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Sunday October 22nd 2017Tim
Candler9
Long before
the current iteration of lunacy I took an interest in
Jainism. Some might think this odd from a person who can
readily produce an uncharitable sneer whenever the "I"
part of being is referred to as a soul that belongs to
eternity. It was the renunciation part, the surrender
part, of the Jainist that appealed to me, rather than
anything that might liberate "soul" from the chains of
being in the world by promising somewhere else, more
perfect and nowhere near here. Nor was it my opinion
that renouncing had an association with what the
wack-a-doodles have over the years framed and then
piously dismissed as "earthly pleasures." I saw this as
yet one more tired attempt to define earth as an
acceptance of misery and hardship, and as a creature of
my time I chose instead to categorize "earthly
pleasures" under a series of derogatory general titles
that ranged from "Cancun" through "dish washing
machines," "Pindar and the Olympiads" and all the way
into the dystopian fever swamps of "Madison Avenue."
Past
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Astonishingly
there are bits of me that are still sufficiently present in
the world to grasp that sometime, the end of February, maybe
into late March of next year, I will yet again take a
venerable shovel to the vegetable beds and after a silent
contemplation of the extent of the daunting task, I will
hopefully find the will to proceed to work that I'll
describe without humility as up there with Hercules. If and
when that task is accomplished, I will experience an
"earthly pleasure" that falls into a category I would have
to find a name for that has nothing to do with simple or
homeward wending a weary way. Currently my suspicion is that
this name will have more to do with a sense of belonging
than the "earthly pleasures" Pindar or Madison Avenue or
Cancun or dishwashing machines have been able to illicit
from my own understanding of existence. So yes indeed, I
plan by the early April frosts of next year to have endured
misery and hardship, aching bones, the hell of wing, elegant
wrist and aging back in order to lay claim on an "earthly
pleasure" before dourly distributing barrow loads of
compost. Mind you, the ordeal of yet another Festive Season
could well be the end of me, which would certainly be an
eternal solution.
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