"They say we are a material society, but we have no respect for the material world". Alan Watts.
Sometimes, I empty houses. Strangers, grandmother, family houses get even more personal of course, yet, objects remain objects. It's always a strange meditation on life, death, and what we live behind us when we go. The boxes of clothes, the kitchen wares, all will get eaten by mold and other fungus. All will go back to nature, back to dust we go. Objects fall apart, rotten by years of humidity, eaten by insects and time from which matter has no escape.
What are we, poor little mortals.
The hardest part of this task, is the boxes of books. As a book lover, it breaks my heart to take boxes filled with writers, all straight to the dump. Even libraries don't want books anymore. The best thing to do with them would be furnitures, which some do. But a big part of the paper doesn't hold itself anymore. The ink barely readable on the pages. Everything shall go.
As I put the piles of books in their funeral boxes, I glance at all the names, of so many men and women that took monthes, years, life times, to put their minds onto this precious paper.
What are we, poor little mortals.
Other mediums are thrown by the kilos. Video tapes, cassettes, computers, all will perish in the dump. What will remain of us I wonder. Even the gods don't last, even them get recycled through the centuries. 2000 years is the average life of a god, then they become stickers and other marketable goods, next to the soap and the dish washing liquid. Yet, humans do remain. No matter what, they keep on creating, building, destroying and reshaping. Like watching waves coming and going on the sand, I watch matter take this form or that form. One thing is sure, no matter what we do, think, no matter what we are, this too shall pass.
What are we, poor little mortals.
In this sublime recycling story, I admire the perseverance of keeping on creating, no matter what. If some choose the sitting meditation as a way to reach the Self, others choose creation. No matter what, the result will be the same. All will end up in that fatefull trash pile, all will rot and decompose, all will rearrange itself, into new forms, new components, new life. Our bodies will be eaten by worms, the art we devoted life times to, will eventually mold and feed the same worms.
All will go, poor little mortals.
So, while I let the dust fall through my fingers, I remind myself that life is a blissfull moment. Proudly standing between a shapeless blob and mold, for the space of an instant, we have a body/mind complex to deal with. The choice is yours and mine. What to do with this instant? Enjoy seems like a reasonable answer. Breathe, look at how much beauty this world can be. Be thankful, be greateful for even existing. That little second won't last, next second you too will be on the recycling pile. So, enjoy, little mortals, your temporality is what makes you so precious in the eye of the sublime and eternal coldness of death.
Remember that you are made of this dirt, of this dust, you are recycled data. So, before you turn back to mold, don't forget to say thank you to the trees, the flowers and birds, to the food you eat, to the people you love. Take a walk in the woods, swim in that river. Go plant a tree, or 100 of them. Roll in the grass, smell the wet leaves, love and respect the nature that feeds you.
Don't forget that all will also join the recycling pile, no matter what shape you try to preserve memories into. All the data we are, no matter what texture, no matter what material, this too shall pass.
What are we, poor little mortals, but a bridge between never and always.
Now is all we got, better go kiss the sky. Enjoy, poor little mortals that we are, is the best revenge while facing this mad mad world.
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