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October 7, 2000 Last Tuesday I started a new job. Mrs. Deiser's little girl, with her college degree and graduate credits and nearly 20 years of programming, is now a fry cook at a Chinese restaraunt. LOL! I like the job. I like cooking and I like cooking for money. I probably WOULDN'T like cooking ALL DAY for money like the owner does, but 4 to 6 hours a shot 5 days a week isn't too wearing. And I got to thinking on the way home how some people would think I had "come down in the world" when actually I feel I've IMPROVED my lot in life in immeasurable ways. I can hear all the standard lectures about What's Important in Life. I'm sure you know the ones I mean, we've probably all heard them at one time or another. About hard work, "getting ahead", security, yada yada yada. About Building Something That Will Last. Because things like happiness and contentment and love and laughter - they're all ephemeral, but a big house and a "good job" are solid and reliable indices of our lives. Except when they're not. Thing is, NOTHING in this life is permanent. In reality the EARTH isn't permanent; the galaxy isn't; the universe itself isn't permanent. Sooner or later the suns will all sputter out and die or explode first and THEN sputter out and die; the planets that spin merrily around them will freeze and die or be blasted and die or the beings on it will blow it up themselves - and die. Or be struck by a comet and sent hurtling into its own sun, or any of innumerable other possible cosmic disasters. Sooner or later. The heat death of the universe IS in progress. Not that we'll ever notice it. There is permanence; and there is VIRTUAL permananence. When a being spins out its entire existence in one spot, whether its a drop of rainwater or an ocean, a grain of sand or a mountain of granite, of what actual importance is the heat death of the universe? To a microbe in a drop of water whose entire lifetime begins and ends in the few minutes between the time the raindrop hits the pavement and the time the sun evaporates the water to take back up into the clouds, that drop of water IS permanence. To us, spinning along on this globe of blue and green and white, the universe IS permanent. Knowing intellectually that its not doesn't stop us from behaving and reacting as though it is - because for our purposes it might as well be. So, happiness is ephemeral. A sense of inner peace is also often ephemeral. Contentment, joy, are also ephemeral. So what if they are? If joy is ephemeral, well, so is sorrow. Anger is ephemeral when faced by the seeking for peace. Discontent, fear, anxiety are as ephemeral as their counterparts, simply BECAUSE their counterparts do exist - and it is the nature of human beings to strive beyond the former and towards the latter. So knowing that happiness, peace, and joy are ephemeral shouldn't be reason enough to discount their importance. Because, as I said before, there is permanence - and there is VIRTUAL permanence. If we choose to seek happiness, peace, and joy then what matter if they aren't permanent? For that time we attain a state of happiness and contentment, they might as WELL be permanent. No, "happiness won't pay the rent", but I figure if there's ANYTHING you can take with you beyond the grave, its more likely to be happiness, contentment, and whatever peace you find within yourself than money, cars or property, no matter how much of the stuff you may have managed to accumulate while you were still breathing. The truth is "nothing lasts". So why waste time accumulating stuff when you could be accumulating contentment? The only question is, which sort of ephemera will you choose to strive for? --
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