29-Sep-2006: Am I Important?
Actually,
I am looking forward to this project. The last time I had a really serious
conversation was with my priest (now moved away) while we consumed two bottles
of wine. I can't promise much on these pages, except that I will strive to be
as open and honest as possible. Not the in vino veritas kind of honesty (which tends to get repetitive
and maudline), but of the sober, reflective kind in a
medium where I have nothing to gain by being dishonest. Let's face it: you, the
reader, don't really give a rat's ass about the times I've been told I am
brilliant—or an idiot—and that my life story is an inspiration. (I hope it is
not for other 14-year-olds thinking about launching themselves into the
street-life of our cities. I have noticed, though, that those who say my
life-story is inspirational are looking for ways to use it to prop up their
concept of how the world works.
Which takes me to the topic: am I important? Well, I certainly am
important to me, because without me I would not be here at the moment. Does
that sound self-evident? Consider: when I was four and five years old I thought
it was a wonderful game to wait at the side of the highway for a car to
approach. I would dare myself to wait as long as possible before dashing across
the highway — giving many a driver a good scare. I don't know why I did
this. But, if I had failed to make it across the highway without being struck
and maimed or killed, a lot of other things would not have happened. Would my
sons exist? That they exist is proof that I survived. How else would they have
received the genes they did, and been shaped by a neurotic and loving father
who strived to acknowledge their uniqueness? A father whose actions were shaped
by events that proceeding their existence? And will a part of me survive in my sons'
children and grandchildren?
I think Ann would consider me to be important. She was in the process of
resigning herself to a solitary life when I appeared on the scene. Over the
past twenty-seven years that we have been involved with each other, we have
each influenced and shaped the other. Mostly for the good.
We gave each other children—which is life-altering for a lot of people. And
being together almost every day and night for such a long period time it is
true that we have become major parts of the other.
Does my mother think I am important? Hard to say, as
she is dead. Death has a way of making everything else appear
irrelevant. Was I important to her when she was alive? I must have been.
She told me when she was dying that she cried for me after she left my father.
(I'll get to that story some day.)
But what about the students I taught and the people I worked with? Would
someone else have done just as good a job? Would someone else have influenced
them (or not) the way I did (or didn't)? Friends?
If I had not existed would they have become different people? I don't think I
should overstate myself here — I may have nudged them a bit, but, did
those nudges have a lasting effect, and do they affect the people that they
touch?
Once a friend wrote to say that he had decided it was time for him to leave this
world, but, out of curiosity, he decided to listen to some CDs of my music that
I had sent him. He decided to stay here to see what else I would produce. Similarly, I decided
that I should hang around a bit longer when an email from a 14-year-old thousands
of miles away, told me how important my music was.
My family before I left home? I have to laugh at that, because a
therapist once told me that walking out of the house when I was fourteen and
sticking my thumb out on the side of a major highway was one of the smartest
things I have done in my life. I am sure I was important to my father,
as he feared I would tell other adults about my life with him. Even when we
reconciled shortly before he died, he needed my reassurance and felt an overwhelming
urge to tell me his story. But, when he died, did that make any difference
except to me? And the rest? I have a cousin who
I've seen twice in my adult life; a sister
who I rarely talk to; a brother who is proud because
he hasn't spoken to me for about fifteen years now; a half-sister who has never called
or sent a note, despite my efforts to keep in touch with her.
The problem with everything is, that when looked at from the perspective of a
couple of billion years in a universe that is receeding
at its edges at the speed of light, what can a creature with a life span of 70
or 80 or 100 years on a small rocky planet on the outskirts of an ordinary
galaxy among billions of others do to make a difference? The Buddhists believe
that everything we do, every gesture, has a ripple effect that does reach to
the ends of time and space. Many of my fellow Christians believe I am going to
spend eternity wrapped in the loving embrace of God. Other Christians believe I
am going to a place called Hell where they imagine I will be tortured for
eternity because I disagree with their world view.
Me? I dunno. I will know when it happens, but
I suspect that death is like many other experiences: an event that confuses the
brain momentarily before it blinks out. Anyone who has been sucker-punched knows about that. And afterwards?
Who knows? But I, this being of flesh and
thought, will not exist. How can it when the body that supports the thinker rots? Will anything I can
do before that event make a difference? I'll be remembered by a few people until they die and maybe a few
others will remember stories about me for a while. Then they will die. And so on, each death shrinking any
impact I may have had. My importance exists only within the smallest fragment of time and space possible.
Does that mean that life is nothing but an existential pain in the butt? That
nihilism is a reasonable response to an unreasonable universe? Hey, this is
nothing but raw thought coming at you. I can't make any promises.