Thought Picnic: I am no super-human, I know that much

After I’m done

A very personal letter to some of my closest friends ended with a simple message, “if anything does happen to me by reason of the circumstances I have encountered, I will want be seen by friends and be rested in the land of my birth.”

Despite my sometimes outward stoicism and the somewhat vaunted ‘stiff upper lip’ that the English are purported to have, maybe the more traditional English than the contemporaries, there is a part of my humanity that recognises that I am both vulnerable and fragile.

I have to be careful that my vulnerability and fragility do not complicate my circumstances that I can no more function anymore.

Capacity beyond ourselves

However, one also has to be realistic, all that we experience has a payload and consequence, it changes the countenance, might affect one's metabolism, could impact on one’s health and the dial either veers to the positive or the negative depending on those circumstances.

Amazingly, some human beings have spare capacity, the amazing capacity to stay affirmative, positive, hopeful and encouraged that it is not over until it is really over. This must come from the spirit because the five senses and mental processing are usually occupied by the immediacy of pain, of shame, of inability, of ineffectuality, and of failure.

Forgiven and praised

One has to prepare and set things in order. If one has been blessed with friends one can trust to rise when it is done and over. At least, the account books can be neatly closed and the era will be recorded in the chronicles of those who think it matters.

We have only one life to live, we assume the identities we are most comfortable with and ultimately espouse the affinities that come to define us. How we end up different is not the topic for today.

The times of reckoning are near, be they measured in days or decades; the hope is that we will be forgiven our foolishness and be mercifully praised.