Here is what it looked like outside my bedroom window on Sunday morning as I sipped coffee and surveyed the world through the interwebs:
It was not a particularly beautiful morning, but I think one can objectively declare that this is a nice way to wake up and take coffee. I am grateful for it. I have a lot to be grateful for, but as the “to be” in that sentence indicates an aspiration, it is insufficient. There is a lot that I AM grateful for.
I’m thinking about big things like this because my father suffered a fall (again) over the weekend, and my mother has had two in a short period (by the way, if you’re talking with them, DON’T mention that you read about it on my Substack, OK?) My sister and her husband who live close-by are doing their best to manage my parents’ decline, ably assisted by my brother and his wife (who are facing similar issues with her parents). My sister and brother and their spouses are among the things for which I am grateful.
This whole concept of gratitude is important to me. I’m not sure why, but I think it has something to do with my concept of self. I have never—not once in my life—wondered about the reason for my existence, or my purpose in life. I have never—I really don’t think I’m overstating it here—never questioned “the meaning of life”, which is something those who invariably wonder about the meaning of THEIR lives tend to do. Please do not think for a moment that I am being critical of those who ponder these questions. I’m not. My guess is that people like me, for whom the meaning of life is a settled question, constitute a tiny minority.
So, you may ask, what is the meaning (or purpose) of my life, if I’ve been so clever as to figure it out? The answer is simple: cellular respiration. That’s it. The FACT of my existence is the JUSTIFICATION for my existence. I am not here to fulfill some greater purpose, though I have pursued great purpose enthusiastically. There have been great failures in my life and there are ambitions that will sadly never be realized. But their pursuit was never the point of my existence. Their non-attainment is not evidence of a lack of meaning.
I am here, because over fifty-nine years ago my parents started a chain reaction that continues at a molecular level today. The purpose of my life is to continue that chain reaction. What I DO with my life, how I SPEND my life, the impact I MAKE with my life—these are important questions in the here and now and because I believe so, in the afterlife. They are important because I hope to be a net positive to the universe while I carry out my purpose, which is to respire. Their answers however, do not constitute the reason for my existence.
Which brings me back to gratitude. Because I do not attach the attainment of unfulfilled wishes, or future events I wish to bring about, to the meaning of my life or the fact of its existence, I do not carry around the assumed weight of those things. There is no hole in my life that needs filling. I get that it is easy to be grateful when you are healthy and happy and living a fortunate life with a person you love. I can understand the teeth-sucking going on out there among some readers as they tut-tut about this self-indulgent and meandering essay. But ask yourself this: how many healthy people do you know who are living “fortunate” lives—and are not happy? Are not grateful? They are EVERYWHERE. Happiness and gratitude are not lesser included offenses of fortune. They are separate and distinct.
A great flaw in my theory here is that my approach to life has not REALLY been tested. Would I be grateful if I were sick? Would I be grateful if I were alone? Would I be happy if I were facing privation? Will I be as be as sure as I am as to the reason for my existence if that existence were threatened? If I were diagnosed tomorrow with a terminal disease and given six months to live, would I all of a sudden be awakened from my smug dreamscape and realize the existence of a warehouse of unfulfilled and unexamined meaning? Will the eventual deaths of my feeble 93 year-old father and ailing 89 year-old mother shock me into a new state of meaninglessness and purposelessness?
Am I The Oblivious Man?
Thirty-plus years ago, I had the honor of serving on a ship with a group of officers I referred to as “..the greatest gathering of men since the Second Continental Congress…”. One of those officers was my boss. The man was a dynamo, the hardest-working man I ever saw, totally mission-focused and without equal in his knowledge of what was required from our ship in a time of war. In this, he was a bit of a savant, as there were other facets of life on Earth that seemed to escape him, something that earned him the nickname of “The Oblivious Man” from his fellow department heads. In jest, of course. Wink. Nudge.
I thought about him today as I gazed out the window at the ducks swimming lazily in our cove. (Note: we haven’t had ducks in our cove in numbers in a long time. I am grateful for ducks returning to the cove). Am I The Oblivious Man when it comes to the deep ponderables of meaning and existence? Am I just shallow and lazy? Am I papering over a lack of depth and inquiry by embracing a superficial state of contentedness?
Let’s go back to the “you’ve got six months to live” question. As I sit here in a state of solid health (confirmed by my recent VA physical) and think about what would happen if tomorrow morning I got the six month death sentence, how would my life change? Like I tell people when they talk about how they would react in combat, you never know how you will react in combat until you’ve been in combat (I haven’t). I suppose it is the same with terminal illness diagnoses. Until you actually face one, your Sunday morning Substack musings are meaningless. Or maybe not.
I have no bucket list. If I want to do something, it generally happens (my wants and my means are pretty much aligned). More importantly, most of the time I am doing what I want to be doing. So if all that were to have a six-month expiration date, I’d like to think I’d keep living like I am today. Well, I wouldn’t WORK mind you, I’m not an idiot. For as long as I could though, I’d drink coffee in bed with my Cat and my cat. I’d watch Hallmark romances. I’d read some books. I’d call some friends, and we’d bitch about UVA Basketball. I’d have lunch with the fellas at the club, and I’d lose money at the gin rummy table. I would watch Jacques Pepin cooking videos and I would poorly apply what I learned. I would howl at the moon about the shortsightedness of our national security apparatus and its approach to resourcing seapower. I would Tweet into the void. I would write letters to my girls and in them, I would remind them that I am not to be referred to as “Bryan” to their as yet unborn children, but some appropriate name is to be found for referrals. “Grampy” would be good. Or “Commander”.
I do not think that I would—I daresay I hope that I would not—spend my time wondering why I was placed on Earth or lamenting about unachieved meaning. My death would be the answer—I had been here to respire. Everything else was what I did while breathing.
Navy Stuff
If you have a hankering for some Navy stuff from me, go over to the Commander Salamander Substack and find my latest essay over there (due to go up Monday AM 12 February. It is titled “In Praise of the Military-Industrial Complex”, and it is a doozy.
A well written article, my friend - and one I could have written myself ... five years ago.
I'm an old man, and for most of my life I have been agnostic. Well, I always told people I was agnostic, I was actually an atheist - I was afraid to call myself that, though. I was afraid partly because atheists, during my life, have had a reputation of being “in your face assholes” to believers – I was never one of those. I’ve never been interested in ridiculing the beliefs of others, although I’ve never shied away from a respectful debate.
Part of the reason I also never called myself an “atheist” is because the term seems so final – like I have reached the ultimate truth when something deep in me knew I hadn’t.
Since you mention, God – nor a higher power – not even once in this article, I’m assuming here that you hold views like the ones I formerly held?
I could never believe in God; I was a logical person. Faith, the Church … none of it made sense to me.
Since I hold views that are counter to the prevailing authoritarian winds, i.e. – I believe in the Constitution and the American Revolution, and utterly oppose the Deep State and it’s privileged idiotic nomenklatura. I’m the kind of person that goes on FBI watchlists these days. I’m not going to divulge much about myself, other than to say I have a long association with the U.S. Navy … in uniform, and my career was absolutely AMAZING.
Five years ago, I became a Christian, not through Faith – but because an AG1 (Weather Guesser) threw me a copy of the book … “The Case for A Creator”, by Lee Strobel. I told him that, as an “agnostic” – I wasn’t afraid of his little book and would happily read it and then debate him on it. What else was I to do? We were in the heavy seas of the North Atlantic on a defense mission for this nation, and we had a lot of down time due to being unable to work in the harsh weather.
This put me on a quick journey of philosophy and science – toward God. It changed my life. I remember when the epiphany hit me … “There is a GOD!” …
I was ANGRY.
Can you believe it? I didn’t want the universe to be this way, I didn’t want there to be a God. This anger lasted … about five minutes before some new peace within my soul began to wash over my entire being. I can’t describe it – but I remember I had the best night’s sleep I had ever had that night – not a care in the world. I now knew there was someone watching over me … over all of us.
Believing in a Creator doesn’t get you immediately to a belief in Christ, that was another journey for me – which I won’t get into. However, Lee Strobel helped me with that journey too.
I’m not trying to convert anyone here (everyone has to come to this on their own, by their own means – and you WILL eventually get the calling, which you will either refuse or accept) – but what I’m saying here is that BELIEVERS look at the world differently than people like you Bryan.
I WAS you.
My “god” was the constitution and the U.S. Military – the uniform and the mission we served every single day of our lives. I felt I had a duty to “represent the fighting spirit of the Navy and those who have gone before me to defend freedom and democracy around the world.”
When you don’t have a belief in a higher power, you either conclude that you are your own god, or … if you are like me … you latch onto something bigger than yourself that exists on this earth. For me – it was American exceptionalism and the belief that it was our duty to spread democracy throughout the world.
Like you, I never questioned my purpose – it was essentially spelled out in the Sailor’s Creed.
When you come to realize that God is a REAL thing … everything changes, which is why many – perhaps even you – don’t want to even go down that road. Remember that, when I came to realize the truth of God – it made me angry at first? Yep, there’s a psychological barrier in guys like us that steers us away from that road.
Where you still seek to fulfill your purpose by unquestioningly defending America’s role as the ultimate arbiter of the world – I no longer do.
I’m an American by birth, but I am an acknowledged child of GOD by choice, and that will always trump my “Americanism”.
Bryan, when seven innocent children were murdered by our government on its disgraceful retreat from Afghanistan – where were you?
When the Chairman of the JCS stood up and told America his “righteous strike” LIE, did you call him out on it?
When our government refused to sanction a single individual for that massacre against an innocent group of children – where was your voice?
Those children weren’t “collateral damage” – they were victims of NEGLIGENT HOMICIDE, because the American nomenklatura had just lost 13 service-members due it’s utter incompetence – and was willing to shoot at ANYTHING in order to redeem some small amount of it’s testosterone. Testosterone I don’t think they ever had to begin with – the whole lot of them disgust me. From the President down to the now rotten Flag Officer corps of our military.
I'm not saying you're bad for not speaking out ... not at all. I know why you didn't speak out because five years ago - I wouldn't have either. I would have chalked up seven dead kids as an "oh well - that's what happens when you're trying to save the world, unfortunate, but let's move on."
I can't do that anymore, Bryan. Realizing that the incident probably bothered you too - maybe even as much as it bothered me. Maybe you even commented to someone on it - yet it did not force a change in your thinking - obviously. It didn't adjust your thinking at all.
The Afghanistan withdrawal, the 13 lost heroes, and the seven murdered children OUGHT TO HAVE FORCED radical changes in people's thinking. It certainly did mine. However, for most ... they just blacked it out of their thinking.
It certainly forced a radical change in Vladimir Putin's thinking!! Just not in the way we'd wish!
The clown-car show that was the exit from Afghanistan – BEGAT THE INVASION OF UKRAINE.
I would argue that NATO expansion over 30 years was a big part of it. I would also argue that our role in overthrowing a democratically elected government in Kiev was also a part of it. However, it was the kindergarten execution of the Afghan withdrawal that emboldened Putin to “pull the trigger” and invade.
How could anyone look at that abortion of an exit and NOT conclude that America was a rudder-less nation on its way down the drain?
I worked for an Admiral once who used to say … “When all you’ve got in your golf bag is a bent seven-iron, then that’s what you happily use for every shot.”
If all you have is a purpose driven by government, or American “exceptionalism” (which I believe in) – then that’s all you’re going to turn to. A good, competent government and American exceptionalism are great things – but there are other clubs in the golf bag, my friend.
Happily, I understand this now.
My prayer is that someday – you understand it too.
You are a good man, but the world and it’s worries, shall not be fixed by our generation. It took thousands of years for real civilization to develop – and it’s still being evolved.
(And the best parts of that evolution came from the Judaeo-Christian legacy. ;) )
Our purpose is to REFINE AND PERFECT OURSELVES – not others.
And the current nomenklatura of our nation are not anywhere near competent enough to embark on or continue any attempt to “fix” places like Russia and Ukraine. Encouraging them to do so – is equivalent to giving five-year-olds a book of matches and telling them to play in a lighter fluid factory.
It’s a beautiful picture and view you have there, Bryan – I hope one day you will realize who gave it to you.
Although I suffered years because of dyslexia, (Yes, some people can be cruel.) But,I never let that stop me, like a duck in water, I let it roll off my back. Even my employer teased me about my jumbled arrangement of letter, but he still knew I was his best employee. At 78 now, technology has helped me a great deal with spelling. Yet, grammar is still a mystery to me.
After almost dying in 1991 because of someone's neglect and being crush under 3,000 pounds of steel and concrete, I had an epiphany. Life is short, live it full speed, do the things you always wanted to do.
I always wanted to be a pilot, I went back to school, through hours of hard work I earned my Flight Instructor rating, continued my education and opened my own flight training center. The FAA recognizes my achievement and I became a examiner (DPE). Became a corporate pilot flying for a physician management company. Life was good.
I don't worry about dying, just live each day the best I can. My wife and I have made it 51+ years. She is my rock.