I like being engaged in my work, and in my writing (as I have been for the last hour-plus) and I also like doing dog walks and just being calm and looking and thinking and I like sitting places too and just looking or even just breathing and thinking — or breathing and letting go of thoughts (meditation, basically). Yet I also know that my consciousness — while wonderful and cool and powerful — is also the product of (is made possible by, as the PBS-ers say) my body, and as many thoughts as I’ve had and as I’ve written (a subset, of course, of all that I’ve thought), these too will end at some point — I’ll die, of course — and that feels sad to consider. And on other hand, I just … keep on thinking, you know? I have a thought at (in) a moment, and then the moment passes and I have another thought, and, at some point, my consciousness moments will end and I won’t be in the world anymore — and I won’t be a driver-threat to squirrels [as I was the day before]. …
Yes, I don’t think a life needs to be famous to be well-lived — the famous die, too — and once you’re dead, you’re dead — it doesn’t matter what your public reputation was (or will be — you can’t libel the dead).
[From journal of Sat., 17 Sept. 2022, Journal 366, page 200]
MonkeyMoonMachine 