"Good-bye Max.
Good-bye Ma.
After the service when you're walking slowly to the car
And the silver in her hair shines in the cold November air
You hear the tolling bell
And touch the silk in your lapel"
Good-bye Ma.
After the service when you're walking slowly to the car
And the silver in her hair shines in the cold November air
You hear the tolling bell
And touch the silk in your lapel"
("Gunner's Dream", Pink Floyd)
As I walked briskly from the grave to the car, snow falling gently around me, there was a couple edging along just up ahead. My footsteps muffled by the layer of thick white powder beneath my shoes, I silently approached and made my way to pass them. They didn't notice me, but I heard them speaking. I didn't look. I can't tell you who they were, only that they were a couple and that she held tight to his arm to steady herself on the uneven ground. The whole scene reminded me of that stanza from the song above.
But I heard what she said, and it was simple and it was true and it brought a smile to my face and a tear to my eye. I said nothing. I walked on past. Proud.
Over the last number of years, as I've become a step-parent and a homeowner, as I've started into my 40s and as I've gone from referring to my partner as my 'girlfriend' to referring to her as my 'wife', I've reflected a lot on what "being a man" really means. What should be the measure of a man? What should be the measure of a 'successful' lifetime? What is a 'good life' exactly?
I could be called an atheist (by most definitions), and while I sometimes still describe myself as religious (in my own terms), most would think me quite the opposite. I could explain, but this is a subject for another day. Regardless, my particular beliefs don't include the promise or threat of an afterlife, nor do I susbscribe to any code of conduct passed down by an anthropomorphized divinity. So my benchmarks for "what makes a man?" or "what makes a good life?" cannot find footing in any sort of otherworldly mandate.
Being an atheist - even if I accept that moniker - does not make me a nihilist either. Even after you've stripped away all religious belief, notions of goodness and morality still remain. While I do believe certain aspects of morality are relativistic to the culture and historic era in which we find them, "malum in se" is still a very real concept to me. Religion is not the foundation upon which morality is built; the opposite is true, or at least should be. It is no coincidence that every major religion has at its centre some version of "The Golden Rule".
And while the works of men like Stephen Hawking have shown me how infintesimally small my role may be in the grand scheme of a monstrously large and utterly indifferent cosmos (dishearteningly, indeed), I still feel that my role within the smaller domain of my family, friends, and community remains worthwhile.
Common earthly pursuits don't find themselves on my list of personal priorities. Wealth? Power? Fame? I'm far more interested in a simple and comfortable existence, and that's not easily quantifiable. Even if I did accept these as benchmarks, the inequity of starting positions lends itself to poor comparability.
I once heard it said that a man should be measured by the number of friends he keeps, but I've always preferred fewer, richer relationships to a large following of acquaintances. Again, this doesn't quite meet the mark.
So like a sculptor who takes away clay until he finds what he's trying to create, after I discarded all the notions I felt did not work, I was left with a simple concept, a rule my mother passed on to me as a child:
Always leave things better than you found them.
It was a rule about borrowing. But in our time here, are we not "borrowing"? We take up a little of everyone's time, energy, and resources. We "borrow" from the planet, do whatever it is that we do, and then depart, leaving both planet and people behind in whatever condition we do.
I think of the generations of man, of families, as much like a relay race. Each generation, each person, takes the baton for the period of a lifetime and sees how much farther ahead they can move it. The delta - how things were when you found them as opposed to when you left, how much you contributed positively to the lives of those around you minus whatever harm you caused - this is the "measure of a man" (or woman).
My brother said of my father 'he gave four children a much better life than he ever had'. It resounded with me when I read that.
I heard an unknown stranger say in a graveyard last week:
"He raised four beautiful children while taking care of his disabled wife. You can't ask much more than that."
No. No, you can't.
Over the last number of years, as I've become a step-parent and a homeowner, as I've started into my 40s and as I've gone from referring to my partner as my 'girlfriend' to referring to her as my 'wife', I've reflected a lot on what "being a man" really means. What should be the measure of a man? What should be the measure of a 'successful' lifetime? What is a 'good life' exactly?
I could be called an atheist (by most definitions), and while I sometimes still describe myself as religious (in my own terms), most would think me quite the opposite. I could explain, but this is a subject for another day. Regardless, my particular beliefs don't include the promise or threat of an afterlife, nor do I susbscribe to any code of conduct passed down by an anthropomorphized divinity. So my benchmarks for "what makes a man?" or "what makes a good life?" cannot find footing in any sort of otherworldly mandate.
Being an atheist - even if I accept that moniker - does not make me a nihilist either. Even after you've stripped away all religious belief, notions of goodness and morality still remain. While I do believe certain aspects of morality are relativistic to the culture and historic era in which we find them, "malum in se" is still a very real concept to me. Religion is not the foundation upon which morality is built; the opposite is true, or at least should be. It is no coincidence that every major religion has at its centre some version of "The Golden Rule".
And while the works of men like Stephen Hawking have shown me how infintesimally small my role may be in the grand scheme of a monstrously large and utterly indifferent cosmos (dishearteningly, indeed), I still feel that my role within the smaller domain of my family, friends, and community remains worthwhile.
Common earthly pursuits don't find themselves on my list of personal priorities. Wealth? Power? Fame? I'm far more interested in a simple and comfortable existence, and that's not easily quantifiable. Even if I did accept these as benchmarks, the inequity of starting positions lends itself to poor comparability.
I once heard it said that a man should be measured by the number of friends he keeps, but I've always preferred fewer, richer relationships to a large following of acquaintances. Again, this doesn't quite meet the mark.
So like a sculptor who takes away clay until he finds what he's trying to create, after I discarded all the notions I felt did not work, I was left with a simple concept, a rule my mother passed on to me as a child:
Always leave things better than you found them.
It was a rule about borrowing. But in our time here, are we not "borrowing"? We take up a little of everyone's time, energy, and resources. We "borrow" from the planet, do whatever it is that we do, and then depart, leaving both planet and people behind in whatever condition we do.
I think of the generations of man, of families, as much like a relay race. Each generation, each person, takes the baton for the period of a lifetime and sees how much farther ahead they can move it. The delta - how things were when you found them as opposed to when you left, how much you contributed positively to the lives of those around you minus whatever harm you caused - this is the "measure of a man" (or woman).
My brother said of my father 'he gave four children a much better life than he ever had'. It resounded with me when I read that.
I heard an unknown stranger say in a graveyard last week:
"He raised four beautiful children while taking care of his disabled wife. You can't ask much more than that."
No. No, you can't.
"All that you give
All that you deal
All that you buy,
beg, borrow or steal.
All you create
All you destroy
All that you do
All that you say."
All that you deal
All that you buy,
beg, borrow or steal.
All you create
All you destroy
All that you do
All that you say."
("Eclipse", Pink Floyd)
