days thinking about Iggy’s friend, Huggy Bear. It affected me a lot more than I thought it did when I first read about it. Thoughts of my friend’s wife, murdered in a totally random fashion, came flooding back into my mind as I read, driving me into a melancholy I haven’t experienced for quite some time. It pretty much comes down to this: I wouldn’t wish a tragedy like that on my worst enemy, no one should have to endure the loss of a spouse, and yet someone does every day. I didn’t have the words then, and I don’t really have them now. I suppose no one really does.

I guess the real reason I am prattling on about this is to remind everyone to take extra time to think about and appreciate those you love and hold dear. Let them know it, because we don’t have the luxury of knowing exactly how much more time any of us have as the moments pass us by.

While reading Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, I can across something I thought would be worth sharing:

“The world, [Govinda], is not imperfect or slowly evolving along a long path to perfection. No, it is perfect at every moment; every sin already carries grace within it, all small children are potential old men, all sucklings have death within them, all dying people—eternal life. It is not possible for one person to see how far another is on the way; the Buddha exists in the robber and dice player; the robber exists in the Brahmin. During deep meditation it is possible to dispel time, to see simultaneously all the past, present and future, and then everything is good, everything is perfect, everything is Brahman. Therefore, it seems to me that everything that exists is good—death as well as life, sin as well as holiness, wisdom as well as folly. Everything is necessary, everything needs only my agreement, my assent, my loving understanding; then all is well with me and nothing can harm me.”

This was for Huggy Bear, I wish him well.