Mother’s Day. Father’s Day. Every day of the year is devoted to celebrating something.
For all germophobic out there during the time of COVID, there is also a day to celebrate cleanliness. Down the road, soon there might be a national mask wearing day.
Or maybe, every day of the year should be a national mask wearing day. Not only would we have fought the pandemic better, but there would also have been less bickering among the politicians.
There is also the day of our reckoning when the sum of all days in life is tallied, and a number written on a folded sheet is handed to us. That number is the Karma of all our deeds. We just hope that the number is positive, and we had a life that was well lived.
One day at a time, either lived with celebration or otherwise, the entire life passes away. It all happens in the units of a day.
Day is the fundamental unit that keeps turning pages of calendars into the past. The passing of the day is also a reminder of the impermanence of everything that surrounds us. The span of the day there are so many beginnings and endings.
It is a universal truth that everything begins, and everything ends. The subtle signs of beginnings and endings are everywhere. Some on a cosmic scale — a star exploding, its life coming to an end. In its last breath, it illuminates the night sky.
Others are more nuanced — a seed sprouting on the sidewalk living precariously and hoping to see another sunrise and not get run over by some wandering feet. If lucky, it will grow to give the much-needed shade to some restless soul.
The connection between beginnings and endings is a period of transitions. Transitions are the wormholes that connect the endless cycle of beginnings and endings.
It seems inevitable that the smooth passage of time will eventually be punctuated by transitions — something ends and makes room for something new to begin. The day when we leave home to go to college followed by the day we finish college and embark on a long career, followed by…
In navigating most of these transitions, the stepping stones are all laid out for us. The wormhole is already in place and all that is needed is to step into it. With the ease and naturalness of breathing, we close one door behind and open another in front.
Every transition, however, is not that easy. In some, there is no wormhole waiting for us. There is nothing obvious in front of us to step into.
After some endings, to navigate further, we have our work cut out. We have to construct the wormhole, and that could turn out to be like a layperson needing to learn quantum mechanics. It is not a trivial endeavor.
Some transitions, like the day we retire, or the day when the realization of mortality begins to stick to our skin fall in that category.
Another category of hard transitions could be struggling to navigate the wormhole that connects psychological changes in perspectives. One such change in perspective is how we perceive the passage of the day, and it happens when we begin to realize the fundamental importance of the day, the basic unit of how we spend our time.
Before the change in perspective a day used to be just a day. It started and it ended. Nothing more and nothing less. The sun rose, and many hours later, it set.
Afterwards is the awareness that the passage of a day means much more than it seems to be.
Beneath the surface, there is an awareness that days add up to a week, weeks to a month, months to a year, and years to a life lived. With that, how we decide to live a day adds up to how we lived this life.
At some point of time in life a realization comes that on average we live around 30,000 days (~ 82 years) and out of that we have already lived 25,000 days (~ 68 years), and what is left is 5,000 (~ 14 years) more to go.
The span of life counted in the number of days is a jarring change of perspective and adjusting to this transition requires building a wormhole.
And did you know that there is also a national wine day. A day we can all look forward to longingly.
Ciao.
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