Thursday, May 12, 2022

Hilton Head Island: still trying

Evening.  The sun has set.  Skull Creek is silver and pewter.  

I look out on beauty.  That is important to me.  Perhaps it is to us all.  Unfortunately to most it is beyond possibility.  

Our species, which evolved roaming over the African savannah, has chosen to live in cities.  Bad choice.

I am sitting in our living room where the Sonos speakers are best placed, sipping Plymouth gin and listening to Villa Lobos and trying to understand what I ought to do.  You may observe that few my age are troubled by that question.  

In the meantime I watch some videos of the young coming together.  They should.  I am pleased that the young find the joys of their flesh.  Here is a styilized link to a video I like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8t4W9-OvcM

I knew the joys of young flesh.

As Carol noted during our recent visit to the places of my youth, the acceptance of desirable women in my late teens and later was the first outside evidence that I might be I was what I thought I was. 

I would not be young again if given the opportunity.

Once was enough.  It was in my case almost more than enough

I do not know that I will ever again do or write anything of value.  

Carol has said that she is tired of people asking her what I will do next and so tells them I am retired.

Someone once said that my job is being Webb Chiles and so the only retirement for me is death or even worse being alive and helpless through mental or physical failure.  

So here it is.  For almost all of my life I had goals.  I knew what I needed to do, despite physical hardship, loss of love, and possible loss of life.  

Yet somehow I am still alive and I no longer do.

I am certain that I am an original experiment who was given great gifts in the genetic lottery that cares nothing for individuals and everything for the mass of flow.  I do not understand what is going on.  I do not know that I have repaid those gifts.  I have tried.  I do know that though I am among the oldest one percent on the planet I am still trying to understand what I ought to do.

I have paused the music while I write.  I am about to resume it and pour myself a little more gin.

As a great writer observed our lives are as brief as a butterfly’s cough.  That we have so little time is our dignity.

I have realty tried.  I am trying still.

L’Chaim.  To life.

    





2 comments:

Michael said...

How about writing an autobiography, whilst gazing out on the creek and sipping? You've gathered plenty of material. Suggested title "Trying too hard".

This morning, having read your latest beautifully written post, I'm sipping a coffee and gazing at the Aegean, having decided not to sail this year, and wondering how I could have less to do.

Ernie said...

It may be true that nature -- "the genetic lottery" -- is only interested in anatomical males and anatomical females smashing together and spawning children who live long enough to spawn other children. Once we do that, we may be a waste of resources unless we are useful in that process. Nature, though, is prepared to accept a lot of broken parts lying around after the smashing, and is prepared to smash a lot of individuals together of any gender or identity, if it advances the next generation.

So then, Carol is right that if anatomical females were interested in smashing into you as a youngun, maybe you were after all worth the effort it took to get you at least that far.