The Book<\/a>. Finishing a book is always exhausting. I figured, “Hey, a few days rest and I’m good to go.”<\/p>\nBut I’m not. After a week’s rest, I’m good for about four hours a day. I’ll eventually have to try the witch<\/del> doctor again.<\/p>\nThere may be nothing wrong. There may be some ordinary, easily fixable thing wrong. There may be Something Really Wrong.<\/p>\n
In the latter case I don’t plan to talk much about it.<\/p>\n
But it’s had me thinking.<\/p>\n
—–<\/p>\n
Melodrama aside (and I do apologize for that), it’s been an interesting exercise. Although the Internet confidently predicts, via “your real age” quizzes, that I can expect to make it to 92 — still a long way off — I find that the thought of dying earlyish didn’t bother me.<\/p>\n
The world’s getting so freaking bizarre that there might even be some relief in slipping out before the university snowflakes melt or some fool of a politician starts WWIII. I might miss the conclusion of Orange is the New Black<\/em> or Stranger Things<\/em>, but I’m getting awfully tired of Hollywood types and their smug superiority, so maybe it’s no big loss.<\/p>\nAbout the only thing that bothered me was (and is) the state of my spiritual life — which has always been messy and inadequate.<\/p>\n
It’s not bothering me for the standard reasons. It’s not one of those, “OMG, if I’m going to die, I’d better repent and save my sorry backside from hell” things. I long ago figured out that, if the God of My Childhood is really the Big Man In Charge, I’m already doomed. The God of My Childhood was the kind who’s going to let about 72 people into heaven and they’re all going to sit up there eating popcorn, watching the lesser billions fry, grinning, cheering, and congratulating themselves on being so much better (and so much more humble!) than We the Damned. Him, I do not care to kiss up to. Them, I do not care to spend eternity with. <\/p>\n
As Mark Twain said, “Heaven for climate; Hell for society.” (Even though technically I don’t believe in the whole business.)<\/p>\n
No, my spiritual life bothers me because it’s my one and only spiritual life<\/em> and it’s not what it ought to be. <\/p>\nParadoxically I haven’t a religious bone in my currently rather feeble body. But I do have, and have always had, a compelling drive toward the ethereal. I hold a few, but powerful, lifelong “knowings” that are completely at odds with both my irreligiousity and my rationality. I long — constantly — toward something that is beautiful and true and good beyond what we mere humans can achieve. <\/p>\n
Oh, I think we humans have done most amazing things. “God bless science!” I’d say if it made sense. “What a piece of work is man,”<\/a> I’d add. Reason, logic, and a rigorous search for facts may be the greatest creations of humankind. Then there’s great art. Great literature. Great philosophy. When not being corrupted by some nonsense (often political) we humans, with our minds and our worldly resources alone, achieve wonders.<\/p>\nBut. That doesn’t mean there’s not something else. Something bigger. I don’t know IF there is. I don’t know WHAT there is. I know only that something draws me.<\/p>\n
I always put these longings in the context of conventional religion. Because that was too merely human in my specific experience (I respect that YMMV on that very delicate subject), my spirituality has been less of a pursuit of the numinous and more of a stone wall to slam into.<\/p>\n
Whether I have 25 years or 25 months left, it’s time for the numinous and I to come to a reckoning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Oy. That sounds melodramatic. But there’s no way around it. For the last week I’ve been contemplating my mortality. I’m not quite well. I’m not quite sick, either, but I haven’t been quite well for nearly two years. It’s taken me this long to add all the little things up and start to speculate (and finally, to take up that dangerous instrument, the keyboard, to learn what I could learn). Damn, it pains and irritates me to say that. I’ve always had an iron immune system and robust health. But there comes a time … Anyhow, about 18 months ago…<\/p>\n
Continue readingContemplating my mortality<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,13,18,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-and-aesthetics","category-health-and-science","category-mind-and-spirit","category-resistance","ratio-natural","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36098"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36115,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36098\/revisions\/36115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}