Life & Cataclysm

One day, we were speaking with a senior member of the team at our favorite restaurant. And that person was talking about the owner, who was now beginning to think about retiring and moving.  Note he was not going to do it soon, but had begun considering the possibilities.  But I began thinking . . . “No, you are not allowed to retire and move on.  You must in fact stay in place at least until we croak.”  See, I realize that someday I will croak and my wife will also.  We’re at that age when the thought has now entered our heads. When you’re 30, that thought never enters. I suppose it’s there, but it remains properly in the brain’s background.

But everything around us is also supposed to remain in place. Our favorite restaurant, Central Park (when I still lived in Manhattan), the Museum of Natural History, my siblings (now departed).  So many people and places. They are all part of my mind’s landscape.  And although I might soon depart, that landscape must remain in place. After I am gone, the landscape can do as it pleases.

It’s interesting to observe, because life changes about you all the time. Folks come and go, some more dramatically than others, even the odd building might decide to up and disappear. And things also change about you. It is why, when you have been gone from some place you once knew well and loved, you sometimes decide that you do not wish to return for a visit.  India is like that for us. We lived there for four years during the 1960s. We loved our lives there, and all the amazing places we visited while living there. Not just Delhi, but places like Agra, Jaipur, Darjeeling, Simla, Kashmir.  Seeing the Taj Mahal at full moon.  But we are told that smog now envelops the country. Could you even see the Taj at full moon any longer?  See, so many changes doubtless have taken place over the past 50+ years, that we might not like all those changes. So, better not go for another visit.

And then I think of Ukraine.  How many “favorite restaurants” have been decimated by the Russians? How many homes destroyed forever just because Vlad the Impaler is a weak little man who seeks to prove his manliness by destroying a neighbor?  People awaken daily there to find some loved thing gone forever.  People, places, things, all destroyed.

And then we have people like Queen Elizabeth II. For most of the world and certainly the British population, Queen Elizabeth has been a benign presence who symbolizes continuity, decency, and the presence of a system of benign governance that is supposed to last forever. But Elizabeth is beginning to simply wear out. Soon, she will be gone, with no obvious source of continuity.  Yes, Prince Charles or Prince William will step into her place and resume as King. But it will not be the same. Referring back to my restaurant, it would be like another restaurateur taking over, or simply establishing a new and different restaurant. For me, that might be a blow too hard. Now to be fair, I know replacing a restaurant is not quite the same as replacing the Queen of England.  Still it defines this continuity thing of which I am speaking.

I think the stability thing is a function of the brain’s ability to cope with changes. The brain apparently is fully capable of coping with change, so long as the change arrives within a sea of stability.  I imagine, for example that, for children, the dissolution of a marriage, causing one of the two partners to leave, and perhaps the entire family to have to move into new quarters goes beyond some brain boundary of reasonableness throwing the whole family into a confused state of being.  See, that is simply more change than the brain wishes to deal with, and some brains just revolt.

It is why we all need to stabilize the conditions within our lives. Now, to be fair, lives will become deadly boring should no changes ever greet those lives.  Our move to India for four years is a great example.  It was probably borderline traumatic for at least one of our two kids, but fascinating and expanding for the family as a whole. Travel generally expands your kitbag of useful information. I assume too much travel throws too much useful information and the brain again might rebel.

And so our lives need both stability and changes, and we need to pay attention to both so as to achieve useful balance.

So, we really do not need to have a foreign power drop bombs on our cities, or move tanks into neighboring  territories (Canada take notice please. No bombing is allowed).  It’s funny. As I write this I am reminded of our town’s NIMBYs.  You know NIMBY right (Not In My BackYard)??  Several times we had minor villager rebellions by our local NIMBYs about changes coming to our village. The best example was the near revolt that occurred with the announcement that a large jail would be built next to our County Courthouse.  And the NIMBYs totally lost it. They would not have a jail within our charming little village downtown area.  What folks were ignoring of course, was that most County Seats (our village) have to have a jail to accompany the County Courthouse, so the judges would have a place to send all those nasties who are convicted of dastardly crimes.  Well, eventually the issue was settled and the jail was built and the NIMBYs returned to their scrabble games (maybe they all play Wordle now).  But the dispute raised the issue of stability v. change at the community level. NIMBYs demand continuity. Developers demand change. So let the games begin.

Meanwhile, I sit at home playing my mind games, since I have nothing useful to do any longer.  I’m old remember?? Hahahahaha.  Champion Balance in Life. Make changes, retain stability. Balance. That’s good.