Life lessons

Sometimes life's a little odd.... I was reading my niece's blog just the other day and realized that she's about the age I was when she was born. What she's writing today (aside from the girly stuff) I could have written 20 years ago...of course, that was 20 years ago. But until fairly recently, it seems that most people in my family thought I was still back there, theologically and ideologically speaking. Haven't their ideas and beliefs changed in 20 years? Maybe it's just that the last 20 years have been more eventful for me....

In the last 20 years, I've buried friends and family, graduated from college, dropped out of grad school, met and married my soul mate, and moved to a new state (twice), helped my wife get through grad school and a residency, and suffered (like about a million other people) the burst of the dot-com bubble. (Ok, I think it was a little more than a dot-com bubble, but this is a clean blog.)

Along the way, I've learned a few things...like...goodbyes suck; all professors are human, but not all teachers are (I've learned a lot from my dog); life is more about what you don't see than what you do see (unless maybe you're researching in quantum physics...then maybe it's equally both); not every relationship you think will last does, and some that you don't think will last do; if you want to know what a book says, read it yourself -- and it's always better if you read it with the eyes of the original audience; and everyone needs to do something, but not everyone gets the opportunity. I've also learned...and I think this was the biggest lesson...that, people can easily be like Irish Jim in Cinderella Man..."all prayed out."

Typically being "all prayed out" is the result of what in philosophy of religion we talk about as "the problem of evil." I've come to a new understanding of that concept over the last 20 years -- where before it was theoretical, now it's personal. I'm not saying that I've suffered more than others...that's stupid anyway, who wants to win that race?

Anyway, the events that we refer to as life aren't good or bad, they just are...it's a life, and that isn't good or bad, it just is what it is...kind of like when (in the scriptures of my religious tradition) God says "I will be what I will be" (ok, some of you translate that as "I am what I am", but that's a little too Popeye for me -- God shouldn't be a cartoon).

So maybe those aren't really significant lessons, but the events which taught them to me were sometimes a little like popping the clutch during a paradigm shift (and yes, that's my phrase -- I've been saying it for years...but you can use it with a footnote)...and I'm hoping, one of these days, to learn the secret to life...and winning the lottery...that would be good.