The perfect no-stress environment is the grave. When we change our perception we gain control. The stress becomes a challenge, not a threat. When we commit to action, to actually doing something rather than feeling trapped by events, the stress in our life becomes manageable. (Greg Anderson).
One of my favorite quote about death is from Woody Allen's Annie Hall where a pretentious suitor of Annie says, "When I die, I want to be torn apart by wild animals", to which Alvy comments, "yeah, probably eaten by some squirrels"
How do you make the perfect exit? Is it like Lupe Velez (my first Frasier reference), where you plan the most graceful death, and then die choking on your vomit next to the toilet?
There's this great Bangla folklore sometimes attributed to Ramsagar where the king of a province digs a big pond to provide water for the nearby villages. Even though it's big and deep, no water springs from the bottom during the drought. The queen sees a dream where the goddess of earth wants a sacrifice to save the lives of the people. So, in the middle of the night, she gets up, gets out of the palace, and walks into the pond. And as she walks deeper and deeper, she hears the sound of water rising from the earth and surrounding her and filling up the pond. She walks and walks until the water engulfs her, and her long black hair is floating on the water. People hear the noise of the water, and comes to pay respect to the goddess earth, and they can only make out the black hair trembling across the waves. I'd always thought that would be a great unselfish way to end for me, saving my empire in the process. That's until I saw Nicole Kidman walking into the water as Virginia Woolf. She completely ruined my fantasy.
I'm not engaging in some morbid fantasy. On my 500th entry, I am thinking more of how people will remember me. What would be the last image of me?
Am I going to continue to write about my banal thoughts and obsessions? Of course. Will I ever develop more depth and wisdom than now? Probably not. This is as deep as it goes, I'm afraid.
It's been fun writing. I sometimes read some of the earlier entries and scratch my head wondering what the heck I was thinking at that moment. But the truth is, there's always something better to write about. You just hope that instead of one perfect blog entry, you continue to write a succession of memorable entries, and then success becomes a habit or trend, rather than an anomaly.
I have no idea what I'm talking about, so I'll stop here now.
