As I lay in bed last night, not quite ready to fall asleep but not willing to stay up any later, I listened to the sounds of nighttime silence. I listened to my pulse surging in my ears. I listened to my heart beating in my chest – as separate from my pulse. I was struck by the incredible, stupid, miraculous complexity of the machinery of the human body. How easily disrupted, how quickly broken in some fatal fashion. Which thought lead to the recognition of the increasingly stupid and miraculous complexity of the electrochemical interactions continuous within the human brain which produce the (illusion of the?) human self. This intricate, amazing, stupidly intricate sack of meat, dragging around an astonishingly complicated lump of more or less self-aware offal – this is what we are. So easily ruined. So frequently ignored, until it’s too late. This stupid, improbable, unnecessary miracle. This dumb, wasted, altogether too-human life. What is the damn point of it all? How was I supposed to sleep? Why, in the end, bother? With any of it?
But I heard other sounds in the nighttime silence.
I heard my wife, asleep beside me, breathing softly.
And I thought, “Well, damn. You stupid, selfish ass. You had better take care of yourself. Because for better and for worse, you are not alone. Your body may be needlessly complex, target of a billion breakdowns and weaknesses. Your brain and your mind and your sense of self prey to an endless stream of errors and interruptions. But you are not alone.”
If you want a reason, look no further.
Don’t be an ass.
You don’t get much time. And it doesn’t take much effort to make a difference, for better or for worse. So goddamned make sure you make a difference for the better.
