I turned 57 on July 8.
Yikes!
I take comfort in the fact that my twin brother is also 57. I’m glad Chris is still around. I love him.
In the above photo, I’m inclined to believe I’m the three-year-old on the right.
We’re having fun doing the things we said we wanted to do. One is a longstanding passion of ours – playing music, while another is something we have procrastinated about for far too long – podcasting. And whether or not it’s complete shit, I’m still writing.
By the time I publish this post, episode five of the Yale Brothers Podcast will be up and running also.
When I was younger, I couldn’t get my head around the concept of mortality. It just didn’t make sense, all of that “here today, gone tomorrow” stuff…
Maybe that’s because I believe we live forever.
Is there a name for people who believe that we will live forever – that we don’t come back as a piece of celery and start all over again through a generations-long cycle of self-improvement or self-realization? I should look that up.
Some say we asked to come here. Could that be true?
Maybe we didn’t ask to come here. That could be true, too.
One of my dear friends seems to think that if I make the wrong political choice, I will have to answer to my maker for my “mistake.”
I say that all depends on what you believe, thereby setting up your own reality in the afterlife. If you believe you will have to answer for your mistakes, political or otherwise, you have set up your next reality.
But I don’t think making a political choice matters in any way once we depart this mortal coil. Somehow, all of that would become meaningless.
Of course, I could be wrong. But the cool thing about this is that nobody else on this planet knows what’s going to happen either.
But what about singing in a heavenly choir for all eternity – praising The Lord forever and ever without ceasing?
What?
For some, that could be a definition of hell.
What if you found yourself wedged in the middle of that celestial chorus with no way out – like being stuck in the middle of Times Square on New Year’s Eve when you realize you have to go to the bathroom…
…just give up and go in your pants…?
I don’t want to sing praises 24/7 in an endless loop through the ages. Wouldn’t a “thank you” every now and then be sufficient for whatever entity created us?
Another friend of mine, in answer to my question about what he had been up to, told me that he had been living at the foot of the cross and hadn’t seen me there.
I told him I was over on the Catholic side.
I was raised Catholic – and I haven’t been to Mass in years, but I thought that was a fairly good rebuttal.
I wouldn’t presume, as Salieri said in “Amadeus.”
That’s a good statement, right there.
I am grateful to be living, loving and learning as I go – and I still have a lot of work to do. Maybe, when the lights finally go out, I will have picked up a Golden Ticket or two.
Roger Yale 