Broke, Blind, and Balding

The other day I made a joke to Tracy that after two years of law school I am broke, blind, and balding. It was a cynical reflection on a time of immense personal growth; although, I am in debt, my eyesight has diminished, and my hairline is receding. But it's unfair to blame the bad results of these two years on law school, because they are just as much results of life as the good (of which there are many). In fact, I don't like to think of them as bad results, because, more than anything, I have come to see everything as parts of a whole. The bad and the good are two sides of the same coin. You cannot have one without the other. Life is like a roller-coaster, if you are holding on tight, worrying about when you're going to drop off of the next hill, you're not going to enjoy the ride. The only thing that we really get to choose is where to sit. Other than that, we're just along for the ride. It just took me a little time, courage, and trust to learn that lesson, just like it did when I was a little boy at Six Flags working up the muster to let go of the handlebar on the Texas Giant. Sure it's not a perfect simile, but nothing is. That is what I have come to love about life. The only way to describe it is to experience it. How do you describe something that contains everything? Being afraid of what comes next, and living a life based on that fear distracts us from the beauty of what is right now (which is a result of what was before). However, we should not forget that fear completely. It exists within us for a reason. The instinct to survive compels us to fear the inevitable and struggle against it to the end. Without this need for life, we would not survive. But we should be cautious, because the future will come, and if we spend all of our time looking toward it, we will miss the present. I feel lucky to have the ability to see beyond the need for my own survival and procreation, to try to see the needs of the world that we are a part of. This self awareness has given me a great sense of responsibility and privilege. I am thankful that I have the ability to move beyond my natural narcissistic tendencies and realize my place within the greater being in which I exist. Because, in the end, I am only here for a fleeting moment relative to a life which exists on a timescale that ceases to have any comprehensible meaning. It is the impermanence and fragility of life that makes it worth living. The world was here before us and it will be here after, and to not experience it and be a part of it while we are here just seems like a wasted opportunity. I realize that I am very fortunate to have experienced enough of the world and to have gained enough knowledge to see beyond myself. I owe this revelation in many ways to the many technological advances of western society and the modern age. Again, however, what was necessary to bring us to this point may consume us entirely if not tempered with self-awareness (by that I also mean awareness of ourselves as part of the world) and humility. I'm not worried about it though. I will do what I think is right, even if I might fail, but I will try to keep my hands up with a smile on my face the whole time, because eventually the ride will end. After all, it wouldn't be any fun if it didn't. 

"Because mankind can circumvent evolutionary law, it is incumbent upon him, say evolutionary biologists to develop another law to abide by if he wishes to survive, to not outstrip his food base. He must learn restraint. He must derive some other, wiser way of behaving toward the land. He must be more attentive to the biological imperatives of the system of sun-driven protoplasm upon which he, too, is still dependent. Not because he must, because he lacks inventiveness, but because herein is the accomplishment of the wisdom that for centuries he has aspired to. Having taken on his own destiny, he must now think with critical intelligence about where to defer." 

- Barry Lopez