Digging, Digging, Digging, Digging, Digging with a golden shovel.

There was a time when I thought I was too meditative and not active enough. There was a time when I thought I was too active and not meditative enough.

My Uncle

My uncle is a proud man.

We never really were fond of each other, but he is my uncle and I his nephew, and we respect each other as that, as a family.

My uncle is a proud man, who worked hard all his life to accumulate wealth and success, information and commodities, who acquired assets and insurances. He is a successful man, some would say.

My uncle is a proud man, who never really opened to others about himself, who talked very little with his own brothers--if at all--who married a loving and obliging wife, who refused to conceive children.

My uncle is a proud man, who has constructed a proud world around himself, a world of knowledge and information, a world of status, an organised world (one of the few who has an alphabetically organised cellar).

My uncle however, is dying. He suffers of senility and multiple cancers. His wife too, my aunt, is also affected by a cancer and both are now resting in separate hospitals. My uncle is not able to care for himself, and his dignity is now affected by his incapacity and by the services he requires from nurses. He has few relatives visiting him, his own wife is out of reach. His home, well ordered, is waiting for its master in order and silence.

I visited recently my uncle and in spite of the emotional distance between the two of us, I felt love and compassion for this man, who put so much effort in making things right, in doing well, in being successful in his life, in making things work. His work, his assets, his possessions, his knowledge, his dignity and pride are now of no use to him. He is a proud man: he has never turned to metaphysics, even less so to religion or spirituality. He is now laying anxious to die, he is terrified by what is to come, because he may not really have thought of it in other terms than as a deadline or as a remote event for which to prepare materially. I felt compassion for my proud uncle, about whom most think in negative term, because his pride made him harsh and coarse, never apologising. I see him now powerless in the face of Death.

My uncle's case got me thinking, not only about him, but also about me. What is true for him is true for me and most probably for anyone else. Whatever I will accomplish, it will be of little use in the face of Death. Whatever I obtain will not be with me when Death shall come. Whatever I learn will not be of much use when my time comes. Whatever memories I will have accumulated may just as well vanish in senility. However good or bad I may think I have been in my life, may make little or no difference in the end.

I have turned 30 recently and if I think of it, I was a small child playing silly things and daydreaming yesterday still. I am merely halfway to my uncle's stage. I am utterly engaged and open however, to embrace any way of life which makes it worthwhile to exist or to be this entity or construct we call "Benjamin".

The questions cannot help but emerge: is there a way of life that is worth our existence? My uncle's case already shows there is little to expect from any material or social success, because when death comes, those  mean nothing, even more so when memory fades away. Should I be more kind? Should I bond with others? There is little or no help people can provide when death comes. Holding one's hand and few words of love perhaps, but words do little when you understand your life blinked away. Should I love more? Should I enjoy more? What are loving memories if they fade away in senility? What do memories mean if they do not survive after my mind and body return to the earth? What does life mean without "me"? Is there such a thing?

How should I live, so that when I too shall lay on my deathbed, will be proud to have lived and loved?

I am glad I am not spiritual I am glad I am not seeking to understand because wielding the Universe is tiresome.