Saturday, September 15, 2007

WHEN YOUR LIFE FLASHES BEFORE YOUR EYES, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE PLENTY TO WATCH...



Pat went to Atlanta this week to have one of several skin cancers removed at a MOHS surgical center. It was a tiring day. When it was over he (a) was left with a fairly large "hole" in his head by his left ear and (b) was healthier for the pain of the surgery. While we were in the cafeteria killing time between "cuts" Pat's cellphone rang and he was told of the sudden death of a co-worker's husband. It was a shock for us both. He had gone in for laparoscopic surgery on his kidney and something went terribly wrong and he did not make it. A nice man. It was one of those count-your-blessings moments. And also one of such sorrow for his wife and family.
It was also another slap-you-in-your face event that reminds you of the precariousness of life - and it's shortness.

Not too long ago I read on someone's blog about Lucius Seneca, tutor to Nero who lived in Rome from 4 BC - 65 AD -( being Nero's tutor was bad for his health - Nero ordered his death - perhaps after getting a bad grade in a test). Anyway, Seneca wrote an essay on the shortness of life...

Some interesting excerpts are:

"Why do we complain about nature? She has acted kindly: life is long if you know how to use it. But one man is gripped by insatiable greed, another by a laborious dedication to useless tasks...Many are occupied by either pursuing other people's money or complaining about their own...Some have no aims at all for their life's course, but death takes them unawares as tehy yawn languidly - so much so that I cannot doubt the truth of that oracular remark of the greatest of poets: 'It is a small part of life we really live.'...You are living as if destined to live forever; your own frailty never occurs to you; you don;t notice how much time has already passed, but squander it as though you had a full and overflowing supply."

Also...

"...he says, 'When will vacation come?'. Everyone hustles his life along and is troubled by a longing for the future and weariness of the present."

Seneca apparently provides a solution for the above state of mind. He says:

"...the man who organizes every day as though it were his last, neither longs for nor fears the next day."

I also was thinking of this little gem-

How did it get so late so soon?
It's night before it's afternoon.
December is here before it's June.
My goodness how the time has flewn.
How did it get so late so soon?
~Dr. Seuss


IN MEMORY ROY SMITH

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