September 7, 2023 - The Big Cosmic Joke

I’ve been stuck on idea, a thought, maybe a life philosophy. The idea is simple. This is all a giant cosmic joke. Our lives. Even more so, the cosmic joke is the huge egos we humans have been endowed with when the reality is we’re utterly inconsequential on a cosmic scale, on a geological scale, even in the history of humanity scale. This little life is nothing more than a flicker in time which will be entirely forgotten within a flash of it ending. The joke: we think we mean a damn hell of a lot while we really mean absolutely nothing. What does this have to do with my High Five By Fifty Five idea? Well, everything. We get just a flicker of a moment of time here. To me, that idea is freeing and relieving of pressure. What I do really, really doesn’t matter. Yes, it may matter to me and my family and those who rely on me. But we don’t really matter, not in any real and permanent sense. So, if it doesn’t really matter, how does one choose to live a life? I think that freedom of not mattering, of it all being a giant cosmic joke, allows me to live better. To really live and pursue that which feels important to me. I could be right. I could be wrong. Who cares? Once I’m gone, there will be little impact left from my decisions. So, I want to live, really live! I want to use that flicker of a moment to experience much and to try to do just a bit of good. Sure, not enduring good, but some kind of good. And that’s kind of it. Really live. Really use the flicker of a moment. Really do some good (which for me means helping others come to a similar place, choosing to really live however they see fit to do so.) I want the flicker of a memory of my life to be “well he really did some stuff!” I’d love for a stranger at my funeral to look at whatever little summary is written about me and think exactly that. These next ten years and this project will be in pursuit of that. I’ve already been involved in some adventures that can be chalked up into the “he really did some stuff” category, and this High Five By Fifty Five will definitely add to that. It’ll be another among a series of moments of not just sitting around, but actually living. The learning along the way, the experiences with friends who help me and whom I help in their adventures, the setbacks and trails on the journey, and maybe eventually finishing High Five 100 (or not finishing, if that’s what’s in store for me.) Really using this flicker of a moment. Burning that flicker to the ground. Not because it’s going to mean a damn thing, but because it’s the flicker of a moment I get.

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