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17. Things Are Getting Better

"Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" is a political campaign slogan. The slogan continues to be used because most people are materially better off than they were. Voters, thinking of their material well-being want more of the same, answer 'yes', and tend to vote for the person they think will give it to them. When it is used as an attack, to denigrate an incumbent, it usually fails. I'm a political junkie and you can trust me on this; the usage and results of this slogan are a political reality.

Even in a four-year span most people will answer yes to the question. If you make it a six-year span (for Senators) almost everyone will answer yes and that's why Senators are very difficult to unseat.

Chart

The above graph is not a misprint nor is it a representation of my wishful thinking. It's provable and it's provable by you. When you stick your facts on the graph you will see what you probably already know. The graph forces you to see the critical distinction between events and overall material trend of your life. If you don't see this trend then you are emotionally, not logically, reacting (emotions are reactions) to every event in your life. If it's a good event you feel good and if it's a bad one then you feel bad. Friends, I've 'been there and done that' and while riding a roller coaster is fun, living on a roller coaster is really tiring.

If you look at the chart, with your facts in place, you will see your bad things occur on the downward spikes of an upward slope. I'm positive that you will read your chart this way because America is a wonderful place. This is not my unbridled optimism speaking, it is just the material facts.

The book, "It's Getting Better All the Time" by Moore and Simon, (2000), charts hundreds of economic/social/environmental trends for the past 100 years. All of them have improved. When I look around I can see the goodies all over the place.

Once you see events as events and therefore, perceive the trend, just about every material thing becomes an event. And now the spiritual light bulb should go on (if it wasn't already on) following your awareness that everything material is an event.

Now death is an event too and mine will be, how shall I say, "eventful in a terminal way"? But since it can be logically demonstrated that my spirit doesn't 'die', that is cease to exist, but merely relocates, all I will be missing is the fun and games of earthly living.

Even deaths of those most dear to me, it's difficult to write this but it's true, are only events in my life. Once I realized that's all they ever could be, that understanding greatly smoothed out my emotions. My initial, shocking loneliness (a reawakening of my aloneness first perceived long ago in my pre-teen years) gave way to a spur to live and enjoy what I'm doing. A greatly loved centenarian once advised me always to, "Keep dancing!" and you can trust me again, I will.

Every single human activity that I can think of has improved since we were slopping around in caves and I just don't understand why this isn't discussed more. I'm beginning to think bad news is popular just to exorcise those bad-thought demons and keep us on our spiritual toes, so to speak. Why else would we delve into every miserable detail of every unhappy event unless it was to remind ourselves not to do that, not to go there?

The graph works for spiritual stuff too, only it's a bit more subtle. What's involved is the spiritual fact of never being satisfied. If you're not bored and still in love with your honey (as I am) it's because both of you have changed. Don't get fooled by thinking some things remain the same, they don't, and if you are in love with someone as much now as when you achieved 'the object of your desire' it's because things are different now. Both you and the 'object' are different and you are always learning, slowly or quickly, from your experiences.

The description of Heaven that suits me comes originally, as I remember, from some Jesuit theologian. He described Heaven as, ' the direct apprehension of God when you will be finally satisfied '. (My italics) I agree with that simply because nothing else has and apparently nothing ever will. My dream Mercedes is not going to keep me permanently satisfied nor is anything else, not even 'the love of my life'. Dissatisfaction keeps pushing us to our, apparently, ultimate goal and the slope, like the material slope, is upward.

Suppose you start with the minuscule, let's say a piece of chocolate, and you get it. Then another desire pops up and you do that. And you continue through the day (and your life) continually experiencing and learning but never being completely satisfied with anything. Well, if nothing can truly satisfy us but everything is getting better let's listen to Maminy (the centenarian). May I have this dance?

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