Thursday, September 20, 2012

aging athletes (part 1)

it's a reality all of us face, as much as we don't like to hear it: we're getting older.  inexorably, inevitably, invariably older.  regardless of what we do or think or want, it's a part of what we are as creatures of biology.  and like all biology, we live with the fundamental truth of our own mortality, as sure as we are locked within our linear existence in time.

given this, we are left with an understanding that there is a beginning and an end, and by implication the interval in between. within this interval we live our lives, following an arc of aging and a path of maturization that leads us through the turns of experience which become our ways of wisdom.  it's not always pretty, it's certainly not easy, and it's never simple.  

it's a reflection of who and what and why and where and when we are. of our decisions and our mistakes. of things that worked and things that didn't. of things we did and things we didn't. all ultimately choices we made given our circumstances based on what we knew drawn upon what we had using what we were.

but this tells us another fundamental truth. 

our lives are what we make of them. they aren't inexorable, inevitable, or invariable. if anything, they are constituted in a crazy haphazard mishmashed agglomeration of confusion and chaos. in other words: they are not linear. 

so even as time is beyond our control, our lives our not; even as the beginning and the end is beyond our control, the interval in between is not.

which leaves us with the question of what we choose to do in response: do we live the life given to us? or do we die within our time?

the difference is that the former accords some respect to the thing called life; the latter desecrates it. 

the former sees the phenomenon that is the appearance of something coming from nothing, and recognizes the mystery that is existence arising from the emptiness of the abyss, and accepts the wonder that is creation alighting the darkness of infinite. and in so doing, it comes to know it as grandeur. glory. majesty.


the latter misses it. ignores it. denies it. and in so doing, blinds itself from the profound and lobotomizes itself of the great. 


the difference is that the former endows life with value; the latter wastes it. 


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