A Three Hour Tour =)

When presented with the idea of having three hours to live and the question of what to do with one's remaining time, the temptation is always to say dangerous...life-affirming things we usually would not do. "I would go skydiving, mountain-climbing....(fill in your favorite extremely dangerous activity here....)". Others seek to treasure what they know to be great and that they already have, the simplest pleasures of life we often take for granted. "I would spend time with my loved ones, finally finish that book, watch a sunrise". The reality is that most of us would probably waste our remaining moments in this world by freaking out about our imminent doom and striving to prevent it.

For me, I would like to believe that I could face the discovery of my soon-to-be end with some measure of strength. I like to believe that if it came to that, life would be sweeter to me, even more than it already is, more vivid. Even now, as I have no idea when my end (beginning??) will be, I have a sense of taking everything into myself. I used to be obsessed with the idea of capturing all the....beauty....the value of this world in art. My personal revelation came with the knowledge that one never truly captures that vision (of the intrinsic value of all things), one can never....really equate it. One can only come close. This fact disturbed me greatly because I was forced to confront the impermanence of even that immortality......immortality....framed?...in impermanence? I discovered that I did not have to capture it. I could let it move through me.


Now I don't mean to channel here any eccentric notions of energy travel or "flow"...though I will not be the one to discount these theories either. It was, rather, a certain process. I would be struck by something....the exact light of a tree-branch lit by a street lamp....the quality of the sound of a single drop falling from an icicle into a mud puddle...the divinely infinite reflection of the sky on a street wet from recent rains. Rather than seek to capture it, memorize it, assimilate that vision into myself, I would identify it. I would give it the time and the attention it deserved in that moment, and having paid that spark what it was owed, I let it go. I let it move away from me, accepting that the exact shade of the sky or the exact feeling of recognition between strangers for instance would be lost......but.....not altogether lost. I had lost the need for containment, limited definition perhaps. Call it what you will.


I would hope that my last three hours on earth would be spent with this experience or a similar one--only the beauty and richness of that experience would transcend even itself. I would hope that my time would be spent....living....because I consider this...underlying value and beauty, the framework that underlies our menial existence, I consider this to be....life.