This is a guest post from Harrison of Capitol Commentary. He is currently on vacation in Wyoming and wanted me to share this post and the photos with the readers of Political Realities. Please be sure to click on the thumbnails to view the photos. They are truly amazing to see.
They say when you’re young you can’t wait for your next birthday then as you get older your enthusiasm wanes until what was a celebration finally becomes a funeral. I don’t want to say I’ve reached that point (yet) but the last half of 2011 was the first time I really felt my mortality.
When I was a baby my parents’ house burned down and I died. It was confirmed later… no pulse, no breathing, nothing. The fireman revived me (it took him 20 minutes). Then one summer before 6th grade the car I was riding in was broadsided and I spent over a month in the hospital and nearly died as my body struggled with a cracked skill and a large blood clot on my brain and a 50% chance I would become epileptic. Then in 2001 I was again broadsided as someone ran a light and smashed into my VWBus. I was knocked unconscious and, once I awoke, taken to the hospital. Had that car hit me a foot behind where it did I would have died.
These things only postponed the inevitable but I’m still here!
Yay.
As I wrote in December, Spartacus’ Andy Whitfield died at age 39 and it really bummed me out… he was a mere 10 months older than I am and definitely in much better physical shape. He died of Non Hodgkin Lymphoma. Since that time two people I know, one 5 years younger and one 5 years older than I have been diagnosed with this disease. One is finishing up treatment while one is just beginning it.
Statistically, I am halfway through my life. I have had relatives live longer than this and some passed before so who knows how long I’ve got but 50% is a good ballpark considering family history and mortality rates.
Nobody lives forever, even if you eat your Wheaties.
When I was making my transition from Theism to Atheism in high school I was bummed out quite a bit but I had that whole “I’m 16, 17, or 18″ thing going on. I was doing new and exciting things, heading off to college, the future was an open canvas so I guess I allowed myself to be distracted by all of that.
The distraction returns sometimes and I’m grateful.
I’m not tied down by debt or a sick relative or 10 kids I need to support or missing a foot but I also know that, were I to have a child today they would most likely be my age (38) when I died. That’s a little tough to take when you think about it.
Now maybe I’m wrong and I’ll get hit by a bus tomorrow or live until I’m 87… again I’m simply going off of known averages but in the end it matters little.
In some ways I’m glad to be on vacation (in Wyoming) because I desperately need a break (someone has to pay taxes). The wonderful thing about spending time in a place like Yellowstone National Park is the timelessness of it.
That’s also the downside, too.
When you’re standing out amongst the trees (especially if it’s 5 degrees and snowing) in the dead calm and quiet of Winter and you strip away all of the trappings of society (cell phones, Facebook, people talking, etc…) you really understand how incredibly insignificant you are and how Nature really doesn’t care about you or need you to function. It’s humbling but, at the same time, oddly liberating too.
Maybe I’ve spent the first 38 years of my life understanding what I have to work with and in what kind of world I’m living and my remaining time will be spent trying to understand it?
I’ll leave you with a few images of, thus far, my favorite place on this beautiful planet.
Nice thought piece!
Life: Enjoy it while it lasts
No one’s guaranteed tomorrow, which you are most certainly a witness to! Praise God you were spared three times!
I appreciate this thoughtful article. Really strikes a chord Harrison. I am 56. Looking back, since the age of twenty, taking stock each five years of my life, I see that at that end of each five years my life was far different than it was five years earlier. Sometimes worse and sometimes better. Sometimes much worse and sometimes much better.
Deaths, love, marriage, children, financial success, financial failure, a child’s cancer and over coming myself and my limiters. It goes on and on …
My point, each five years of life is like a ring on a tree stump that chronicles human existence. Life is tough. Love is tough. But life and love are so beautiful I continue to want to deal with some of the most tragic things humans can experience. It is that way for most of us. We are not unique.
I dig the way you got outside the ‘stress’ of day to day life and feel a different kind of emotional thoughtfulness mixed with peace. I can do the same thing on a deserted beach; whether it is under a hot sun or under a full moon witnessing the rare beauty of fluorescent waves caused by bioluminescent microorganisms.
I appreciate the kind words. Will all be llike Rutger Hauer’s final speech in Blade Runner.
They key, in my view, is to visit areas that have big trees, large rocks, huge bodies of water and few people. We should experience being a little nervous or even fear. These situations make us feel so small. They humble us and inspire us.
I highly recommend the book “Deep Survival” by Laurence Gonzales:
http://www.deepsurvival.com/
Challenges do come in our life. Sometimes is really hurt us
and could cause depression. Yet, whatever may happen, we should still learn on
how to be positive always.