Time Enough

I've lived long enough. Joe was surprised how easy the thought came to mind. Not with fear but with just a quiet acceptance. The same feeling as when he had enough to eat or drink. He just knew it was time to quit. Dying was no big deal, not like something awful was happening. Not like a gang homosexual rape in prison. Not like getting thrown into a pit of vipers.

No big mystery like some folks think. No promised reward others like to believe. Just another day in millions of millenniums.

Consequences were minimal. Two grown sons would finally find out how much money there was in the family coffers. Three grandchildren would wonder how papa would breath in that box in the ground. His spouse could finally have some fun.

Joe thought for a few minutes what he might miss. Enjoying the love a woman can give. Eating some of great foods of the world. Seeing that one great sunset that gives you goose flesh. Hearing a small child squeal with joy as he sees his daddy come home from work. The smell of the air after an early morning thunderstorm. Caring about other people. Been there. Done that. At least enough to know what it's all about. He was sure there was something missing, but no one gets it all. He knew he already had his fair share.

Joe couldn't understand those with a greed for life. Greed for money, power, fame could be understood. They were attainable, but only in a fortuitous way and then never completely satiable. But greed for life had to end in the ultimate disappointment. That wished for one next breath, one more glimpse of a sunrise, one more touch of another human had to end in frustration. Maybe, he thought, the greed for life was merely a way of pursuing more money, more power, more fame. If that was their quest, what fools those mortals would be. Those pursuits were infinite, the time for those pursuits was the only thing that was finite.

He thought of the times when it could have ended earlier. Missing the polio epidemics of the fifties. Driving twisting roads after hours of party while learning how to drink in high school. Passing on curves. Pushing his luck to the brink. Killer tornado. Six people killed in the home next door. Not a scratch on him. Walking the ledge eight stories up on the college dormitory on a dare.

Joe still had questions but realized long ago there were no answers. Had life made any sense? The answer was no, but it wasn't supposed to. A collection of cells made up from a collection of molecules that could go back to being molecules like they were before they came together to make him. He was no different than any other living thing. All made up from the DNA. DNA, the bottom line. Joe could feel his DNA wearing out. Just tired of doing its thing. Joe didn't really understand DNA but of what he knew it sounded like a lot of work. he knew his DNA needed a break, they hadn't had one in sixty-seven years.

There were lots of things Joe was sure he wasn't going to miss. Body functions mainly. Providing those things to keep the DNA working. Fuel, liquid, oxygen. Sometimes he felt there ought to be a big ache in the center of his chest. That poor old heart muscle, tirelessly working for all of these years. Those other organs, straining to keep up as their job became harder and their capabilities continually diminished.

The thousands of little annoyances that summed to major burdens. The continuous coping with those that were not like him. No one was. Ambivalence in all directions. No perfection in any endeavor. The continuous mental process of grating his desires against the collective will.

Suffering. There was one thing that he could enjoy doing without. Mindless, meaningless, pointless, and many times mean and deliberate, suffering. Changing the orbital path of the earth's moon would be easier than a minute reduction in the awful condition of so many people. The work of sisyphus had a greater chance of success than the struggle to better the human condition.

No longer having to cut one's toenails. Such a large distaste for such a small problem was amusing to Joe. But it represented on the larger the scale all of the little tasks necessary to function. Functioning, that was the irritant. To pursue the joys still out there required all of those little tasks in the background. Another crossover point identified. The sum of the little annoying tasks were more painful than any new enjoyment that could still be pursued.

Joe reflected that if this time would have come a earlier, perhaps too early, he could have avoided the accumulation of events that created his current mind set. He could left on top, an athlete dying young. He would have missed the retreat back to the Pusan Perimeter. Jimmy taking a bullet through the head standing with two feet of him might have actually been the lucky one. Ruptured gall bladder thirty years ago and six hours on the operating table. The cold sweats of beating medically induced morphine addiction. Two nights in a Tijuana jail. An ugly divorce. Firing from the only job he ever enjoyed. News. Constant, endless outpourings of the misery of the moment, and the moments were without end.

When is enough. Perhaps when you reach that crossover point. The point where the mess you make far outweighs the positives you provide. The mess you make adds up fast. He knew he was not free to merely vegetate in a cost free way. Life costs resources, death returns things to the more fundamental state of being. Many times what's used by one is denied to another. The positives he once provided are no longer there. Contributions to the overall common weal through good accounting practices now went on without him.

The idea of life is not to maximize length but quality. The joy of the journey is more important that the length, provided it is long enough. When the journey grows weary, then quit.

Joe thought of the irony of what would be missed most was also what was enjoyed least. Human suffering was tragic, without purpose and worst of all rectifiable with the proper will. But the will would never be there. On the flip side was human progress for those who could take advantage of it. Joe ticked off the list he had seen. Instant global communication, the human genome project, computers on an unimaginable scale, means of travel and space exploration, medical wonders of organisms taking like organisms apart and putting them back together, and food supplies for the fortunate in incredible choice and quantity. What could be beyond? Joe knew he would miss that. What comes next? The only things that was sure was that on a macro scale it would be more marvelous, delicious, and incredible that can be imagined. Think five hundred years. But, alas, the problems would still be there. The bad side might be different, but the suffering would be omnipresent amongst all that progress.

Joe knew he had the best of all worlds. His pleasures had fair outweighed his pain. But that was now changing. The equation was no longer in balance. On the whole it had been good. His mind told him to not outlive that feeling. More of the same was not ahead. Oh, sure, he would adjust. Learn to accept less. Tell himself it was still good. But he knew the alternative to living was not worse than retreating into benign hostility covered up with meaningless little supposed joys. No that was not the way.

Joe chuckled as he realized that in the end he never knew how to live. It was just something that happened. Now he didn't know how to die. It was something that happened but you just had to wait. he hoped the wait wouldn't be long.

He wondered how it would be. Perhaps it would occur in a lingering way on a micro scale. The machinery of billions of his own cells turning against themselves, tricked by invaders into working to self destructing blueprint. A gallant fight by his defense mechanisms but the outcome is foresworn. The complete organism slowly and irresistablely losing the onslaught. A war that cannot be seen, even on television with advanced satellite communication.

He thought of it ending on a macro scale. Some pulverizing force destroying the complete organism between pulses of his heart. A bomb explosion combined with a slight timing miscalculation in his daily schedule. Or, perhaps a eighteen wheeler that started its journey days ago but fated to cross his path at any second of time. Either way, just a bad day.

It would be bad, he thought, if his end was a newspaper making story. His fifteen minutes of fame occurring after his time had passed. Others could be properly horrified, saddened or traumatized. He would have missed it. But, he thought as he nodded his head in a what the hell manner, most everyone missed the end. Modern medicine took the big climax away from most. Senses dulled with drugs, no passage of time, merely drifting in a pointless and meaningless way. Chewing up resources in an exercise of futility so that those with time remaining can feel good about themselves and their efforts at prolonging your time, secretly hoping you'll go quick, but precedent will be set for extending their time. The greed for time. He closed his eyes and felt the sleep coming on.