Life is good.
Okay, so that’s a value judgment–something I’ve been working to avoid: a statement filled with dualistic judgment. At one level, I know that life just IS, neither “good” nor “bad” but only existent, ongoing, in process.
My saying that it is good is no more (and no less) than revealing how I feel about the way my own life process has been developing. I like it. Since I came out of my last suicidal depression about 19 years ago, whether I went around saying it or not, I thought that life was good. Sometimes I even said it, usually in echoing someone else’s judgment. When someone said to me that life is good, I would agree. Many such conversations were held between my son Doug and me on crisp morning walks to the school bus stop. He would see the rising sun hitting the top of Mount McKinley, or hear a bird sing, or catch a snowflake on his tongue and exclaim, “Life is GOOD!” and I would agree.
Not that I’d put up an argument if someone told me that life sucked. In such cases, I usually just asked what was going on to make them feel that way. Then I’d listen and if I had any input, any helpful suggestions or anything at all to contribute that was better than a facile cliche or crappy overworked bit of psychological chicken soup, I’d put that in.
It is all relative, I guess. I don’t know what Doug was comparing his life to when in his youthful enthusiasm he declared it good. Maybe it was to some past life, or maybe he was just enjoying being and thought that it was better than not being at all. He doesn’t shout out his positive judgment of life as often or as loudly as he used to, but I just asked and he said he still feels that way.
I’m glad to hear it. Even when I could see that for some other people life at that moment sucked, for me it was good, but I didn’t gloat or rub their noses in it. I’d just try to suggest that there might be ways to take some of the suckiness out of theirs, sharing my experience, strength and hope. Heaven knows I’d managed to shake a lot of suckiness out of my own life by then.
What has brought this subject to mind for me recently has been that I have heard Greyfox utter those words, “Life is good,” many times in the past few weeks. I always agree. I know what Greyfox is comparing his present experience to when he makes that judgment. I was around over the past decade plus, as he slogged through some very sucky times for him and did his best to slop the suckiness over onto all the rest of us. There is something quite life-affirming and reassuring for me in the realization that not only did he not wreck our enjoyment of life (bent it and blunted it a bit, admittedly) but we managed to help him get through the suckiness and over the crappiness and into some happiness.
Life really IS good.
It isn’t perfect. There is plenty of room for improvement, and that’s one of the good things about it: something worthwhile to do.
It isn’t easy. There have been trade-offs, challenges, demands on my time and energy. That’s good, too. It keeps me from growing complacent and fat.
It isn’t exactly what I would choose if I had my druthers. If there were not all these demands on my time, I’d spend my time quite differently. Who’s to say whether I’d be “wasting” less or more time if I had my way? I don’t know, don’t even know how to begin to evaluate what is a waste of time or what is time well spent. Maybe some time is wasted on those long highway drives between home and the city. Not all of it’s wasted, I know. I get some thinking done. I listen to music. I see beauty at the roadside and take a few pictures sometimes.
I know there was one morning I “wasted” a picture. Soon after sunrise, I drove right by the exit to the parking area at Kashwitna Lake and missed a fine spooky shot of fog banks and misty, dew spangled bushes and grass. The lot was full of RVs, there was good music on my radio, and traffic would have made my exit tricky and maybe even hazardous, so I passed. But I got a mental photo–SEE…. Neat, eh?
Life is good, even with its missed opportunities and imperfections. I’ll take it over the alternative, for now. Thanks.
I almost didn’t stop at Kashwitna Lake on the way home Tuesday night. There was so much haze in the sky that the silhouettes of the Alaska Range–McKinley, Foraker and the rest, were indistinct. There was no mist, not much of anything of note, until I was past the turnoff to the parking area and level with the big open view of the lake. I glanced back over my shoulder. The moon seemed worth capturing, so I went on to the next driveway, turned around, and drove back to the parking area. Then I walked back up the shoulder of the highway to where I could get an unobstructed shot at the moontrail on the water. That’s natural light there, the same color I was seeing.
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