Another Special Difficulty

Last time I learned that I am not supposed to be an animal — but I am. Several people responded to that “special difficulty.” Some had trouble with it— too messy. They’ll be thankful for it, when the mess happens to them.

  

“…. a response to a challenge

 of special difficulty 

 rouses one

 to make an unprecedented effort.”

                                                                                                                   — Arnold Toynbee

I’m going to write the piece I intended, before ‘the mess’ became more pressing. It is another version of ‘the mess,’ but with much more dire consequences.

One of my major disappointments about this life is playing out in a hideous way. Its pitting young folks against old folks, even more than was common during the Vietnam era. I have sympathies for both. To me, the body of our species, the home we live in, is suffering the greatest mess of all — we have soiled our nest. The earth is reeling and everything is being effected. This is the worst form of a ‘special difficulty’ I can imagine.

The current death throes arouse in me a profound shock, a painful kind of horrible compassion. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I have no idea what this moment will call forth from us, but I know, like all ageing people, the end is nearing. Out of the ‘unprecedented effort’ that this moment will mobilize, I can see our kind rising and falling. And, oh the ache! The ache! The ache!

Strangely, I have this intuition. Recently, during a medicine journey I wrote, “As darkness crowds around, I get brighter.” I imagine that things get so dire, that it brings out some of the best of what it means to be human. The end of human time might be the best of human time. I don’t know if I could handle that any better than I could handle another form of horror. Which blaze do I want to go out in? I don’t expect I have a choice, or do I?

I find myself captive of this awkward intuition. I look around, even anticipate a little, that some hearts will break open, and get larger. I want to be near if that happens. I think it can, because it is happening to me. Mind this, I don’t think it is because of my efforts —I don’t deserve any credit — I think Life is playing out an unprecedented effort too. It is happening through me, through the heartbreak of this time.

We, humankind, have made a mess, so tangled, complete, and awful — so us—  that we cannot resolve it as we are.  Nothing could stop us — like ourselves. Somehow, this is justice. Now we will see, what unprecedented effort can render.