A friend of a friend shared these words on social media. I wish I’d said something like this, so I shall share it with you …
“Today I don’t know how many days I have left. Many I hope, but who knows? We aren’t privileged with such knowledge unless, in Matthew Arnold’s words, ‘Peace has left the upper world, and now sleeps only in the grave.’ I’m nowhere near that, but trying to comfort an old friend yesterday, I found myself struggling for optimism. Too many wonderful people I’ve known now gather as a cult, with the chants of hatred rising like those in some ‘vegetation ritual’ scene. But here’s what I’m going to do with the number of days remaining—many or few—in memory of Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl in his epochal ‘Man’s Search for Meaning.’ I’ll find beauty in a sunset despite the evil gathered behind me. I’ll start the day with Mozart, not Twitter. I’ll end each day reading, and trying to make sense of, history. In between, I’ll appreciate loved ones more and tell them so. I’ll try to be a foundation of hope in a mean-spirited world. If I’m called a fool or relic, I’ll rise above it. I’ll make music, not because I’m good at it, but because I can say that, for a moment in eternity, I partnered with an inanimate object to glorify our existence on Earth. I’ll not squander my remaining treasures to signal defeat like a camp prisoner consuming his last hoard of cigarettes. Dear friends, as we circle to defend ourselves against the forces of darkness, let us join hands and sing, the way we used to when we thought the sun was rising on a better world.”
Written by Jimmie von Tungeln
