A Big Deal


Dear Eugene,

It's been a while since I last wrote to you.  It's because I've been busy and there's too much I want to say to you but don't know how to choose.  I've lived many days that's just like any other day, but now I've just lived a month that is unlike any other month, each day of it.  It feels like it's not my life that I am living, a life so new that I don't know what to make of it yet.

Today I was looking at a tree and made the most banal comment, "This tree is going to outlast all of us."  We can point at any random tree and say the same thing and the comment will likely turn out to be true.

If that's the case, aren't we all making too a big deal out of ourselves?  Stuffs we do to ourselves, stuffs we make ourselves do, just to live out what we call a life.  And what is this "life" but a handful of years, the first third in utter confusion, the last third in worry and pain, the middle years to recover from our past and prepare for our death.  A financial planner would know I've just spoken the gospel truth.

Still we live like we are going to outlast the tree.  We like this color and not that and make sure the statement is made again and again throughout our life.  Our choices big and small all demand attention, documentation and propagation.  We are a big deal.  Bigger than the tree that wears only brown and green and stands tall.

That's all the time I have, Eugene, seriously.  So, that's it, of all the things I can say to you, this is what I choose to say today.  I am not going to make too big a deal about my choice.

Yours, Alex

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