Life is referred to as a “vale of tears” for a reason<\/b>. Even in these times I often find myself standing awestruck as I witness humanity’s ability and willingness to persevere as daily life metes out one disappointment after another. Certainly for some these are minor matters- a promotion denied, an opportunity lost, a relationship ended. For others it is more rending and visceral- oppression, starvation, disease, and death. Yet human beings stride ever onward, indomitable in the pursuit of something better than what life offers for them today.<\/p>\n
It is this aspect of humanity that makes me optimistic regarding the future of the race. In my unique situation I can hold any circumstance to be temporary. My life has already been unimaginably long and so far as I know it shall continue to be so. I can afford patience. I routinely defer my aspirations. How a person who can at best expect ten short decades to live a full life can then present that same sort of patience is often beyond my capacity to internalize. My perspective is too skewed, meaning that while I accept it and understand it at the intellectual level it remains one of the aspects of humanity with which I have great difficulty empathizing.<\/p>\n
I suppose this is my loss. One major difference between myself and all those about me that I have noticed is my singular lack of creativity. Those things I do well are the result of immense amounts of practice, but originality has never been my strong suit. It has occurred to me on more than one occasion that this is likely the price I pay for such a long life. It is an idea that has even been broached by writers of fiction, who often have an innate understanding of things I have learned only through long experience. My approach to difficulties consists mostly of plodding doggedly forward- perhaps the closest I come personally to the hope that sustains others.<\/p>\n
Do not infer that this saddens me. Truth to be told I am a particularly unemotional person and I am content to be so. On the rare occasions where my emotions overrule my sense I usually end up married or in prison, and the last time it happened it took me nearly a month to dispose of all the bodies. All in all, better for everyone that I remain dispassionate.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Life is referred to as a “vale of tears” for a reason. Even in these times I often find myself standing awestruck as I witness humanity’s ability and willingness to persevere as daily life metes out one disappointment after another. Certainly for some these are minor matters- a promotion denied, an opportunity lost, a relationship […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,11,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-immortality","category-philosophy","category-the-past"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}