Death

Death is in my thoughts.  I know I’m immortal.  Still these thoughts of finality come upon me.  Intrusive, limiting. I live, as if.  I acknowledge my chronic pain. There’s a fragility in my walk and a fear of falling .  The pain, soreness, stiffness in my back occurs with movement.  I’m doing various activities to live. What I once did for pleasure, like eating, I’m now doing with a conscious effort to gain longevity and to lessen pain.  Suffering is mandatory, they say.  Life is suffering unto death said Kierkegaard.  

Mahler laughs at the unseen world, as only a winner in this world can.  But I’m of an age where friends are dying, literally disappearing.  There remains only a sense that we will meet again in some otherworld beyond rainbow bridge, that mythical place where the pets are waiting to join one before passing on.  

My soul seems like an energy field of high vibration/oscillation shimmering.  In some way this ethereal self is linked with this body, shank’s mare.  The body is sad and the soul remains quizzical.  

I’m past retirement age.  I have no pension or wealth and the government corruption and evil, the mismanagement of resources, and the obscenity of their greed and stupidity has lead to immense loss and destruction of the middle class and aging.  I feel targeted as a group.  The government is at war with me and there is little help as the crunch of rent and cost of living bear down on me and all those I know.  The selfish are being rewarded. The criminals are being rewarded. The slackers are being rewarded. The hard workers, steady Eddie’s, responsible are being stripped of their earnings by the latest collection of thieves and thugs.  

The oldest law in the world is the Chinese law of the fish, there are big fish and little fish. The little fish must be fast and numerous.

I expect my back trauma has left me less capable of running or fighting. I’m fat and less inclined to discomfort. Even sleeping on the ground last year was painful.  I am accustomed to eating, heat and clothing.  

The landlord complained I had two motorcycles at my place.  My Harley Electroglyde 1600 is the ultimate highway motorcycle. I drove 5000 km to Sturges South Dakota and back on it and have used it since for day rides in the country. It’s so big and heavy that I’ve felt unstable in the city with the poor kamikaze drug stoned drivers of Vancouver not signalling their erratic turns and stopping and starting. 

I have a Vespa 300 GTE.  It’s good for the city and sufficient for country  side roads.  I put the Harley in storage and continue to ride the Vespa year round.  In my perpetual struggle to find the right tool I’m trading in the Harley and the Vespa on a new Harley Nightster 1000.  I will have to pay more to do this, the value of my machines leasened by the dealer while the cost of their product is maximized. It’s sharp business policy. The inflation of today, causing my money to be only 2 /3’s the value of the American manufacturer’s money is challenging.  The point is the Vespa is adequate but I want the Harley and mine is too big and heavy and in my mind now too dangerous to run round to the store for mail and groceries.  The new Harley has panache. Laura calls it a spitfire. While I’ve been having trouble managing the big bike because of the stiffness in my back and the weakness in my body I foresee driving the new Harley another decade. 

 Yet I struggle with savings for the future now when I may be less capable and the costs may rise even further. I’m thinking about death and aging. I’m thinking about holding on or expanding.  I was all prepared to sail across the Atlantic but my deteriorating physical strength made the thought of sailing through another hurricane no longer challenging but purely daunting.  

I like being with Laura.  I like being around the guys. I like my colleagues. I rely on others in a way I haven’t in decades. I fear sickness and debility as I hear of more and more with sickness and surgery.  I see so many surviving and thriving but I don’t wish the torture of overcoming disease.  I do not fear dying, not knowing what it is , but imagining it a transition to a different world, with a new body, a passing What I don’t like is the idea of dying.  I fear further suffering.  Yet here I am already in the slipstream as my lumbar spine registers the turbulence approaching death. 

I have faith in God.  I am not God.  I can’t seem to call in place an extra 10 thousand to cover the cost of the change over to a newer lighter Harley. I can’t influence the landlord to leave me alone and not introduce restrictions whimsically and probably driven by fear of the beast government encroaching on all.  We are all on the same sea though different boats.  The landlord’s yacht is different from my little sailboat but there are constant warnings of storms and tsunamis so fear is palpable as everyone struggles to position themselves before the coming threat of war and disorder.  

The concern is that with my back pain and aging I can project the fear and uncertainty I’m feeling onto the whole.  This is not about God or the World but simply about my personal struggle.  I know the Harley represents ego.  It’s the panache of the machine.  It’s manly compared to my womanly Vespa.  It’s a risk when I could be banking money and thinking of the rainy day . Even that is questionable as banks fail and money is squandered in the billions by sociopaths in power.  I see the Harley as a get away machine.

  In the coming wars, there has always been fear of war since the Cold War , and now the Hybrid War of the Communist Chinese coupled with the divisive war mongering of our government forcing us to see our neighbour as different. The government has for three years been a constant Fauci Nocebo and the Trudeau divide and conquer portraying the black man as different, immigrant as different, the aboriginal as different, the female as differnt, the gay as differnt. Then with favouritism and attacks on all others ,  I’ve lost that feeling of safety in my home, that others are fellow Canadians like me, that there is law and order, when no , there’s attacks on the police by the Trudeau supporters, and criminals are celebrated, terrorists paid millions for murdering medics with the new golden calf statue of gold made to Floyd a violent gangster drug addict and abuser of women.  The Statue of John A. Macdonald founder of Canada I knew is destroyed.  It’s all symbolic. It’s all metaphor. It’s all worrying.  

Worrying is wicked.  I have faith in love and comfort and God, or creation, or something , a higher power, something more than me. I feel tiny and infinitesimally weak and alone though I know that’s just the squeak of pain. Pain is that which I can say in no other way.  I feel stabbed in the back and betrayed and that I’ve carried the world on my shoulders and don’t have help.

I fear this weakness. I fear even vulnerability with Laura given the betrayal of ex wives who were there for my strength and turned on me the moment of weakness. I feel like a Wolf among wolves.  If I’m weak, the pack will savage me. That’s been my experience as a caregiver.  When I was weak I was abused and taken advantage of. When I complained I was hurt more.  I was repeatedly told to be a man, man up. Get down off the cross we can use the wood.  I spent years suicidal and now they encourage euthanasia but with pretty names like MAID offered me.  The Feminist solution to the harshness of life. Kill yourself. IF you can’t pay the rent, leave, die.  Heres’ an addiction.Or consume for comfort. Or pray. I pray.

It’s not just the Harley. That’s the symbol of every limited decision,  Should I save and trust the bank and have a place to stay in some care home as more and more elderly I know are homeless.  I imagine jail is there.  I ‘ve a fear of those who lived to fight and hurt physically while I’ve served with specialization and skills , decades of learning.  A desk jockey.  While collar.  Thrown to the masses I’m wasted.  The Harley is escape.  I have a chance of getting away in a high speed chase, better than I would on the Vespa.

I think the Harley ward’s off attack.  I’m old and as so many of us old men say, we have no second round. So attacked we will kill immediately and the best defence is an offensive .

I always know where the sharp weapons and bludgeoning instruments are in a room . I’m always caring keys as weapons. In my world everything is a tool and a weapon.  

The idea of death is peace.  I am not afraid of death but long for it.  It’s just the getting there.  I wonder how much more humiliation I will have to face.  

It doesn’t take a Harley to ask these questions. With cost of living rising I find myself asking whether I ‘can afford’ a steak or should I return to the monastic vegetarianism and cheap living I once knew in spiritual pursuit.  It’s insane the way I think.  My anxiety is for the future which may not come as all I really have is today.  

Carpet diem! Or ODAAT.  Now is okay.  If I keep my head in the same room as my ass is I’m okay. I can work and help others but then I’m downsizing. I ‘m approaching a future where possessions are no longer beneficial because the cost of storage is so exorbitant. I once had houses and acreage but now I’m preparing for the smaller lesser world of the old. I’m trying to clean away excess so that if I was not here family or friends would not be faced with ‘stuff’. I’m giving away stuff but acquiring as quickly. I’ve a storage locker where I have the two or three tools that match the tool I bought last week. I’ve duplicates and yet nostalgia and sadness overcome me as I surrender and let go of the past. 

My back hurt comes from carrying all the memories and love of ages.  I’m  old and weary with good life and good times.  I’m letting go.

I talked to men this week who can’t ride their Harley’s any more.  “My knees, won’t let me.” A big fellow told me as I sat on the new Nightster imagining new adventures wondering if I had time.  I will have to customize it and have to find a way to load and tow it. I’m facing the decision of the toy hauler and trailer. Every change in one physical piece of my life occasioned downstream changes in the projects.  I ask myself now if I still have time Will I have the money. Will I have the energy.  I emptied a closet and was fatigued and sore.  

I have worked more years than most I know. I started work at 12 and have an SIN since I was 16.  Everyone I know is wanting my support and pity and help and understanding and I’ve been channeling and caring, lifting and giving, working long hours, so much for charity, so much underpaid, so much more than was required.  I’ve given mor and more and now like all caregivers wonder about reciprocity. I know I will be loved in life but here I fear I’m only loved because I’ve been strong and wealthy and young. 

Of course I miss my mom and dad and grandparents and aunts and uncles.  Of course I miss my teachers and mentors and all those who have been there .  I have tried to teach reciprocity and karma and yet more and more I live in a world of takers. Sharks , bullies. Their fear and need is palpable,  

We are a consumer society.  The harley will give me as temporary joy. I’ll need a new fix in time, For now I’ll be able to find what gear I have left over from when I had the roadster or buell or KLM or Honda. I gave most of it away but May have some leftover gear from.All the bikes before the bagger.  I might just get by with a back park.  Shopping they don’t have bags and we have to bring our own.  I use the bike for shopping because the cost of fuel for the truck is exorbitant. There will be less cost for licensing only smaller machine and the gas costs have been escalating to match the lie and thieving of the elite bum we have for leader.  Spend thrift trust fund snowboarder. I envy him his irresponsibility. 

I stopped being adolescent when I became a doctor.  I’ve seen way too much disease suffering, loss and death. I’ve had blood and depression and anxiety flung at me weekly. I’ve got suits but nothing like the suits those parliamentary sorts wear, the office money men who are effete and clean and not like me. I’m front row on life and death, dirty with reality.  I’m up to my eye balls in viruses and Bactria. I’m even working virtual in the depth of angst.  I am constantly offering diagnosis understanding  medications and education toease the pain of others.  

I’ve come to work forever and was glad to until I saw that my leadership were shirkers and cowards and that they were offensive abusers of those like me who are the back bone of society. Yet this new managerial class, the new communists, believe that the ‘workers’ like infantry men are expendable. They call us all deplorable. They waste us.  They think ita’s all about them and their ‘intellectual thinking’.  We think too but we do. We are the workers.  Boss man elite effete idiots, those lying scoundrels buying silences and censoring the world, claiming to be doing the evil they do for the benefit of others, narcissists and psychopaths among them. The names on Epsteins’s list remain hidden proving by default that the leadership are a collection of pedophiles, traitors and sociopaths till proven otherwise. Arendt was right. Evil is banal. Where is Bonhoeffer when we need him. Where is  Solzenitzen when we need him?

My minds slips. It’s a loose transmission. When I ride my harley I can’t think of anything but the road. Moving meditation. Medication for me . Wind therapy ,  If  I know I can die a horrible or instant death in a brief distraction. I can live however glorious and free if I pay attention. I don’t feel that way on the Vespa. It’s like a bicycle. Not a rocket ship with power galore.  I am longing for my new nimble machine like a stallion, My old harley spending so much time in storage, rarely ridden these last few years, well I’m glad to see passed on to someone who will enjoy it’s promises as I have . I’m just ready for a younger lighter bike I can ride on to death with.  I really miss my sailboat too. Over the years I’ve been blessed with all these loved  vehicles of life.  

I’m enjoying my family with little ones who are enjoying the world with toys.  I had dinky toys and now I have had the real things. What comes next is levitation and space ships.  It’s all possible. With God life is omnipotential.  Life is infinite.  My soul is laughing .  My body is even laughing at the thought of this new ride together.  All of us meeting one day at Rainbow Bridge.  Thank you Jesus.