Four and One

09/19/2006 7:36 AM – 8:26 AM

I’m listening to one Iron + Wine song over and over again. And sometimes the blue light from the early clouds reminds me of all the books I’ve yet to read. Daydreaming of daydreaming. When I was little, being grown up meant that I could spend all my time reading, watching TV, and having sex. It wasn’t a bad daydream, come to think of it.

They say that the cure for anxiety is fear. Ennui arrives when the basic needs have been met and you aren’t grateful for them. Grateful not in the abstract say-your-meal-prayer grateful. It’s easy to emote that little bit of gratitude for the food on your plate, knowing that you worked only forty-five minutes to earn it, and that if you hadn’t, there’s still that bag of rice in the cupboard, unwanted but edible. Grateful not in the positive definition, but the negative. Thank you for not killing me yet.

Socrates declared that he did not fear death because it held only two options: paradise or oblivion. If paradise, he would enjoy the afterlife. If oblivion, he wouldn’t be anything to care. As on many points, Socrates was overly optimistic and logically wrong. There are four possible afterlives: paradise, hell, purifying or oblivion. Paradise is a tricky one: some promise it to the good, some to the believing whether they be good or bad. Hell is usually reserved for the bad or the nonbelieving, whether they be good or bad. Purifying is either some form of purgatory or reincarnation. Oblivion is for materialists or the tender-hearted believer that can’t imagine God would torture a creature for all eternity – sorry, it’s not God that does the torturing, just something that he created. Since, by definition, we cannot know anything about the metaphysical, we cannot affirm or deny any theory that stumbles into our consciousness. We have faith, some of us. Faith, a thin blindfold of hope that allows us to get out of the bed in the morning. Hope that God is, in fact, good. That he does, in fact, care. My uncle has been dead for almost a week now. I didn’t know him very well, even though I lived with him and my aunt for more than a month. He was funny sometimes. He offered my wine coolers when I still didn’t drink. He gave me cigars every now and then. Clothes too. And food. A ten or a twenty now and again. Tomorrow, I will be going to his funeral. By my mother and brother’s faith, I think he made it to paradise. For me, I find myself staring at my blindfold, noticing how threadbare it is. This flimsy strip of inability to not-believe is what keeps me from absolute despair. It’s time to get ready for work. It’s time to daydream about daydreaming. It’s time to eat. It’s time to tie the blindfold around my head again. Oh God, save my uncle. Oh God, save my father. Oh God, save me. And so God be great. And so God be good. And so I thank You for this food. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Amen. Amen and amen. Forgetting all my doubts, this thread is enough, amen.