Dying thoughts of a former self

The me I am before I step into my cold, morning shower is never the me who steps out. That first me dies. The second is born. This morning’s blog post is in honor of a self that died knowingly. It died for what it believed was the greater good. I am here, now, to tell you about and to celebrate its life and its sacrifice. Join with me.

This morning

I don’t usually think of my morning shower as a sacrifice of more than comfort. But my thoughts and writings about deaths of generations of Past Mes so that Present Me and generations yet unborn of Future Mes can live—have led to this morning’s realization, and then to this morning’s post.

This morning, the me who stepped into my regular, cold morning shower did not step in out of intentional momentum—a past self decided something and a present self did not exercise its veto. He did not step in through force of habit. There was nothing of self-discipline in his act. The me that stepped in, did so after many minutes of careful, thoughtful consideration. He stepped in with the certain knowledge that he was going to die—and the hope that his death would be for the greater good.

That me hoped and believed that in his place something better would be born. He willingly sacrificed himself for that potential future. He hoped that he-or something like him and perhaps better—would be born the following morning. If so, he hoped that that future, similar self would make the same decision: to sacrifice himself, knowingly and willingly, for the greater good of the world.

He hoped that the person who would shortly be born—this morning in his place—the me that is writing this, would tell his story.

I am that person. I have been newly born. I am here to tell that story. I tell it in gratitude, and to the best of my ability.

Morning Me and Evening Me

As he stood before the shower (seriously, as Dave Barry says, I am not making this up), that past me thought about his weight. Each morning, the same routine: pills, shower, pee, and weigh in. The goal is to keep the weight between 175 and 180 lbs. Many mornings my past selves have skipped breakfast to keep the weight in range. It’s no sacrifice. Skipping breakfast is both a time-saver and a way to keep a stable weight. I can enjoy a good meal, but most of the time I find that eating is an inconvenient necessity.

Morning Me regularly skips breakfast, but Afternoon Me and especially Evening Me spend time opening the refrigerator and the cupboard, looking for something to put in their mouths. Morning Me wouldn’t waste the time. No version of me wants to suffer the consequences of unnecessary eating. It’s not just avoiding a weight that’s higher than the target—weight is only a number, after all. It’s the attendant physical and health consequences—and a little vanity. I’m happy that my little paunch is only a memory.

Evening Me avoids the consequences of eating by avoiding thinking. That’s the only consequence he would ever have to bear. The weight he might gain will be someone else’s problem. Sometimes Evening Me is aware of what he is doing even as he is doing it. He’s aware that it’s something that something decided that it didn’t want to have happen, but fuck that. Evening Me is single-minded in his pursuit of that which will satisfy his needs. It’s a Me that lives firmly in the tradition of “Fuck you Future Me, what did you ever do for me?”

Pre-shower Me thinks about Morning Me and Evening Me and how different they are. He thinks back to Teenaged Nighttime Me who would jerk off before going to sleep almost every night, then ashamed at what he’d done would promise himself that this was the last time. It’s a promise that Teenaged Morning Me would reaffirm. But later, next bedtime, Teenaged Nighttime Me would repeat the ritual—complete with release, relief, and regret. Teenaged Me learned that this was normal behavior for human males of his age without sex partners. But it didn’t matter. The shame was there, renewed nightly. (Thank you Teenaged Me’s, for getting me here. Let go of whatever shame you may still bear.)

Pre-shower Me thinks about what has happened in mornings past once an earlier self has stepped into the shower. Sometimes it’s a quick shower. Past Me’s have often dreamed their way into the shower, turned on the water without considering the consequences, acting by muscle memory more than conscious intention. The cold water hits the body and consciousness changes. That shower has now served its primary objective. There’s purpose and potential in the person and in the day. There are things to do. More time in the shower is more time wasted, so do it and get out. Besides, it’s fucking cold!

A morning shower in three acts

Act I: There’s an initial blast of cold water. It lasts for less than a minute. That will change. In the meantime Pre-shower Me puts his head in front of the shower head and lets the cold water run over his face. He stands up, braces himself, and lets the water hit his chest.

Act II. The copper pipes in the basement run near the furnace. They’ve have gotten warm and so has the water in them. Not a lot warmer. Let’s say: a little less cold. The less cold basement water mixes with the cold water in the pipes and the cold shower water gets a tiny bit less cold. Cold water runs through warm pipes. The pipes raise the water temperature a few degrees; the water cools the pipes.

Cold water from the tank and even colder water from the well are on their way, but they are not there yet. For now, the water is not as cold as it was during that first blast. The self in the shower needs to soap and then rinse with water that’s cold—but not the coldest it’s been or will be. If he can do it fast enough it will not only save time; he will miss most of Act III.

Act III. The cold water hits. Some mornings, he deliberately stays through the third act. He does it for many reasons, not the least of which is: to affirm that when he gets out quickly, it’s just to save time and not because he can’t do the real deal—staying in a cold shower until who fucking cares if it’s cold? When he’s up for that challenge, he sticks water-resistant Bluetooth earbuds in his ears and plays music that sets the tone of his day and measures time in the shower. For an energetic day, he listens to “Tubthumping” by Chumbawamba, or “500 miles” by the Proclaimers. For a heroic day, to the introduction to “Also Sprach Zarathustra” by Richard Strauss. Each is about 5 minutes. Long enough.

Deep thoughts

This morning Pre-shower Me doesn’t jump into the shower but stands there considering. He thinks more deeply about what has happened and what will happen. Once the cold water hits the skin, consciousness shifts radically and Pre-shower Me will vanish. He will be gone. He knows he will die, and he doesn’t want to die. He’s savoring his existence in these last minutes. He—or something enough like him—has made that sacrifice before, but never consciously, never knowing that another moment he will cease to exist—as prior generations have, in the past.

He thinks about the goodness of his existence. Pre-shower Me had gotten up, like most pre-shower selves, at around 5:30. The usual morning routine would have ended abruptly—by about 5:45—in his destruction. Instead, this morning, he went to the living room, took out a notebook and wrote morning pages—a task usually delegated to post-shower selves. “I’d like to understand the way my mind works,” he wrote. “I’d like to make the best of my potential,” he continued. He wrote about the value of meditation in realizing potential, about the limited time that we all have. He wrote about the conflict between doing good in the world and enjoying life’s pleasures. He wrote that meditation would let you “take just as much pleasure from the world at the least cost” in time.

And then he went to the shower to die.

My birth

I was born to tell his story. I’m telling the story to you—any of you who read this blog. But I’m mainly telling the story to clarify it for myself—and for Future Mes.

I’m telling the story to you, Evening Me. I hope you will act in gratitude. I hope you will not prowl around putting food that you doesn’t want in your mouth and letting some Future You bear the consequences of your mindless behavior.

Evening Me, I hope that you will realize that you are here because Pre-shower You consciously, deliberately, and mindfully sacrificed his existence in the hope that something better would come of it. And with some hope of his own resurrection.

Jesus may be a myth. The idea of someone who was willing to die for the sake of all humankind may be just a story. The Me that died this morning for your sake—and what you could do to make the world better—may be just a metaphor. But then isn’t everything in life is a myth and a metaphor? In reality, I’m a cloud of quarks in quantum superposition and so are you. In metaphor, I am me, and you are you. We are more than quarks.

I was simply potential when Pre-shower Me died. I was born in the moment of his passing. But somehow I am a witness to his death and the bearer of its meaning. How this can be, I cannot tell you. But but I can tell you that this story is as true as you, or me, or any myth or metaphor.

I was there.

You will live, and then you will die and tomorrow another you will be born in your place. You have no choice in that. But you are not without power. You can choose how you live and you can choose how you die.

Future selves, when you become aware of something that you are doing or about to do that your brethren selves—future and past—would prefer you not to do or have done, think in particular on the life and death of December 16th 2018 Pre-shower Me, who loved life and died that you could live, and who hoped that you will make his, its, my sacrifice worthwhile.

Amen.

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