* Friends, Thank you all for taking some time out of your precious day to read my stories. There are many new subscribers, thanks to y’all, so I’ve decided to post some of my original stories for the next few weeks. Many of you have not read these stories from the early days.
I started this Pages By The Sea page back in September 2024. No big expectations, just wanted to write some ideas bouncing around in my head. Ideas on death and how it affects us and how we should face it instead of fear it.
Enjoy these little snapshots of Life.
“Why?” He hesitated. “Why must I choose?” the mountaineer asked the monk.
“You must make a choice,” the monk had just instructed the middle age climber.
Four days of hiking and three nights of camping had rewarded the climber with this visit to the mountaintop temple. It was hundreds of years old, carved directly into and out of the mountain itself. The monk, in a crimson robe with emerald green trim, sat cross legged on a handwoven rug on the cold stone floor. Dark brown eyes looked out of the shaven head. The mountaineer felt the eyes pierce into his very being. Wisdom and patience permeated the atmosphere.
The monk did not answer. He continued to stare into the heart and soul of the climber. After an uncomfortable period of time, of which the climber did not know, the monk spoke.
“The question is not why, the question is why not?”
A chill wind blew through the chamber they were in. It sent a shiver through the climbers bones, even though he was dressed for the cold. It did not seem to bother the monk.
“Please sir, no riddles. I am exhausted from the climb to your temple.” The middle aged climber, who also sat crossed legged on the cold stone floor but without a rug, dropped his head in momentary despair. He had made a huge sacrifice to be here in front of this monk. His work and his family had been put on hold, neglected, while he pursued this goal.
The mountaineer had recently turned forty five years old. During the past year, he had felt his life slipping away. His life had begun to resemble the mountain he just climbed. A great weight had descended upon him and pressured him downward. The family, the career, the money, had all suddenly seemed worthless and empty. A great void in his soul had been opened. And now, once opened, once he had seen the empty black hole of which he now regarded his life, there was no unseeing it. There was no going back. He needed an answer. He needed an answer or he would die.
The climber had done everything society had required of him. He followed all the rules. He got good grades, he played sports and the piano. His good grades got him into a good college, of which everyone, his whole life long, had told him he must do. He didn’t question any of it. He went along like a stick floating down the river.
He got good grades in college, like he was told. He then got a good job, like he was supposed to. He married the girl he met in college, like the script said he should. He bought a house in a good neighborhood with good schools, just the way all his coworkers did the same.
A short time later, he had his first child, right on schedule, so they could have three in total. He raised his children to get good grades, to get into a good college, to get a good job, to get a good house in a good neighborhood with good schools. Thus the cycle repeats, life moves forward. Because the script was followed, society shows its approval and peace and fulfillment ensue.
Except the climber, approaching the milestone birthday, began to wonder. A small seed of doubt had been planted in him a year earlier. Doubt about the reason for it all. Doubt about life and what it was all for. Doubt about the reasons he had done what he did. Doubt about his choices.
He had watched a work colleague announce a cancer and witnessed a rapid physical decline accompanied with pain and suffering, including mental anguish. Then, within a few short months, the complete disappearance of the coworker, followed shortly thereafter by the announcement of the passing of the fellow office mate.
The seed of doubt, planted by that experience, was now growing at an accelerated clip. His fellow coworker had also followed all the rules and everything society said must be done. Yet it mattered not. He was dead. His wife a widow, his children fatherless.
And so, the climber, began to first consider the unfairness of it all. His fellow coworker followed the script, as did he. Why was he then taken so early? For that is how the climber began to think of the death. That somehow, the man he worked with, was taken. Not unlucky, not bad genetics, as some speculated. No. Taken. The man was simply taken because it was his time, fair or not. And so his introspection grew. Taken by who? Taken why? Am I next? If so, then what is it all for?
Raising his head and looking up at the monk, who continued to sit still as a statue, the climber adjusted his sitting posture, folded his hands into his lap, and asked the big question. The only question that mattered to him in that moment.
“Sir,” the climber began with a soft spoken reverence. “You say ‘why not’ instead of ‘why’. The ‘why not’ is because the pressure from society, from everyone you know and everyone around you, from media and just everywhere, is too powerful. We humans are too weak to resist. Those of us who try to resist, who try to make a life on their own terms, are descended upon by the remaining society members. They come after the resisters and make sure they are put back in their place. Back into their slot in the greater society.”
The monk nodded. The climber noticed this and a spark of energy flowed into him. He continued.
“If I do not choose, then I remain a cog in the wheel of time. If I do not choose, I am a feather floating in the breeze, the breeze of society. If I do not choose…”, the climber hesitated. He turned and looked out the window at the distant mountain peaks. Dark clouds drifted along the snow covered mountain tops while at the same time golden sun rays shone through and provided patches of blue sky.
He had a vision of his children, staring at screens and already zombified, and was frightened. He saw his wife’s face, dull and disinterested, her spark of life gone, and he felt ashamed.
Was everything he had done wrong? Were all the rules he followed not necessary? Had he really made any decision in his whole life, on his own behalf? Was it all one big lie?
No, that was too much. It can’t be. He decided to live that life. He made all the decisions on his own, because he wanted to. The society didn’t force him into anything. It may have guided him but that was for his benefit. He had a good life.
Yet.
Yet here he was in a mountaintop temple in front of a stereotypical monk. Deep in his soul, the mountaineer knew why he was here. Deep in his inner being, the seed was sprouting forth and its fruit was questions. Questions regarding it all. It’s fruit was clarity. Clarity leads to choices and clarity leads to decisions.
“Why not choose?” He turned back to the monk. “If I do not choose then it is death. A living death but death nonetheless.” He noticed a slight turn of the lip on the stoic face of the monk. “If I do not choose, I may live seventy or eighty years but those years will be an existence of convenience. Not a true existence of joy.”
The monk spoke.
“You are beginning to grasp the big picture, the scope of it. The answer lies within your soul. You felt the answer the moment you began to ask questions and decided on this journey.”
The monk turned and gestured with his arm outstretched to the mountain peaks. “It is not the arrival here, nor the conversation with us monks, which opens a man’s heart and mind and soul. No. It is the journey here. The time spent alone with your own soul, the quietness of the mind, allows your subconscious to work its wonder.”
The monk returned his gaze to the climber. “You know, and have known, the answer. This moment, you and I together in this place, solidified and clarified your choice.”
“I will choose. I will make a choice. For my children, for my wife and for myself.”
The monk stared deep into his soul.
The climber smiled. “No, correction. I have already made a choice.”
The monk continued to gaze into the climbers soul.
“Now that I have made a choice, I must now take action.”
The monk bowed his head to the climber. The climber bowed his head in return. The monk rose, turned and walked away.
The climber rose, walked to the windows and admired the snow capped peaks. His vision of his family and his future changed. A strange confidence and clarity entered his mind and soul.
He adjusted his backpack and began his journey home.
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