Danse Macabre

Some of you may latch onto one another like anchors to the past and conduits of shared memory. But not always. All of you will tessellate throughout time and space and connections will be lost as frequently as they are found. All is perfectly normal. Do not fear the moment that you lose touch with someone. Instead learn to enjoy the anticipation of waiting for the next time you will see them.

I always leave people with the feeling of elation after a conversation. I try to dig right in and find the rapport. It can be difficult, I am getting more and more out of touch with people the older I get. Finding a shared interest usually ends with me recommending old games or old movies, foundational touchstones for the vidya they play or cinema they watch, not that many will watch what I would consider cinema.

Truth of the matter is that I am getting bored. Fighting the ennui that comes of vapid emulations of logic people call arguments these days, some where I am suffered to do the work of both sides in order to better instruct my adversary on how to argue in the future. My mother said I should have been a lawyer. My grandmother said I should have been a priest. Either way, I would have done enough arguing to keep me happy.

Instead, I find myself a comfortable bottom rung to set up my hammock and watch life build around me. My lack of ambition is surprising to most, off-putting too. I remember an incident with an old friend, one who’s life had taken him a lucrative direction, who had planned well for his future and was riding the twin waves of Perseverance and Good Fortune, who asked why I, a man of significant capabilities still worked for plebian wages. Because even lavish kings end their journey as the pauper.

I had been sucked into the myth of the Danse Macabre, the idea that all must dance their way into death no matter what their station, nor their condition, nor their sentience, all this too must come to pass. It was a train of a thought and sometimes I just had to ride it until it gets to the inevitable caboose of it’s short life too. That’s what I think of ideas, too. That they have a life or a death. Or a cycle of rebirth. That last one is most likely. I like to pass the time thinking of how one would kill an idea. How does one take an idea and kill it? The best answer I have is by creating an equally appealing idea to takes its place. It doesn’t even necessarily need to be a new Idea, just a different one. Religions replace religions, kings replace kings, ideas replace ideas.

I bring this up because I believe that life as a function exists as an opportunity for our consciousness to get a snapshot of itself. It makes no sense to accumulate wealth to the point of madness but it is important to work a job. One must not be useless in their endeavors. Reality that you perceive and the problems that you embrace are the universe’s foil to your existence. They give you the backdrop from which you define your experience. Your worldview. Sometimes happiness is measured in how not sad you are. Sometimes how sad you are is measured by how happy you were. The reality you embrace and the problems you perceive are what defines your existence.

And so, I embrace the danse.

1/27/2015