A Paradox Isn't Just A Place To Park Two Boats
(The view from my lab at the location I was on in Four Bears Village ND)
Just becauas I've been without data service doesn't mean I've spent my time idly. In fact just the opposite. Ive been struck with a sort of writing bug lately, I've been writing on a book I started four years ago as well as exploring a few other projects that I'll discuss later. But while I was in Four Bears Village with no line to the outside world I was forced to do a lot of introspection. I guess I could have stared blankly at a wall instead but my ADD would never allow for that. At one point during my self mandated soul searching I wrote this. It's a sort of window into me at a certain point in time and space. This one is a bit more dramatic than usual but it's heartfelt and true. I hope you enjoy.
I'm sitting in a familiar place. It's not somewhere I've specifically been before but it's also not new to me either. It's another job location just like all the others in a town I've worked near before. I never end up in the same place for long but I never really go anyplace that has something I haven't already seen. Traveling for work is an adventure like no other.
There's an old proverb, "You Can't Take It With You" (this phrase was made famous as the title of a comedic play in three acts that was released in 1936 by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart.)
Source: theidioms.com
I always liked the saying. I used to think about it in terms of a warm meal. You can take the food but the warm meal is only warm for a time and then it's cold food and not a warm meal anymore. So in that sense it's gone forever after a set amount of time. Entropy for the layman if you like. But as I grow older(note I did not say wiser) it's becoming more and more obvious that what they meant wasn't the face value of the statement but it was instead a remark designed to make your train of thought arrive at the discovery that each moment in life will only happen the once so you must be ever in the moment.
I try. Gan knows I try with all my heart but I'm only a man. I think it's part of the reason why my mind values the accumulation of stories, fact or fiction, above raw data. It's part of the reason why I so dearly value human interaction on a social level. It's part of the reason why I can sever my basic emotional response to leaving everything I know and love for such long periods of time and at such a regular frequency.
There exists a thing called the grandfather's axe paradox. In which a man has his grandfather's axe passed down to him. Eventually the head of the axe begins to crack so the man replaces it. Then some time later the handle begins to break and he replaces this as well. At this point the question is asked "is it still his grandfather's axe even though it's made of all new parts now? And if so then what is it if you reassemble the original broken parts as well?
What I'm meandering towards is my life is the axe. I try to live in each and every moment so as to get the most out of the only life I'll ever have but doing all this takes a toll and you eventually must change out a cracked or broken part of the routine until, in the end, I'm left wondering if I'm even still me.... I feel like me..... I look like me..... But some deep part of my innermost psyche knows better.
Some people try to justify this process by saying "Well that's just growing up", but I think that's more akin to a coping mechanism than it is to an explanation. Take a look at your own life. One year ago today. You may have been in the same place doing the same thing but I'd wager that most of you are not that same you. Is that bad? No, not necessarily but be aware YOU ARE ALWAYS CHANGING even if you do the same thing day in day out your whole life. You are replacing bits and pieces all along the way until you are something brand new. This brings me to my final point: in regards to change it can either be for the Ill or for the best and if given the choice(which we always are whether we admit it or not) I suggest the latter over the prior.
Now get out there and have a spectacular day!