Old People Saying Good-Bye

There are many ways that the Last Quarter ends ... Indeed, some exit quietly and others don't "go quietly into that long dark night." It must make a great deal of difference to those left behind to try to understand ... for trying to understand is the best ride we get towards understand the great mysteries ... something from nothing birth ... and something to nothing death. Don't get me wrong ... I don't count or discount reincarnation that would explain where nasty little Mortimer arrived from ... hell! He couldn't have come from me! or whether God eventually decided to take Old Mort back into her arms. I have no great proofs and generally don't seek them. Am pretty happy with my thinking that I get this big canvas on which to paint .... I've come to consider myself an C+ painter on my canvas and that's pretty good for me. I'll go on painting, I suspect, till my arrhythmias go BANG or something else catches up with me. It's been a pretty good ride, thusfar, thoughI have moments when I do wish I painted gloriously like one of the Moderns or like Artemesia Gentileschi who chopped off Holifernos's head in a wall size painting ...

But there are those who cannot wait .... I've been involved in an online discussion recently about suicide ... began with talk of Robin Williams' awful mess that he left behind. I have wondered 'why so angry?' Why not take a car and miss a turn or mistakenly walk into traffic instead of making a statement.

My trip to Quebec was full of my chipping Psalms: mah gadlu ma'asecha, yah? .... how great are your creations, God!

The conversation about suicide is like most online conversations between psych-types ... like the mystical snake Oroboros eating his own tail ... everybody, including me, ending up where they began. Last night I wrote:

"I think the human animal considers suicide ... They consider it because they CAN consider it .... .... akin to what they say about dogs licking their genitals or butts ... Being human came along with the possibility of reflecting on the worthwhileness of continuing the process. In transcending instinctual behavior, much has become possible .... I think it was Kurt Eissler who used to point out that perversion is uniquely human ... that is, doing something that one CONSIDERS one oughtn't do is uniquely human or as I once wrote I've never met a Cur who required candlelight to mount an estrous bitch. We humans don't rightly have even an instinct of self preservation ... hence,for instance, Freud used the word Triebe and Triebregung rather than Instinkt. If'n you can reflect on it, it is no longer instinctual."

I'm here for the long haul but do get those who like the song says "take the easy way out."