Between the Dark and the Daylight: Encountering and Embracing the Contradictions of Life Read Online Free PDF Page A

tablets or runes to cite their contributions to humankind. There are no relics of their triumphs or even of their losses.
    There are no other clues to their existence. These powerful ones, certain of their security, came, they saw, they conquered, as the ancients put it—and then they disappeared.
    There is nothing left by which to remember them, no great exploits to preserve, no moral achievements to emulate. Only one thing is clear. Their pyramids and markers and monuments have become memorials only to the deaths of the people who raised them in anonymity and left them in obscurity. The certainty of security—of power, of status, of money, of fame—of immutable claim to the good life, has escaped them all. However thick the walls they built around them, in the end they could not guarantee their own invulnerability. This kind of surety escapes all of us, as well.
    The very thought of it—for workers, savers, strivers, winners all—haunts us. After all, why else work if not to achieve? We seek security like crabs in want of water. We expect our talents, triumphs, and proficiencies to be recognized, to be rewarded. We want our achievements noted, our status guaranteed. And we want more and more of both. We want everything we can have. We live with an open grasp outstretched. And at night, we fear the emptying of it.
    The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, also clearly plagued by the idea, wrote of it:
    I met a traveler from an antique land
    Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
    Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand
,
    Half sunk, a shattered visage lies.…
    And on the pedestal these words appear:
    ‘My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
    Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’
    Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
    Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
,
    The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
    This awareness of the transitoriness of life is deep in us, however stable life seems for us now. The question haunts us: Is this all there is?
    The fear of loss, of change, of transition is the private nightmare of so many yet. We see houses, even of the wealthy, washed away in rogue storms. We watch bank accounts wither. We see food lines lengthen. We hear of businesses that have closed, of professionals who have been overwhelmed with debt, of last year’s secure who have now become insecure. We fear, even in our security, the insecurity that stalks us all.
    So we toss and turn at night. We stay awake trying to plan for the unexpected. But the very fact that a thing is unexpected makes planning a foolish and feeble exercise. Yes, he may die. Yes, the factory may close. Yes, the child may fail. Yes, the property values may decline and the medical bills go up. Yes, my kingdom, too, may disappear. The fear of it all clings to us in the darkness like the smell of damp in the woods.
    Then, the next morning, however secure we are, we give even more energy to guaranteeing ourselves for life.
    Certainty has its advantages, of course, seductive and sirenlike. It promises us immortal indemnity, yes, and it also brings with it the sweet taste of eternal delight. The problem is that its assertions are sterile, lifeless, frail. They bring no warranty of their warranty.
    Certainty sits on the road in front of us and claims to make the angst of future planning unnecessary. After all, once I get what I want, I have it, don’t I? But then why go on tossing and turning in the night unless, of course, I already know, down deep, that the real answer is, Who knows? Who knows when the sickness will come, when the institution will close? When the circumstances will change? Or worse, when I myself will tire of the routine of it? And wish for a wilder ride through life than certainty can ever give.
    Certainty promises us a life free of care. And yet, even when we are most secure in our own definitions of eternal peace, of surety, of success, our expectations dull. After all, what else is there to want now? Life becomes