As long as you remember.
Long ago on some Boston area UHF channel they would broadcast the Benny Hill Show. Benny Hill was a British comedian/actor who primarily focused on skits featuring slapstick and sexual innuendo. My mom wasn’t all that pleased by my love for the program but damn did I think it was funny. Sometimes Benny perform a song or recite one of his rhymes. Often times these were filled with subtle raunch and puns. There is one song that pops up in my mind periodically called Go Round Again. While nothing epic it does make me think about life, taking things for granted and death.
Without going into too much detail Hill sings about a poor little boy named Johnny who becomes fascinated with riding a merry go round. When his mom cuts his ride short he begs her to let him “go round again”. From that point on everytime Johnny gets into something good he begs to go round again. Suffice to say when he dies he pleads to God for another shot at life with the following “Lord can I go round again? Please let me go round again?
Oh I can’t believe that I’ll never see your sky or your trees again. Oh the girls and the wine and the living were fine, I shouldn’t complain but then, you give damned short rides on this fairground of yours, Lord please let me go round again”. I almost, almost get choked up whenever I think of that line.
What’s the point I’m trying to make?
Well.
You may believe in some sort of after life or maybe you think that God is gonna help you get out of dying all together. Some religions, songs and sayings stress that you ignore the present and focus on the future both near and far flung. Nothing wrong with thinking or planning for the future but focusing on it, doing it to the point where you ignore the present? Not a good idea. Furthermore taking the little things for granted is more than a bit of a mistake. Obsessing over some big event will cloud your focus on the subtler situations happening to you as you read this. Because remember, the big event will come no matter what. And then it will end, no matter what. Then what do you do? Do you just cheap chasing the next big thrill and be unhappy until you get there? Some folks do that. But not me, not you. Nope. We stop. We listen and feel ourselves in the moment. In the now, right here or right there. And then it goes. The near or far future is a theory. Hasn’t happened and no telling if it will. The big thrills, the big events are a blast. But look around around you, look at those commonplace things that you sit near or walk by every single day. Look at the sky, trees, your good friend, your loved one, your pet. All those things. The things that are so common right now but could be and will be gone someday. I’m not trying to depress you, I’m trying to get you to think. Right NOW is what you got. Yoir life and decisions are in yoir hands as you read this. Take nothing for granted, decide what YOU want to do, I mean REALLY want to do and work within your parameters and means to achieve your ends. If you value your associates then let them know that. By ‘em a coffee or soda or something darn it. Look at you. You are ok, you know that?
Now go.
Remember you got one shot at this.
Once it’s all done memories of you will stick for a little while but nothing can bring you back.
And there is only ONE YOU.
