Recently I’ve been feeling for conclusions.
A conclusion differs from an ending. An ending is final – full stop. A conclusion is an ending and beginning, a waystation between was and will be.
Only humans conclude, because only humans envision time and space as divisible. Other creatures live in eternity, that is, an endless continuity where there are no befores or afters, no properties, no comparisons. In eternity nothing concludes, which makes life a lot more pleasant. Imagine – no farewells, no contests, nowhere to go because you’ve already arrived. The human brain, for good or ill, chopped time and space into segments, which we contrasted. Dividing life into now and then, better and worse, me and you, made the obvious mysterious. The cure for all woe would be to banish time and its rascally offspring, language. But wouldn’t that be sad? For with time you’d be banishing beauty, our defense against time.
I was curious, in particular, what to conclude from ten years of missives. My body had changed during this interval, Lord knows; what about my mind? Nearly four thousand outings of six hundred words must have brought me somewhere!
My great discovery, it turns out, has been the power of mind: what Milton’s Satan concludes in Paradise Lost:
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedThe mind is its own place and in itselfCan make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
This, if you think about it, is a wow and a half. It means that humans can make of our reality what we choose, that each of us is our world’s creator. The beauty – or horror – of our world is up to us. We are not victims. It is so if we think so. Turn that frown upside down!
With awesome power comes awful responsibility. It is up to each of us to construct a world that suits us, to “make the most of our time.” More than an opportunity, this is our moral duty, what we owe kin and kith. Each of us has been given a gift – life – and a constructive tool – mind: let’s see what we can make! If you make a hideous botch, well, whose fault is that?
This conclusion is hardly news – ponderers have been preaching it almost since the invention of words – but each must discover it for themself. Mistaking truisms for truth, we lacerate ourselves with the opinions of our tribe. Failure or success – says who! Beautiful or ugly – says who! Right or wrong – says who! Victim or victor – says who!
I have rued many aspects of my life – that I was not stronger, handsomer, sexier, richer, smarter, a better tennis player. I’ve pummeled myself – I kid you not – for not being Shakespeare. How I longed to be BEST! Until I woke, gradually, to the realization: Best? – says who! With my mind I could make “a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.” So why all this moaning and groaning?
Humans victimize ourselves by not thinking for ourselves. “Sadness,” I wrote once, to my surprise, “is not our fate, but our fault.” The current distress of a staggering majority of mankind is not the world’s fault, but our own. Our brains have dragged us into a bog – the famous “slough of despond” – and abandoned us there. My conclusion has been “To hell with that!” Granted, I’m susceptible to gloom – diagnosed as “depression” – but I can do something about it – not ingest a chemical but use my head! How liberating! How empowering! How thrilling!
This transformation – of howl to hallelujah – may be hard as hell but hey, that’s our heroic chance.
Such is my conclusion.