Productivity, meaning, purpose, dreams, life, death. Things you don’t always want to think about, but which will always come back to haunt you in the quiet moments.
My car got back-ended last week. It was a heavy hit from the back, the entire back left corner of my car was smashed in and twisted, a mean feat especially since my metal continental was struck by a lightweight Japanese model. The left rear body folded in, pinning the back left door and jamming the wheel. Aside from some sprained necks, nobody was seriously injured. We were lucky, really lucky. Strange how I can feel that after I’ve been in an accident that I didn’t cause, but when I imagine how much worse it could have been in any of a million little ways, I do.
What did the crash feel like? You can imagine the physical crash: light-hearted banter amongst the three of us as we waited to make a right turn, one of hundreds we’ve already made in a car, after a nice dinner and looking forward to some evening coffee when we were thrown forward, our conversation interrupted by a loud crushing of steel, cracking of plastic and breaking of glass, and in an instant – seeing the people you love being violently shook forward and back, looks of surprise and pain on their faces. That’s what I can vaguely remember, but really, everything happened in a sudden loud moment.
That was the physical crash. But the metaphorical crash: That one takes a little more imagination. It feels like it does in one of those dreams when you’re deep asleep, soundly doing whatever it is you’re doing in the dream world, walking, swimming, flying, when something happens in real life to rudely yank you from your dream-world and shake you awake.
When I look back at the crash, only four days away, it feels like that. It feels like the universe, seeing me asleep, sent a dense box made of plastic, metal and glass hurling at great speed towards me to forcibly jolt me awake. “Look here! See what you’re not doing with your life! Is this really the way you want to be living? Open your eyes – quick, before it’s too late – open them now!”
