Precious impermanence

LISTEN. My team lost a nailbiter last night, as the Dodgers broke the tie in the 9th and took the wildcard. 

As predicted, this morning I find myself musing that it's only a game, after all, so why all the fuss? And my inner ten-year-old is having none of it. Good. I want to stay in touch with the ten-year-old. He's the one who believes, like the late Bart Giamatti in "Green Fields of the Mind," that something can be forever. The wisest of us grow out of that.

They grow out of sports. And there are others who were born with the wisdom to know that nothing lasts. These are the truly tough among us, the ones who can live without illusion, or without even the hope of illusion. I am not that grown-up or up-to-date. I am a simpler creature, tied to more primitive patterns and cycles. I need to think something lasts forever, and it might as well be that state of being that is a game; it might as well be that, in a green field, in the sun.

My inner ten-year-old is tender-minded, not so tough. Good for him. His successor's got disillusion more than covered.  The kid can't wait for Spring Training. The older guy just looks forward to Friday night's Dodgers-Giants game. (And Friday morning's flight out to LA !) He knows "forever" is childhood's dream, so he's focused on the passing now. 

 

The older guy is more likely to ponder Buddhism and Stoicism, to detach from the games of life as they pass, and to enjoy the gift of the present. 

And so we close Antonina Macaro's More Than Happiness, which more than makes a case for gleaning the best of Buddhism and Stoicism (and every other wisdom tradition we can manage to partially assimilate) as we attempt to reconcile our fantasies of forever with the exigencies of the impermanent and rapidly-recedeing now. Can we accept our finitude, even embrace it and appreciate the way it elevates the game of life? Can we "cherish precious impermanent things"?

Well... as Thomas Carlyle said of Margaret Fuller 's statement that she accepted the universe: we'd better. There's really no alternative. But acceptance does not have to take the form of resignation, for a Stoic Pragmatist who eagerly anticipates the green fields of next Spring. We do survive every moment, as John Updike said, except the last one. Atomically speaking (with the Epicureans) we even survive that one too, as we might learn from Freddie the Leaf. "Freddie landed on the soft snow. He closed his eyes and went to sleep. In the tree and the ground, there were already plans for new leaves in spring." As Freddie's creator said, “Every moment spent in unhappiness is a moment of happiness lost.”

And as Macaro says, we should remember "how small the cup of human enjoyment is" and not forget to enjoy our tea. Remember with Epictetus and the Stoics too, though, when finally the cup is drained, that it's just a cup. It was never going to be forever, though its atoms persist to assume other forms.

And, as Macaro concludes, we should remember that all things -- "like cherry blossom or autumn leaves" -- must pass. Sic transit. Beautiful. 

 

Like Spring.