do not disturb

My mother was sort of my champion, standing up for me at important Times, and all my growing up years trying to boost me in my own mind. But the truth is, I am neither as bright as Mama made me out to be, nor as dumb as I know I am. Still, if it's somewhere in between, it's toward my end of the spectrum. I've now known me nearly a dozen years longer than Mama did, although, granted, on this end it's been the declining years that I'm experiencing rather than the developing years when she saw me more closely than I was aware of myself.

Certainly, I'm no philosopher (that's my disclaimer, same idea as the gospel writers have John the Baptist disclaim being the messiah so as to have John himself clear him out of the spotlight and off the stage) any more than every one else is her/his own philosophizer, though observations come to me just as they come to anyone who gets this far in life. At eighty-six you're aware that you've lived beyond most people you know, outlived most of your classmates, lived longer than one parent did, and one grandparent, longer than some of your younger cousins, longer god-forbid than a younger sibling.

You become increasingly aware that either you or your spouse will, barring some common event or accident, die before the other. Not that you're in control, but you aren't sure whether you'd rather be the one who goes first and no pain, or go last so as to spare the other the pain and greatly changed life.

And it gets down to this, which is where my thought about philosophy started. As well as what we see with our outward eyes, there's the other kind of vision (ἴδωσιν, Mark 9:1 again), see with the mind's eye, realize, perceive, discern, understand, that when all is said and done, life is as much illusion as - - well, reality, whatever reality is. Maybe I'm thinking of Plato's cave, with the people in the cave having only the shadows from the fire behind them to see what they think is reality, which in fact is all the reality they can know. They don't know it, but life is an illusion. I find that it really is so - illusion.

I'll demonstrate. Illustrate.

Mornings when I get up early predawn and hours yet to go before there's other than pitch black darkness outside across the Bay and straight out beyond the horizon into the Universe, I go out and quietly shut the bedroom door, Linda still asleep and likely to sleep quite a while yet, maybe two or three more hours as this morning. In Time, the sky starts to lighten slightly, and more Time ticks by, and I get anxious and wonder: should I go in and check she's breathing? Here's where the illusion comes in, illusion that I'm fully aware that I myself am creating for myself, but that is as real as not-illusion and I don't know for sure which it is. If she's breathing, all is well and life as it is now while I'm contentedly sitting here is fine. If she's not breathing, life as I know it is ended and I'm into the apocalypse. What to do? The clock keeps ticking. What to do?

But, you see, it's an easy decision, quite logical, if illusional. If she's not breathing there's nothing I can do to change that, and I don't want to go there. However, I don't have to go there: I can give myself more of the contentedness by sitting here with what is either illusion or reality but is definitely better than it might be if I go in and take the chance of ruining everything.

See, all is well here right now, and I choose to continue well, as opposed to risking not-well. Either way, right now I'm in illusion and I know it, and I continue choosing it even if I'm somewhat anxious about it.

At least I know it's illusion, unlike the people in Plato's cave, for whom illusion is reality and they don't and can't know it.

The fact is, I may not really even be here this morning, maybe Friday's tornado actually came a few yards this way after all, and got me, and now I'm in heaven, 7H. If so, that's fine and I'll just keep my phone on do not disturb so as not to take a chance on spoiling it.

RSF&PTL

pics: met by a shrimper from StAndrews Marina, Basic Queen 569x98 arrived last evening to load wood pellets for the power station at Studstrup, Denmark; Progreso 326x55 passing 7H early this morning with containers from Progreso, leaving tomorrow to return to Progreso.