Summer Til I Die

“Are you ready for fall?” I asked one of my roommates last night.

“Yes.”

“Want to get into some of those fall fashions?” I prodded.

“No it's 9 o'clock at night and it's 97 degrees out.”

“Ha.”

“And yes. By the end of a season, I start to get excited about clothes I get to wear again. At the beginning of summer, I was excited to wear questionably short shorts and boat shoes.”

We’re just over one month into the scientifically defined season of summer, but in the midst one of the hottest and driest summers in the last 50 years, there’s already an itch in the air, grumblings about the welcome that cooler air will bring, including but not limited to the ability to make a five or more minute drive without seriously considering planning a ‘driving shirt’ so you don’t prematurely change the color of your back from periwinkle to indigo before you’ve even splashed the scene. As a recent automotive surgery forced two buses, a train, and over a mile of walking to get to work while I once again wait for my car (yes, the same issue), I can tell you that it doesn’t get a whole lot more refreshing outside the vehicle. I’m thinking I should have worn shorts and changed when I got to work. Hindsight. Regardless, since June 8^th (an arbitrary date chosen to make the stats seem more amazing), so the last 49 days, we’ve had 41 days with a high temperature 85 degrees or higher, 25 of those 90 degrees or higher, 5 of those 100 degrees or higher, including yesterday. It’s been warm.

Over the course of those 49 days, how many days have I been active, as in, not just come home, make dinner, watch some TV, and go to bed? I don’t have that number, but I can tell you with wavering certainty that it closely resembles the amount of days that it was 85 degrees or higher, give or take, over the same time period. Have I been uncomfortable during drives home, distraught over what to wear on a first date, nervous with my sweaty hands on a softball bat, beyond exhausted after an hour of basketball, suddenly aware of even the smallest sanction of shade during wiffle ball? Unequivocally. But the truth is, I was able to see, do, meet, try, and live more in the last 49 days, if even at times despite the weather. These sentiments cannot be repeated in 6 months.

I’m looking forward to fall. Reasonable temperatures, football Saturdays, football Sundays, baseball playoffs, wearing hoodies again, reconnecting with my indoor volleyball team, celebrating my birthday, you know, the important stuff that everyone can appreciate. But in no way am I ready to give up on summer yet. Fingers crossed, we have two more months of 70s and 80s, giving me enough motivation to wear myself as thin as possible and do as much as possible while it’s still possible. The worst thing about fall is that it shares a border with winter. And winter only has about three things going for it. And two of them involve snowboarding.

So it will be nice to put together a nice outfit with dress shoes and not sweat like I’m being chased by a lion, in Africa, but I’m not ready to hang up the flip flops, sun, boat, BBQs, marathon bags days, street fests, outside drinking games, planning for fantasy football, being active 5-6 nights a week, and every other amazing aspect that summer has to offer, whether it’s 75 or 105, I will use up every ounce of summer I have. I know what’s coming. It will get here soon enough. What do to we say to it? Not today.

When You Die

“Where does it come from, this quest? This need to solve life's mysteries with the simplest of questions can never be answered. Why are we here? What is the soul? Why do we dream?” ("Heroes: Chapter One 'Genesis' (#1.1)" (2006/II)) This is not the first time I’ve quoted Heroes to kick off a post. This time, there will be a little substance behind it.

The basket of simple questions that can never be answered is big enough to hold more than just the three examples above. And while I find those questions relevant to my eventual point, the one I want to dwell on falls into the same category: what happens to us when we die? After your final minute is expired, who you are, your being, your only connection to the living world, your perspective, your identifiable individuality, ceases to produce life, then what? Do the lights get turned off, or turned on?

I admit, this topic intrigues me. And honestly, I’m relatively curious about the answer; because there is an answer. Unlike ‘why are we here’ or ‘why do we dream,’ there are over one hundred billion people who already know the answer, whether they have the wherewithal to comprehend that answer remains to be seen, but regardless, there is no mystery. 93% of the population that has ever step foot on this earth already knows the answer. We just don’t have the means to retrieve it. This makes it a frustrating mystery. Figuring out why we are here is theoretically impossible, it’s just an argument. It could never be anything more than an opinion, an argument. You can’t have facts behind it. Figuring out what happens after we die is impossible for a different reason. Something does happen. Whether it’s drifting upward to heaven, south to hell, into the arms of one thousand virgins, reincarnated as a sea turtle, miserably stuck in limbo, decomposed back into the earth, or simply nothing, there is still a result; an answer.

Given you agree with what I’ve laid out, that it’s humanly impossible to know, how are there so many people in the world convinced that living this life is preparation of what comes next? This is going to sound like a criticism of the religiously fanatic, and I guess it can be interpreted that way, but those aren’t my intentions. If whatever you believe in leads you to living a better, more peaceful, understanding, nurturing, helpful, careful, caring life, spreading knowledge, joy, and patience, it’s ignorantly short-sighted to criticize the way you arrived there. Even if you live that life based on the belief that it’s your ticket into heaven, a decent life, in the context of good-intentioned, not just ‘better than average,’ is always worth living. But if you live your life in a way that is detrimental to your peers, intentionally hateful, blindfully narrow-minded, elitistly exclusive, all for an all-encompassing greater cause or commitment to an unguaranteed posthumous result, well then I have a problem with that.

I don’t live a perfect life. I have never claimed to. I can’t even claim that I’ve done everything I can to live a perfect life. But I also don’t live my life in fear that what I have or haven’t done will have an impact on what happens to my body, my soul, my essence, when, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, I cease to exist. I am unequivocally pleased with the current state of my life, the people in it, the actions I’ve taken to reach it, and the future that it holds. I don’t need to trudge out a list of seemingly redeemable characteristics that would be my proverbial ticket-punch into whatever the desired afterlife party might look like. I just know that when my head hits the pillow, there’s nothing making me lose sleep.

I’m not breaking new ground here. There are enough ‘inspirational’ quotes out there that succinctly state what I’ve meandered to through the last four paragraphs. Hell, I’ve even written about it before Leave it all on the Field. Most of us go through life with some form of motivation, some purpose, some reason that keeps us getting out of bed in the morning. Whether you’re a good person to set an example for your kids, or you’re a drug dealer who wants to get out of a shitty life, whether you’re a pious member of society hell-bent on being heaven-bound, or you’re an anarchist, convinced that breaking the system is the only way to not become part of the machine, there’s usually an over-arching structure that gently guides our day-to-day like wind gusts to butterflies. Regardless of your beliefs, motivations, or inspirations, it would be foolish to not see a bigger picture. If you can’t take a step back and see the framework, if you’re too far in the forest to see the trees, if you’re so immersed in the ultimate outcome that you’ve lost sight of the existence of the other 7 billion people here, then you’re a little misguided.

Any belief, too strong and too cemented to waver, can be dangerous. Take a step back once in a while. It’s a pretty impressive piece of work.