Time to Think
For some unknown reason, I’m feeling very philosophical today. Maybe, like my Mom used to say, it’s like someone walked over my grave. Not that I plan on having a grave mind you. Cremation seems to be the way to go these days. So maybe someone stepped in some of my ashes, in the hopefully distant future, which causes a ripple in time that I’m just now feeling? Time. I’ve always been fascinated by the concept. I know that time travel is not possible, at least not in my lifetime. If it were, I would have already come back and visited myself to deliver that most important of all messages – “No! Don’t do it!” But I haven’t, so it isn’t. Which means I must muddle through making uncorrectable mistakes all along the way – then, now, and in the future. Pity. Because there are so many of them I’ve already made that I would rush to correct.
And knowing that, you would think that I would have learned by now to be more careful in my actions and deliberations. So that I might learn to avoid future mistakes which will inevitably result in equally just as bad or worse consequences. You would think. But I’m afraid that this is not the case. One might ask, “What’s wrong with me?” But the better question is what’s wrong with mankind in general? We don’t seem, as a species, to be able to learn from history or our own bad decisions. We just keep making the same ones over and over again. Are we insane? After all, that is pretty much the definition of insanity where you keep doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result somehow.
As for me, I can look back at my own past and pinpoint, with laser-like accuracy, right where I went wrong each time I made a whopper of a bad choice. And looking back now, I promise myself I’m never going to do that again. And how many times have we all told ourselves we are never going to do that again. Then we just go and do the same thing again the next time we find ourselves in a similar situation? I used to work with a man that would come to work every Monday morning hungover and suffering miserably because of his weekend binge. He would tell me, “Oh, Robert, I’m never going to drink again. I feel like I’m dying.” The next Monday he would mutter the exact same words while holding his head in his hands with bloodshot eyes, swearing to me and God that he meant it. So what’s wrong with us?
Is man flawed to the point where there’s no way he should be held accountable for his own actions? Should we all “cop an insanity plea?”
Looking at history you could make a good case for it. Even reading the Bible you can make a case for human insanity. I mean just how in the world could those Hebrews remain so stiff-necked in the face of so much evidence and fulfilled prophecy of their wrongdoing and impending doom that befalls them every time they don’t listen? How many times does God have to hit you/me over the head with our own stupidity before we finally get it?
Wars and rumors of wars. Sometimes when you look back at human history, it just seems like a story of one battle after another. For what purpose? Power, glory, resources, territory? The usual suspects. But all of those reasons are meaningless to the dead who fought in those wars. And equally meaningless to all the eventual dead who were victorious in them. If you look back at the very earliest maps of the world and then compare them to all the subsequent maps throughout history you would see how boundaries, countries, and kingdoms have come and gone, risen and fallen, changed and even disappeared entirely over the generations. Has any of that been worth it? Why is it inevitable that we fight wars? And with modern weapons, the consequences are even more severe. So I have to ask again, are we insane? Looking on the internet, today I saw so many youtube videos about the impending WWIII. Complete and utter insanity! Does humanity have a death wish? Do we all somehow sense that we are not worthy of continued existence? Maybe. Will the Cosmos miss us when we’re gone? Not likely. Does the insane asylum morn empty rooms?
But I for one have a ray of hope in all this. I am flawed. I can’t fix that, though I give it my best shot. Humanity as well is flawed. And no matter how far we’ve come – no matter how tremendously civilization has advanced, yet we still insist on shooting ourselves in the foot. There always comes that final moment of realization when you deeply and earth-shakenly come to understand that you can’t get out of this alive. And that none of your victories, glory, power, or territories will ever save you from that. Life is fleeting. Death comes quickly for us all. And because of all of my/our mistakes we don’t really deserve anything more than its dark finality.
But there is hope. My God promises me that through one little simple act of faith, I can be redeemed and given the free gift of eternal life. What kind of lunatic would pass that up? “Er, no thanks, Lord. I think I’ll just submit to death and darkness. Or worse yet, to hell fire because I’m stubborn and don’t want someone telling me how to live.” Are you insane? Oh, yeah, we established that already. But as for me, my lunacy is telling me to grab on to any ray of hope in this malevolent maelstrom of insanity we call life and hold on for all I’m worth. And that’s exactly what I intend on doing. For all the rest of you, I will pray that somehow that little ray of light manages to stab deep enough into your worldview to cause you to take a knee and not go into that darkness without a struggle.
