Near Death
This blog, aimed specifically at my friends and family - the rest of you are welcome to look in - is to tell you that I am full of shit. Anyone who knows he even moderately well knows how fixated I am on death, on what it means that we are limited beings who know our end. Many assume I have worked out my own issues with my death and am leading the rest of you toward the same goal for yourselves.
Yesterday I had a near death experience. I fell asleep at the wheel of my small red pickup, drifted across incoming traffic on a two lane road, in heavy rain, woke when I hit the guard rail bordering the breakdown lane on the opposite side from which I had been traveling, and now found myself, traveling 50 mph on the shoulder, going the wrong direction, with 8 or 10 cars headlights bearing down on me coming the other way. Somehow I had hit the guard rail obliquely so it did not throw me into the oncoming traffic, nor damage the truck so badly I couldn't steer. And all those oncoming cars, and I, managed to stay straight so they passed my on my right side, 2 feet away, while I bumped along on the uneven shoulder. Miraculously, when they had passed me, there was a break in traffic in both directions long enough for me to steer my way back across the road so I was now in the proper lane going in the proper direction.
I never had a discernible adrenalin rush, didn't shake or tear up when it was all over. In fact I felt so calm I almost wondered if I had dreamed the whole thing. Until I stopped and looked at the left side of the truck, that had the evidence.
It is now 24 hours later and I am only just beginning to feel the weight of my emotions. I feel depressed, even though it seems to me I might feel exhiliratedat having escaped against overwhelming odds. But what I feel is vulnerable and having to face the reality I have long posed as facing. I think I felt sleep earlier and ignored it, or denied it. I think I have been doing that about just about every piece of me that is aging. Pretending I am, by heavy exercise and clever writing, holding off the waning of powers that age inevitably brings.
I didn't see my whole life pass before me. What I am gradually seeing is my arrogance in refusing to let myself see, and hoping to hide from you, my normal decline. Yesterday I very nearly faced it finally in a 15 second adventure, and because of my refusal to attend to it, came horribly close to killing others.
I am going to write a Zone Note aboout this, likely tomorrow. Lacey is pretty angry about that, maybe because she thinks I likely will pretty it up and make it into a good story that will empty the experience of the power it ought to have, particularly for me. I'm going to try to play it straight. But I wanted to get it to you first.
Yesterday I had a near death experience. I fell asleep at the wheel of my small red pickup, drifted across incoming traffic on a two lane road, in heavy rain, woke when I hit the guard rail bordering the breakdown lane on the opposite side from which I had been traveling, and now found myself, traveling 50 mph on the shoulder, going the wrong direction, with 8 or 10 cars headlights bearing down on me coming the other way. Somehow I had hit the guard rail obliquely so it did not throw me into the oncoming traffic, nor damage the truck so badly I couldn't steer. And all those oncoming cars, and I, managed to stay straight so they passed my on my right side, 2 feet away, while I bumped along on the uneven shoulder. Miraculously, when they had passed me, there was a break in traffic in both directions long enough for me to steer my way back across the road so I was now in the proper lane going in the proper direction.
I never had a discernible adrenalin rush, didn't shake or tear up when it was all over. In fact I felt so calm I almost wondered if I had dreamed the whole thing. Until I stopped and looked at the left side of the truck, that had the evidence.
It is now 24 hours later and I am only just beginning to feel the weight of my emotions. I feel depressed, even though it seems to me I might feel exhiliratedat having escaped against overwhelming odds. But what I feel is vulnerable and having to face the reality I have long posed as facing. I think I felt sleep earlier and ignored it, or denied it. I think I have been doing that about just about every piece of me that is aging. Pretending I am, by heavy exercise and clever writing, holding off the waning of powers that age inevitably brings.
I didn't see my whole life pass before me. What I am gradually seeing is my arrogance in refusing to let myself see, and hoping to hide from you, my normal decline. Yesterday I very nearly faced it finally in a 15 second adventure, and because of my refusal to attend to it, came horribly close to killing others.
I am going to write a Zone Note aboout this, likely tomorrow. Lacey is pretty angry about that, maybe because she thinks I likely will pretty it up and make it into a good story that will empty the experience of the power it ought to have, particularly for me. I'm going to try to play it straight. But I wanted to get it to you first.
posted by Blayney at 11:15 AM
1 Comments:
I think that your lack of surprise at having almost died is due to the fact that you already realize that death is a thing that can attack at any time.
I don't know if this is fatalism or realism, but I don't think that it's pessimism.
Things happen, and they are not always good, but potential life is something that must ALWAYS be celebrated, even in the face of eventual death.
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