Schrödinger’s Anxiety
Daily Meditation #198–9/8/2022
Today, my fiancée and I decided to go play some miniature golf.
We mistakenly arrived some 15 minutes before they opened. Deciding to enjoy the Indian summer heat of the UP of Michigan, we lounged in the cushioned chaise outside the offices.
She and I laughed and talked in the sun and balmy breezes, just happy to be waiting in one another's’ presence.
After a good 10 minutes, I glanced up to see a gigantic, frantic wasp buzzing furiously along the ceiling of the awning we were sitting beneath.
He continued to circle overhead, bumping into the lights and wooden slats of the ceiling, and I continued to look up, now aware of his very sting-y presence.
Had he been there before I saw him (and before I had the conscious thoughts and anxieties about him)?
Had he landed on me and I hadn’t even realized?
How long had he been buzzing just feet from us?
But most of all — what was my sense in continued worry over him?
There are a great many things to cause us heartache, pain, and anxiety in life.
Some of which we aren’t even aware of, lurking and waiting to pounce out.
So, do we go through life obsessing and agonizing over that which might possibly injure us?
Worrying about that which is uncertain?
We practice death meditation each day to steel us from the utter waste of energy that is concerning ourselves with that which can come to pass.
Death, pain, suffering and the malevolent forces of the world are certainties in life.
When I was enjoying the now with Andrea, completely unaware of the wasp, I could’ve been stung. (Fortunately I was not!)
I could’ve focused wholly on the wasp, allowing the now to slip away for fear of that which I cannot control — the wasp’s nature.
What if — instead of the wasp — I had suffered an aneurysm and died right there?
Life is too short to spend overmuch time focusing on avoiding pain.
So — as I often ask…
Are you living?
Or, are you LIVING!
Follow for daily philosophical meditations.
These are distillations from my coming book “YouDaimonia: the Ancient Philosophy of Human Flourishing.”
