A Little Melancholy

I was listening to the news today. I don’t really advise it. As my old friend Sam Clemmons once said, “Those who don’t read the news are uninformed, those who do are misinformed.”

Any road, the discussion I was eavesdropping on revolved around the nuclear issue in general, and Iran and Israel in particular. The question seemed to be whether or not Israel’s eminent action to interrupt Iran’s Nuclear Programme would result in War, Cyber or Shooting, and if Iran would target sites in the US for terrorist attacks in retribution.

That got me thinking about my family, how war would affect them, be it a shooting war, an economic war, cyber war or whatever. Seems to me that we are so fragile right now, teetering on the edge of the abyss, it won’t take very much to seriously disrupt our way of life.

As I thought about these things, my mind did a zoom out in space and time. As I got farther and farther from ground zero. I saw other families in other places at other times. I had a bit of an epiphany as I realized that there really was no difference between me and mine and you and yours no matter where, or for that matter, when you are.

You don’t love your kids and grandkids any more or any less than I do. Their futures are or were or will be every bit as promising as mine, yet, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t make any difference. They will either live to be full of years and full of memories, or tragedy will overtake.

Live in a quiet little town in Alabama. Save and build your entire life, then one day a tornado reduces all to zero. Time to start over. Then ten months later, go to jail, go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200 as another random act of Nature clears the works of man from the Alabama countryside.

It has always been this way and always will be.

From Dust you came, and to Dust you shall return.

Can you picture a family living in a small town on the coast of Italy? It is August of ’79, and people are involved, as people usually are, in the mundane activities of everyday life. The kids are running through the house yelling, mom is getting ready to do the laundry. The small earthquakes have been rumbling for a few days. When the eruption begins in earnest, a cloud of super-heated gas rushes down the nearby mountain at a speed that defies the imagination. The strong quake that signals the start of the eruption frightens the children, who rush to their mother, just in time to die together. The year? 79 A.D. The town? Pompeii

Love those you care about with everything you have. Savor each moment and treasure every sunrise. Live each day as though it is your last. 

One day you’ll be right.