…like being a newborn again.
Uncertain steps,
learning to walk,
re-discovering to become
who you are,
and then,
there are visits to a dentist
for a new set of teeth
and perhaps,
mashing up the food
so it is easier to eat.
And to top it all
living with dignity
does not get any easier
when before getting in bed
hands fumble to put on
an adult diaper.
34,000 feet (about 10 km) up above in the air I am on my way to Geneva. To put the height of the aircraft in perspective, the peak of Mount Everest measures 29,029 feet.
Dinner has been served, everyone has been given their plastic bottle of water, and in a few hours, we will land in Geneva where I will be in transit and board another flight on the way to Lisbon.
If you are wondering whether I am on my way from Stockholm to Lisbon with a stopover in Geneva, you would be wrong in your guess.
I am flying from Washington DC to Lisbon and my route to the destination flies me close to Lisbon while on the way to Geneva. I would then go backtrack from there and fly to Lisbon. The route taken is a quirk of the economics of the pricing of airline tickets and the premium that is put on the perceived value of our time.
When I was checking the flights to have a week of vacation in Lisbon, the fares for direct flights from Washington DC to Lisbon were the most expensive. The flight time was around seven hours.
Then there were other flight options that first took me to different cities in Europe, had a layover, and then continued to Lisbon. These options were priced cheaper, but their flight time to Lisbon ranged from 14-24 hours.
You can see the logic of the pricing model here. If you are willing to sacrifice your time, then you could fly cheaper. This is one down to earth example of the saying that time is money.
Being conscious of my wallet, I picked up the cheaper option; I opted not to pay a premium on the value of my time. After all, what else have I got to do? It is not that I am CEO of some start up and must fly to Lisbon to talk to some venture capitalist in the afternoon and then have another meeting lined up in the morning the day after in some other part of the world.
In picking up the economically cheaper option there was collateral damage. The cheaper option had a larger (personal) carbon footprint.
Physics is simple. The carbon released in the atmosphere, and attributed to me, is proportional to the flight time I have in the air. But even though being a proponent of reducing carbon emissions I still took the option of a longer route.
I wonder if we can live in a world where the economics of flight would be different. A world where instead of putting a premium on time, airlines will have a pricing model that will put a premium on the carbon footprint – the price of ticket would be proportional to the carbon footprint.
It would be a world where longer route options to get to a destination will be more expensive than shorter routes. Flying from Washington DC directly to Lisbon would be cheaper than flying there via Geneva.
You could argue that some pricing model genius would turn the logic upside down – the lower the carbon footprint is, the higher will be the price of the ticket. This model, however, would only work in an ideal world where its citizens cared about their carbon footprint over their wallets. And if we did, we would not be in the current mess of the climate crisis anyway.
An irony is that in an indirect way, by owning the stock through some index fund I have invested in the airline, and it is in my interest to make profit and pay a dividend back to me. By doing that, I am also encouraging the current pricing model that puts a premium on our time.
We are getting close to Geneva and are about to land. The flight attendant is walking down the aisle one last time asking us if we would like to return the plastic bottle of water because they are passionate about recycling and saving the world. I dutifully deposit my plastic bottle in the trash bag and my conscience is that much lighter of guilt.
Ciao
Would an equanimous life
will perceive dawn as a _beginning_ and
dusk as an _end_
one among 30,000 days
we get to spend;
or it will see them
as a single continuum;
appearing and disappearing
part of an infinite sequence
of births and deaths
all happening as part of
a cosmic breath.
It is not a question
in my wheelhouse to answer
I, who inside my head
lives with cacophonous
mindless dancer.
That was a frustrated cry from an alien in the Episode 19/Season 3 of the Farscape, a Sci-Fi TV serial.
Oftentimes, I have heard myself mumble the same when faced with contrasting alternatives. In those moments, I just wish to be told what path to follow rather than go through the task of thinking and choosing.
Contrast is not always a bad thing though. It helps give our perception clarity.
Day and Night. Black and White. Yin and Yang. Without one I would be able to perceive the other.
It is only in the context of contrasting opposites that it is easier to understand the world around, and also to survive as a biological entity.
Take the cells in our bodies. They do not have a brain of their own. They do not know left from right or top from bottom. For them, our body is like floating in the vastness of some empty dark space.
Lacking brains of their own, biology has evolved clever mechanisms to develop a sense of direction and go where cells are needed the most.
Immune cells find the precise location of inflammation by sensing from which direction the molecules that are markers of inflammation are coming from. They do this by gauging the density of inflammation markers in different directions. The direction those molecules have a higher concentration is the direction of inflammation and is the place they need to be. Clever and beautiful, isn’t it?
Occasionally. I wish for the same sense of clarity when deciding among contrasting choices. A clear demarcation between the outcomes of choosing to go left or right. If one alternative is going to have negative consequences, while the other, to growth and well-being, making the choice would be so much easier.
The reality, however, is not so, particularly as one gets older.
The unfortunate fact is that, as you get older, some of life’s important decisions, instead of getting simpler, become harder. I can’t speak for people living in other countries, but it is definitely so when getting older in the US.
Citizens of the US confront a mind-boggling array of convoluted choices about Social Security, Medicare, when and how to withdraw funds from the Individual Retirement Account. The one-two punch is that these decisions have to be made when cognitive faculties are on decline. Our elected officials have left us at the mercy of hawkish lawyers and financial planners.
That is when I feel like saying, why so difficult, particularly now when all I want to do is to enjoy the time remaining on this Earth and spent some time meditating!
Ciao.
In the end, both sides of the coin are the same
heads or tails, the difference is lame
it doesn't really matter
an empty plate or a full platter when Reign of Mortality is the name of the game.
No, this is not an offering for a laminated version to be delivered by the mail person but a summary that can be laminated as a quick reference guide for building appropriate frameworks for living.
It is a cheat sheet that could serve as a quick reminder for the process to follow.
In a nutshell, frameworks for living are required to bring reconciliation between two opposites that we must often live with. This reconciliation is needed so that we are free of inner conflicts. To put together appropriate frameworks for living we need a set of guidelines that can be used as the starting point.
Without further ado, here are three basic ingredients for building a successful framework for living.
An appropriate framework for living is made up of activities that fit our contours, be they physical, financial, or psychological. It is only then that we are not constantly distracted from our goal of reaching a reconciliation. It is only then that the framework for living we are going to follow feels like a natural path.
The success of the framework for living we built needs to be assessed. An obvious yardstick for a relevant framework for living is that following it brings us closer to the goal it is designed for (i.e., reconciliation of two opposites).
Finally, the yardstick should be such that it could be used frequently, and if something is not working, then tweaks in our framework of living can be made until the desired goal of reconciliation can be achieved.
And that is it.
To give a tangible example, consider the opposites of awareness of our mortality and our innate biological need to live.
The goal of the desired framework for living is to reconcile the two. Out of the two, it is the living we can change. Tinkering with mortality is beyond our control.
If we live in such a way that it feels like we have a fulfilling life, then it has the potential for counterbalancing the disruption the cognition of mortality can bring.
The yardstick of success for the framework for living we choose is whether its implementation brings us closer to reconciliation of the opposites of mortality and living. But how would we know that the two are getting reconciled?
If they are reconciled it would result in a life that is free of inner conflicts that the cognition of mortality can bring, i.e., it would be an equanimous life. Having that, one day nearing the end of our life we will be able to look back and say that ours was a life well lived.
If the only yardstick to judge whether we reached reconciliation or not is to look back and see if it was a life well lived or not, it will be a risky proposition. A yardstick that could be used more frequently would be to assess whether following our framework for living, our days are free of inner conflict or whether it feels like if days are well lived or not?
So now we have (1) the yardstick of success for the framework for living we put together to bring mortality and living in reconciliation – how free of inner conflicts our life is, or alternatively, do we have the feeling that our days are well lived and (2) if needed, this yardstick could be used daily. Having these two, the next task is to find the third ingredient for building a successful framework for living, i.e., finding an appropriate set of activities to be part of our framework of living.
What framework for living would make our day feel like it was well lived? But first, what makes a day?
A day is a collection of engagements. The framework for living to guide our day will be made of an appropriate portfolio of engagements.
Appropriate activities that go in the portfolio of engagement are those that fit the contours of our values. In other words, developing a framework for living that is based on a value-driven life can reconcile the opposites of mortality and our innate need to live.
Why is aligning activities with values in our framework for living important? It is because then those activities feel natural and effortless. By not being abrasive, and being against what our natural inclinations are, they do not distract us from getting to our goal of reconciliation.
So now we have the necessary ingredients – a yardstick - was our day well lived; a yardstick that could be used frequently; and a set of activities that fit the contours of our values.
One last note - days well lived are not only an enabler that bring reconciliation between mortality and need for living, but bringing that reconciliation makes staying on the path of having such days easier. It is a nice positive feedback loop to have.
Ciao.
Related: Building a framework for living #15: Putting it all together
You are someone
I will not feel comfortable with
cozying up in bed
in hour of the wolf.
You are a reminder
that days are numbered;
that time’s arrow
now points downwards
in its parabolic flight.
If I let you in
you will also bring in emptiness
and leave the door ajar,
and let the birds I nurtured
fly away.
You will pull up the anchor
and leave me adrift
in a shoreless sea.
You are not invited,
but you will come anyway
and tinker with
my clockwork routine, thinking
that you can make it better. and
bring me salvation.
The very first few minutes
of another day,
and the face of a stranger
reflects back
in the mirror
and says,
hey.
Oh, Yay!
It is time to clean up