Complex Numbers

The Bucket

The response to today's prompt is one of those that changes for me pretty much daily.

PROMPT May 19th

If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are living now? If so, what would you change and why?

I'm going to give one of my non-COVID-19 answers, because the way I'm living and the things I can (or am willing to) do are, and for the foreseeable future will continue to be, restricted by the presence of the pandemic. So the following assumes that there's no pandemic. Because otherwise the simple answer is "No."

Long ago, I guess right about the time The Empire Strikes Back came out, someone told me that the plan for Star Wars was to finish Episodes 4-6, then show 1-3, then release 7-9. For a while there, it didn't look like it was going to happen. And then it did, and I was, for the most part, disappointed. But I remember thinking, back then, "Okay, after they release Episode 9, then I can kick it."

Well, here we are.

Since that time, I've come very close to death at least three times that I know of. Probably a lot more, given the uncertainties of life. And don't get me wrong -- I'm not suicidal or in any hurry to shuffle off, but I'm done. I've done the things I set out to do, experienced almost all of the things that I wanted to experience, and at this point for me it's all about being comfortable until the end.

It's that "almost" that bugs me, though.

As I noted in a recent entry, I became a professional engineer, and co-ran a business. I've flown an airplane. I went horseback riding in a Central American rainforest. I've stood at the top of the Eiffel Tower, and heard the deep tones of Big Ben from up close. I've written a novel -- three, actually, though they're not exactly in finished form. I experienced a week at a dude ranch in Colorado. I've played poker in Vegas (and lost profoundly) and also blackjack (and won). I've driven across the country and back multiple times. I went to Springsteen concerts, and made a holy pilgrimage to Asbury Park (a few times). I've been to both the easternmost and westernmost points of the continental US, and I've floated in the Dead Sea. I looked out over New York City from the top of the World Trade Center, back when it was two towers. I've sampled Pappy Van Winkle bourbon, and crossed the Golden Gate Bridge (not at the same time). I spent a month on Maui. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. Oh, wait, that last one was Roy Batty from Blade Runner, not me.

But there are still things I want to do: visit Belgium for the beer, Scotland for the scotch, and Japan for the whiskey (there's a particular brand of whiskey called Yamazaki; the 12 year and 18 year styles are available in the US, but for the 25 you pretty much have to go to Japan). I'd really like to take the Trans-Siberian Railroad from Vladivostok to Moscow. A river cruise on the Danube. Iceland. Hell, there are still three US states I haven't been to: Michigan, Nebraska, and Alaska. And I still haven't actually seen the Grand Canyon. If I knew without doubt that my demise would occur in exactly one year, I'd make those things happen (again, barring international pandemic restrictions).

Probably you've noted, as I have, that most of these things, and all of the fuck-it list items, involve travel.

And not a single one of these things will matter after I'm gone, so sometimes I ask myself: why bother? Well, you can say that about anything, and that leads one down a rabbit hole of nihilistic philosophy that I'd rather steer clear of. Everest isn't on my list -- too bloody cold -- but the words of George Mallory (I looked it up and it wasn't Sir Edmund Hillary) resonate with me: "Because it's there."

Hell, if I could, I'd take one of those promised trips to space, just to say I did it. And actually, I want my lifeless corpse to be launched into space when the time comes. It's not going to happen; the best I could realistically hope for would be lofting my ashes into orbit, and even that might be beyond my means. But the idea of being out there, even after death, has appealed to me for a long time, and maybe someday whatever civilization replaces ours would find my remains and go, "...huh, look at that."

No, it's not going to happen.

But I can dream.