The Myth of Arrival

When is life sorted?

When I was a kid, I thought it was when you were an adult. I remember sitting in a coffee shop with my father when I was about 6 or so. I told him I couldn’t wait to be an adult. He laughed, I think, and said that adults have many responsibilities, and childhood was the best time of one’s life. I didn’t believe him. Yes, but, I said. Adults are free!

As I grew up, the goalposts shifted. When I was 13, I thought 20-year-olds had it sorted. They had girlfriends, they went out, they drank, they were just cool.

When I was 20, I thought, fuck, when I’m 30, all this turmoil will be in the past. I’ll be settled, I’ll know what I want to do with my life.

At 30, I thought 40 was the magic number. That’s when people have life under control, I thought. I’d have a drawer for insurance. My receipts would be neatly filed. I’d probably own a house. Everything would just work. No more trouble.

Now I’m 41. I’m probably clinically depressed, I have about €30.000 in my bank account (most of which is likely owed to the taxman), I’m storing up a variety of health problems in the nearish future, and my life generally feels like a very boisterous horse that is careening out of control and always on the verge of jumping off a cliff.

Maybe 50, then?

But then I look around at the 50 year olds I know. Divorces, alcoholism, serious health issues, life disappointments, worried about their kids, sad about never having had kids.

60? Well, same, except then you’re even closer to death, and that’s a mindfuck all of its own.

Hmm.

As a trained philosopher, my conclusion is: we’re always fucked. Life is never sorted. There is no promised land. There is no happily ever after.

There’s a famous Buddhist story about a woman who lost her only child. An old man told her to see the Buddha, so Kisa Gotami went to the Buddha and asked him to bring her child back. Sure, said the Buddha, but first please go find me mustard seeds from a family where no one has ever died.

I’d have probably told the Buddha to fuck off at this point, because I don’t think it’s nice to respond to grief by being a kind of smartarse. I know all families experience death, so fuck off with your mustard seeds. I just want my child back. But I suppose that’s why he’s enlightened and I’m not.

Anyway, Kisa Gotami did as requested, and naturally, she could find no such family. She went back to the Buddha, and the smug bastard preached his Dharma to her, and apparently she became awakened.

Hmm. This parable has gone a bit off-piste. I intended it to use it as an analogy, thus: just as there is no family that has never experienced death, there is no stage of life at which we are sorted.

Instead, I’ve ended up swearing at the Buddha. Still, if he really is enlightened - which right now I am beginning to doubt, to be honest - he should be able to take it.

Dickhead.