I Could Be Wrong, But... |
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Who's In Charge? Where I live in Encinitas, California, the beaches were closed last weekend because a man from Solana Beach, two towns over, while swimming in the ocean on Friday, was attacked and killed by a great white shark. That same night I received an email from a dear friend who wrote with heartfelt despair, citing this once-in-50-year fatal shark attack where we live as being hard proof and startling reminder that death is all around us. And we can do nothing about it. My friend is right. Death is all around us. And we can do nothing about it. I could be wrong, but while we can do nothing about dying, we can do a hell of a lot about living. In fact, the mind-expanding Life-altering wisdom I am about to impart to you, dear reader, has been around for millennia, in one expression or another, and was even a hippie slogan from the 1970s that I was, back then, probably too stoned to have paid attention to. Here it is: There are only two things you have no choice about. First thing is, you have to die. Second thing is, you have to live until you die. We all have to die, and we all have to live until we die. All the rest is up to us. Don’t get me wrong. I pay attention to death. In fact, I think about death every day, several times a day. But the way I think of death is kind of like an old commercial that used to be on television when I was a kid. A guy stands in a somnambulant trance before his bathroom mirror, having just shaved himself despite being half-asleep. (This is truly Reality Television.) Yawning, he liberally splashes the after-shave lotion being advertised into his hands and then slaps each cheek of his face—hard. Shaking his head to clear the stars from his eyes, he smiles—wide-awake now —and says, “Thanks! I needed that!” That’s the way I often think of death. Thich Nhat Hahn, an influential Zen Buddhist monk who has a retreat, Deer Park, right up the road a piece from where I live, has a subtler way of saying, “Thanks! I needed that!” He thinks we’d all live deeper and with more wide open hearts, minds, and eyes, if we not only acknowledged death, but embraced it, going so far as to now and then invite the grim reaper in for a cup of tea and a neighborly chat, just to keep in touch. Thich Nhat Hahn even encourages us to quietly meditate on being dead, to imagine the slow decomposing of our own body, right down to the worms eating the carcass we once inhabited. In a way, Thich Nhat Hahn is saying, when we occasionally pause to meditate on death, the next time we're driving our red convertible BMWs down I-5 with the top down and the wind blowing our hair and the sun tanning our skin and the stereo playing loud and we're shouting at the sky, “When you’re a Jet you’re a Jet all the way, from your first cigarette to your last dying day!” that joie de' vivre we're feeling will be even deeper. The day after the shark killed the man from Solana Beach, I spent the morning in a café, as I often do, pretending to be absorbed by the words and images flickering on my laptop screen, while secretly eavesdropping on everyone around me. Like my friend who had written the email to me the night before, the people I listened to in the café the morning after expressed shock, worry, and fear. Interspersed with jokes about selling shark repellent to surfers and inviting their in-laws to come to town for a swim. Over the next several days, the people who fill the empty space of newspapers and televisions all over the world—for once, I am NOT exaggerating things —were obsessed with reporting the shark attack. Everyone, from Larry King, to the localist local journalist, struggled to find meaning, to cipher a message, in the event. There were precious little facts to report, so they reported, just like the folks I eavesdropped on in the café, their emotions. Those emotions were shock, worry, and fear. Their goal seemed to be to make a farmer having a beer in his armchair in landlocked Nebraska shiver with fear of imminent shark attack. And then they left town to cover the next shocking story that would spread worry and fear. I see in the event of this man’s unusual death a meaning and message at odds with the above reactions. I gleaned from the conversations I eavesdropped on that before the man from Solana Beach died from the shark attack, he had lived 66 years in this world. He was a retired veterinarian; a profession I believe shows the deeply magnanimous nature of humans—that they would heal species other than their own—because they want to, and because they can. He lived in one of the wealthiest and most beautiful towns anyone could live in anywhere on the planet. He had health and wealth, family and friends, was admired and respected. In the moment of his death, he was swimming vigorously in the ocean, training for a future triathlon. I carry a notepad with me at all times, in case Life sends me a bumper sticker slogan that I mistake for an original thought. On April 11, 2008 when driving home from a vigorous workout at the gym, I pulled over 3 different times to write down three separate thoughts before they would escape back to whence they came. One of the thoughts I wrote in my notepad was this: I am in charge of my Life. God is in charge of my death. When I learned about the Life of the man killed by the shark, I immediately understood that he was a man in full charge of his Life. While, unlike my friends and neighbors and globe-trotting reporters, learning of his death caused no worry or fear in me, I did feel a heartache in knowing that, unlike a death from cancer or HIV, but just like a death in a car crash or from a heart attack, the man from Solana Beach killed by the shark did not get to say goodbye to those he loved. Nor they to him. Yet, they must know far better than I, that he lived well until he died. The death and Life of the man from Solana Beach killed by the shark have once again awakened me to the Life and death all around me. Especially my own. Thanks. I needed that. Time, in partnership with CNN: Fox News: USA Today: Los Angeles Times: 10 News San Diego: San Diego Union Tribune: CNN:
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