Zero-sum

It is easy to forget that this is a zero-sum game. Ashes to ashes; emptiness to emptiness; earth to earth; soul to soul. That death will arrive is a sobering realisation. There is one time-proof guarantee: whatever comes next, it will not be quite the same as this. It never has been, even in life. But why is it sobering, and what on earth should we do with ourselves once sober?

I’ve always loved the title of Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being. How can something so hard be so easy? How can something so light be so heavy? Perhaps it is precisely because the the expectations are nil in the now and nil in the end that the time in the middle becomes so unbearable.

We have no choice but to make something of ourselves in the time available. We can’t help but build our lives on the edges of cliffs, where the view is best. Children can’t help but build sandcastles in the damp sand, where the waves will wash them away. The precariousness of life what gives it form and the fall is what defines the rise.

Oscar Wilde writes of Icarus, the boy who flew too close to the sun on wings made of bird-feathers and wax:

“Never regret thy fall, O Icarus of the fearless flight. For the greatest tragedy of them all. Is never to feel the burning light.”

It’s a romantic view, and there are others who would live as Icarus’ father did, flying lower, to eventually land safely and grieve. Those who go on living must always grieve. A son represents the resurrection of a father’s missed opportunity. What the father doesn’t do, his son is bound to do - and if not the son, then the grandson, and so on. Karma is transferred until it is dissolved.

Eventually, a boy must fly too close to the sun. His choice is his duty. It is a great shame if he does not - both to the boy, to the father and to others who would learn from his story in making their own choices. A myth needs a hero and the hero must eventually die, be killed or become a villain, because heroism is a way, not a person, and not a fixed moment in time.

The only freedom or heroism in life is that which blooms from the surrender to impermanence and suffering. Those who live best seem to live as though they have already died - as if they know something others don’t. Those who are really living choose to dive into the chilly waters and laugh, rather than shrink away in the warmth, never to experience their own radiance.

I’ve often made the mistake of thinking that my life was going well because I didn’t seem to be suffering. Only a fool thinks he’s free of suffering. Those who are glad not to be suffering are falling from height, and simply haven’t realised that the ground is coming, fast.

After all, joy is inextricable from suffering and suffering, married to joy. We are nothing but the space in-between, and we fill find ourselves in the middle, on average, no matter what. If we voluntarily choose joy, we’ll experience involuntary suffering. If we voluntarily choose suffering, we’ll experience involuntary joy. And if we choose the middle, we’ll be shaken both ways.

So, how will you live?