The River of Life

ALL living creatures have their day and all things come to an end. Nothing stays the same and nothing lasts forever. As we move through life, we pass through a number of stages and we undergo a series of changes that continue till the day we pass out of it. We have our beginning and our end, our zenith and our nadir, and the journey in between. After the end comes the nothing and the nothing has no beginning and no end. It is always there by default. It is where we came from and where we go back to. It has no mass or volume and yet it has infinite capacity. It undergoes no change as there’s nothing there to change. We cannot see it but we know it’s there. We call this nothing, this other realm, ‘death’.



The River of Life

AS we embark upon life’s journey, we go through a series of experiences and we are constantly adapting to new situations. Our introduction to the formal outside world usually occurs when we enter the educational system. Some of us leave as soon as we're legally able while others pursue their education to a higher level. With some qualification under our belt, we go into employment and it takes up a huge slice of our lives. We strike up relationships, make friends. and find a personal partner to share our life with.  Most of us go on to have children. Many of us become grandparents. Some of us break up with our partner and take up with another. Many of us change jobs, some of us lose our job and then struggle to find another. And some of us are visited by misfortune and pass out of this world before our time. We may have a number of life partners, many children, or we may stick with one partner and produce no offspring. Some of us live a long and fulfilled life whilst others have a short and tortured existence. None of us, not one, knows what the future holds, and none of us can foresee what turn our life will take and where we’ll end up – short of the final definitive exit, of course... that much is certain.

LIFE is a dynamic, constantly changing state. It is not a static stagnant lake but a fast flowing river, and, like a river, it may cradle us and carry us along gently for awhile, but also like a river it may at certain points along its length turn into a raging torrent and toss us about until we feel all is lost. We will go through ups and downs, calm and torment, and some fellow travellers may be swept down into its swirling waters whilst others are recovered and resume their journey. We may lose possessions on the way and we may be worn and weary from the buffeting, but the river’s flow will carry us relentless on and on mile after mile. The options are few and the choices stark. We can follow the current as far as it will take us or cut our journey short by allowing ourselves to sink forever into its dark depths. What we cannot do is get off the ride completely, or turn back or alter our set course, for, unlike a river of water, the river of life has no sides, no banks and no overhangs to grab hold of and haul ourselves out. It’s either onward or downward.

THE great majority of us hang on for dear life and stay the course, enduring everything, endeavouring to make the most of what we have and what comes our way. We pass through infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, maturity, elderliness and senility before we are inexorably swept out into the vast ocean of eternity. And so the journey comes to its inevitable end. We knew it would all along though we preferred to lead our lives as if we were immortal, without end, as if the show would go on forever. And for some of us ever-hopeful individuals, life in our physical body is just a preparation for an eternal spiritual existence. For some of us, the ride never comes to an end, it just changes... or so we choose to think.

Life's rapids

BUT whether we believe that we have a finite end or that we merely pass from a mortal physical state to an immortal spiritual state, we must all travel the same road, see the same sights, experience the same changes, and undergo physical extinction. The itinerary is essentially the same, though the timing and quality of the journey may be different. Perhaps if we were reminded of our mortality and if our physical demise were not a taboo subject, we would all be better human beings, more giving and sharing, less acquisitive, less selfish, less vain and conceited. Perhaps, in accepting our inescapable physical (if not spiritual) end, we would learn to prize what is really of value, what cannot be bought and sold, what has no financial worth but is priceless for our physical and psychological well-being. If we lived in a society that was more in harmony with Nature and its rhythms, with all the natural world around us and its manifold phenomena and with the various stages of life, the journey down that River of Life might be more comfortable, pleasurable, understandable, and ultimately bearable till the end.

But, my friends, that is not likely to happen, is it? Less now than ever before. For the river that conveys us on our life's journey is today a very different one from the one Mother Nature provided for our voyage from the cradle to the grave. Though with its roots in Nature, it has undergone an immense transformation process, a radical facelift, and it continues to take on new forms. Today's river of life has no defined course, no familiar features, no consistency, and no discernible beginning or end. It comes out of nowhere and proceeds into nowhere. It is invisible and unknowable. We cannot see ahead of us or to the side of us and there is no itinerary. We are aboard the virtual cyber-craft of our techno-world and more souls come aboard every day. Its progress is swift and silent and unstoppable. Whether it is the arterial route of a ‘brave new world’ or the Stygian ferry to a ‘cruel new hell’ remains to be seen. Enjoy the ride!