Preface
1. I can have a somewhat morbid personality, with a tinge of hypochondria. It is a little joke in my family. It's not that I am surprised to have lived past fifty years. It's just that I have been preparing for death for a couple decades.
I have written a lot about myself in various places--blogs, Facebook, and such. Not that there is anything significant about my life. One possible title for my autobiography might be, "The Life of No One in Particular." I am just an intellectual hoarder. I want to preserve as many memories of the past as possible. One of the greatest losses in a person's death, at least to me, is the loss of their memories. A little history dies with each person. Frankly, a lot of history dies with each person. It can never be recovered, at least not on earth. This saddens me.
The electronic age makes possible the preservation of so much more. Papers must be discarded. Old trophies and plaques deteriorate. They become a burden to families for those who preserve them. But no one begrudges the perpetual storage of electronic words.
So I have done the thought experiment. If I were to find out suddenly that I was dying, would I have time to write my reflections on my life? Probably not. I would probably be to preoccupied with the things having to do with dying. And of course many deaths come without warning. I am traveling a good deal later today, as I write these first notes. Stuff happens.
My intention is to capture my thoughts and reflection on life here, particularly on my life. I have had many a pleasant wandering. My life has been full of privilege and joy. Not that I am a happy person. I am a melancholic. I live from emotional highs to emotional lows. I have never been diagnosed with anything. I take no medication for anything. It is simply the case that I have not always felt what is a truly wonderful life.
In high school they told me my IQ was 139, I think. It could have been 138. At times I feel stupid. At times I feel smart. Most of the time I just feel like I'm doing my best to get through life. Growing up I did not feel any smarter than anyone else.
However, I've sometimes joked that I was one point short of a number they've called genius IQ. It's really quite meaningless. But I've joked that they should put on my epitaph, "Not Quite a Genius." It somehow seems to capture something about myself. Sometimes above average. Not quite excellent.
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3 comments:
Ken,
For my last birthday, a county court judge (retired) invited me over to his house so that I could drive his ‘Vette motored Caddy.
After the most fun I ever had behind the wheel of a car, he showed me his house. What he wanted me to see were all the “family antiques” he had, from his 1930 Ford, to a sea chest brought from Norway by ancestors on his wife’s side, to a muzzle loader musket made in 1850 first owned by a great-great something or other. The farm he lives on has been in the family since the 19th century.
I have been reading Mother Tongue by Len Sweet about his mother, Mabel Boggs Sweet, who must have been a brilliant person and a marvelous preacher. I wish I had the book in front of me; she is quoted as saying (or maybe she quotes someone else): the accumulation of ‘stuff’ for the sake of accumulation, or frivolous decoration is wrong. She never used the phrase conspicuous consumption, but that is what she is referring to. (The Sweets were perilously poor, by the way). But keeping things that preserve something—our collective memories, a way of life, are good. That is my paraphrase, drawn from my always selective memory. But it seemed salient to me after having visited the judge’s house and finding out a good bit of his own family history, preserved in furniture and a car that has literally been in the family for 90 years (!) and other memorabilia.
He is keeping family memories alive, or trying to. I was fascinated by all this.
Your life has been very helpful to me. I have learned from your books and your blog posts. (Jesus is Lord was especially helpful—it should be widely read by anyone who wants to understand the New Testament. I bought “Philosophical Journey” but even though I had two introductory level Phil classes some years ago, I just never disciplined myself to read it. It is still sitting by my favorite chair, waiting.)
I think I am like you in some ways, except my IQ may be somewhere around 20 points lower, I am not an academic, barely graduated from college, etc. Well, I’m melancholy!
At any rate, your blog this morning connected with the recent reading and experience I had, and prompted me to write this. John Mark
I think you underrate your intelligence often! I have always appreciated our conversations!
My self-deprecation is not unwarranted. I struggle with a learning disability, and my college/university career was at times sheer torture, and took almost as long as the wilderness sojourn of Moses and Israel. I think my afflictions have been allowed by the Lord to keep me from being the arrogant jerk I should have been otherwise.
But many thanks for your gracious response.
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