They Say It's My Birthday

My calendar says it's my birthday, and the Beatles tell me I'm "gonna have a good time," so I might as well oblige. After all, why not? I can't have too many more birthdays in my future, if any. It seems like every year, someone I knew in grade school or high school passes. One of my best friends from those days died years ago. I even wrote a blogpost about it.

But what kind of "good time" do I want to have? Do I want to spend the day sating myself with hedonistic pleasure by eating, drinking, and being "merry"? Well, I couldn't do that even if I wanted to. I have driving and chores to do, including getting a new passport photo taken for an upcoming trip to Thailand, and bowling league tonight. Besides, hedonism seems overrated to me. I'm more into happiness, which can be almost the antithesis of hedonistic indulgence.

Yes, I know there are philosophers and therapists who say happiness is overrated too, and that the more we pursue it, the faster it recedes from us. But my notion of happiness borrows from Aristotle's "Happiness is an activity of the soul in accord with perfect virtue."

In other words, happiness is doing like they sing in the old U.S. Army commercial: "Be all that you can be," or, at least, working diligently to do this. It's living a life of integrity in fulfillment of one's highest principles and in patient but steadfast pursuit of one's grandest goals. And, to my way of thinking, it's mindfully doing all of this with the love to which Augustine referred when he wrote, "Love and do what you will" and Mother Teresa spoke of when she said, "In this life, we cannot do great things; we can only do small things with great love."

Some people say love is overrated. I say it's not rated highly enough by enough people. Too many make excuses for not loving their fellow humans and animal and plant brethren. I don't make excuses. I just have trouble loving people. I always have. But here, early into my seventh decade of life, I want to love more and to find ways to do it. One way to do it, it seems to me, is to act in a loving way.

Psychologists tell us that if we can't feel the way we want to act, then we can act the way we want to feel and our emotions will tend to follow suit. I believe this. When I smile, I feel happier. When I carry myself with confidence, I feel more confident. When I walk and talk and comport myself in a more calmly deliberate manner, I feel more mindfully contemplative. So, I want to devote today to doing all of those things. To acting loving, confident, and contemplative, and to wearing a persistent smile on my face.

Hey, there are worse ways to spend one's birthday. So, Happy Birthday to me, yeah!

Overcoming Poverty of the Spirit

And I marveled to find that at last I loved you and not some phantom instead of you; and I did not hesitate to enjoy my God, but was ravished to you by your beauty.
– Saint Augustine

To deepen our love, to unify our desires, the Lord – the Self within – on occasion gives us a fleeting taste of the joy of union. Once we taste this joy, all we want is to be permanently aware of him in everyone, everywhere, every minute. This intense longing is the mark of genuine spiritual experience.

At the same time we experience the joy of union, we see clearly the great mass of self-will that weighs us down and keeps us from our most cherished goal.

Yet none of us need feel disheartened. Remember how even great figures like Saint Augustine almost despaired when they saw how powerful was the pull of selfish satisfaction. That is our human conditioning, and it is no reason to give up. All of us can learn to reduce our excess baggage.
--Eknath Easwaran

If I'd ever had Easwaran's "fleeting taste of the joy of union" with the Lord, perhaps I would hunger and strive with all my heart to know it permanently. But I have not, and so I do not.

How can I, and how do I? By meditating and contemplating enough? How much is enough? And how does one do enough without the inspiration of which Easwaran writes? Just as one needs money or other resources in order to earn more money, doesn't one also need to feel inspired in order to make an enduring effort to make big spiritual gains? I often feel like a man who is too poor to become rich.

I don't say this because I am depressed or demoralized; I say it because I don't know what to do, yet, I continue to look for it.

Our Cosmic Eyeblink

I wrote this entry yesterday during my work break and am posting it today.

Tim Russert died today. He was only 58. Preliminary reports say he collapsed at work when his heart stopped beating, and he couldn't be revived.

Russert's sudden death sent shock waves through the American news media. Russert was widely considered to be one of the best political interviewers and reporters in the business, and he was also renowned for his infectiously enthusiastic and friendly personality. Nobody expected him to die when or how he did.

I'm only three years younger than he was, and I have a heart condition for which I take medication to prevent cardiac arrhythmia. My condition is relatively benign, but it does carry with it a higher than normal risk of the same kind of sudden cardiac arrest and death that struck down Tim Russert.

As deaths go, Russert's was probably about as easy as they come. Conscious one moment...unconscious the next. Dead soon after. Probably little or no warning or pain. Out...out brief candle.

One is tempted to say at such a time: "The sudden death of Tim Russert serves as a powerful reminder that death spares no one, and that it can come without warning at any time. Therefore, we must live life to the fullest and not waste a single moment that remains."

Yet, I wonder what real difference it makes how we live, how long we live, or what we accomplish during our lives. Whether we live one year or a hundred, it's still a cosmic eyeblink of time. And whether we die in total obscurity or are known by every human being on Earth, we can't, so far as I know, take our fame with us to the nothingness beyond this life. So, what's the point of it all?

There is no point, that I can see, other than what we create for ourselves from our imaginations. No one and no thing outside ourselves bindingly commands us to be or do anything. But if we choose for ourselves what meaning and purpose pervades our lives and what we're going to be and do with our cosmic eyeblink, I suppose that we can do worse than to hold up models such as Tim Russert to emulate in our own way. And we can follow the advice of the great sages. Not because of who said it, but because it resonates with our deepest being. Some of the best advice I've ever heard came from St. Augustine when he said, "Love, and do what you will."

That's what I hope to do more of during what's left of my cosmic eyeblink.