Seeking An Unearthly Eden
Quite suddenly, I find myself in my late fifties.
I used to climb mountains. Occasionally, and slowly, but with determination, expending a great deal of breath in the process and reeling when I finally reached the top, exhilarated and energised, ahead of my descent and journey home.
These days I can’t do it; I can sometimes manage a modest hill, the summit of which might still provide an expansive view, but the feeling of achievement is not quite the same and the horizon is a little closer.
Now I come to think of it, it’s a metaphor for my life I suppose, the hard slog with a sense of purpose that I had in my twenties and thirties, the lust for adventure and excitement, and the need to succeed.
That thirst mellowed somewhat in my forties as I settled down; taking enjoyment, in what I had by now achieved, from memories and perhaps intermittent excursions into the same territory I’d previously explored.
Now in my late fifties, I have regrettably become a little cynical about the world — no, let me correct that — cynical about many of the people in the world.
For I love the world, with a passion. The miracle that this strange planet is; don’t try to tell me it’s all evolved somehow, that zillions of years ago, by chance, a protein soup formed and birthed everything from a butterfly to a bird, to a platypus, to a panda, to a whale. To an ape? Not to mention the flowers, the trees.
Perfection, truly.
Beautiful designs; not the random by-products of a chemical broth.
Still, I can’t understand where a human fits into all this. Man seems completely incongruous on earth, as though he found himself here, dropped from the clutches of some giant space-travelling bird of prey, as it glided across the universe, over planets and moons, on its way to some dark place at the edge of everything — which may well be mankind’s natural environment.
But somehow he landed in paradise and began to destroy it. Adam in the garden of Eden.
It is tragic that humans, alone, have blighted paradise.
My hope is that somewhere a parallel world exists, free from humankind. The dilemma is that I want to be there to enjoy it, and yet I must not be there, if it is as beautiful as Earth.
Then again, here’s a thought, if souls exist (as they surely do), then perhaps it’s like the Egyptians told us — our souls can, if we have lived a virtuous life here, go on to dwell forever in a utopia that is a mirror image of our earthly existence. A world as beautiful as Earth but safe from our calamitous meddling; in spirit form surely we could not inflict harm on that which is physical?
I’ll go with that, it feels logical and right, not that logic plays much part in this earthly realm — and not that I can assume I have lived a virtuous life, for that matter; I doubt it somehow. I’ll have to wait and see how I am judged in that regard.
Meanwhile, there are wonders to behold; so ever onwards…
