“I don’t wanna.” I am sure was my initial reaction.
I can not say I remember not knowing, yet I am pretty sure I had to find out sometime.
Or is it instinctual knowledge as monarch butterflies know where to migrate to and from. After all we are trained from the get go to organize our instincts into acceptable reactions, so maybe that knowledge gets short circuited, only to be reintroduced in a more elaborate lesson further down the road.
We have told ourselves, have been told, taught by others, many elaborate stories on the subject of the long dirt nap. Before we ritualized and institutionalized the process I would imagine it was rather like going to sleep in a manner ranging from peacefully to horribly and then waking up dead. I suppose that waking up dead part is where the story begins in some versions and where it ends in others.
From celebrating my grandmothers “last” birthday for the first twenty one years of my life to witnessing my child’s crying jag upon the realization of the apparent inevitable; I felt always aware of the final summation. If the equation is alive or not alive, i can say I have spent a lot more time not alive than alive in the grand scheme of things. So as I walk through this vacation from being not alive the words of Melville always vibrate through every strand of my DNA.
“Wherefore, for all these things, we account the whale immortal in his species, however perishable in his individuality.”
So if you are looking for answers I say, “Move along. There is nothing to see here.” You want answers, people got a million of them. In price ranges from free to all your earthly possessions. Up to and including your life. After all, you can’t take it with you. The ultimate sliding scale.
A Scroll Threw Life 