Transition Day
Djibouti, January 25, 2012
Salaroche

Our daily endeavors usually absorb our minds almost entirely. Whether it's work or family matters, fun or worrisome situations, pleasant or unpleasant thoughts, our minds are usually engaged in doing something. Very rarely do the majority of us invest time in contemplating life with all its implications.

Not many people stop regularly to ask themselves questions like who are we really? What is the real purpose of our existence? And other questions of that sort. For that reason, it is very easy to forget that all of these phenomena we call reality will someday come to an end for each and everyone of us. We wake up every morning, go through our daily and nightly lives, and then go back to sleep with the unwavering certainty that all of this will be there waiting for us when we wake up again the following day.

How many of us think on a daily basis that one day we will wake up for the last time in our lives? How many of us ever stop to think that everything we are able to perceive through our senses will one day cease to exist for us? Do you ever stop to imagine how that experience will be? Such a thought could even be considered "unimaginable" by most of us.

Picturing the idea of not being alive anymore can even feel like a fantasy. Such a thought seems beyond belief to most of us, yet we are all very much aware of the inevitable nature of that truth. In my case, for example, I am absolutely certain that in a few more years this reality will have less real value than a dream for me.

Everything I will have done, said, thought, seen, touched, smelled and heard in the span of my lifetime, from a certain given moment on will no longer be worth nothing to me, for I will no longer exist as Salaroche.

I usually walk down the street contemplating that thought. At this point in time I have already grown accustomed to having that thought always present in my mind. Twenty years ago I hardly ever thought about it, but that was then. Now not a single day goes by that I don't think about it. Contemplating that thought has already become an automatic reflex in the daily grindings of my mind.

And please don't think that in having such daily thoughts I'm experiencing some dark, ominous, and depressing states of mind. No. Having such thoughts is just the act of contemplating an inevitable fact, such as is the fact of having to have my clothes washed every week, or the fact that I have to prepare my classes every weekday. The thoughts in question are in no way debilitating, nor are they ones to paralyze me with dread or render me useless with despair. No such thing.

My constantly being conscious of the fact that one day I will no longer be aware of this "reality" is not something that I try to run away from either. Of what use would that be? Once we are 100% conscious of something, there's no way to voluntarily go back to no longer being conscious of it. Trying to hide from such lucid state of awareness would be nothing but a foolish exercise in futility.

Salaroche is alive in this world today, there's no doubt about that, but he won't be around forever. Nobody will. Just as the rest of his fellow human beings, Salaroche is terminally ill, and the name of that illness is life. Is this a depressing thought to you? If it is, it shouldn't be, for there's nothing depressing in knowing that one day you will have to finally let go off everything that surrounds you. That is, unless you are extremely attached to your possessions and identity.

And if you happened to be extremely attached to your possessions and identity, well, maybe this is a good day to start letting go off them. Does this still sound like a depressing thought to you? If it does, it shouldn't. Just try looking at it this way: Whether you like it or not, in the end you will have to let everything go, so why not start doing it voluntarily right now?

But, as it turns out, liberating ourselves from our attachments can be a very tricky thing to do. For example, how can anyone let go off the love they have for their children or their consorts, or for their mother and father and still consider themselves normal, responsible human beings?

Getting rid of our attachments is a very tricky thing to do because relieving ourselves of our attachments does not in any way entail not caring about anything anymore, and that conundrum can be difficult to transcend for many of us. To be sure, however, detachment is not a synonym for irresponsibility.

One day these phenomena that we know as reality will cease to exist for each and all of us, and when those phenomena finally vanish we will be faced with a Reality where bodies, personalities and possessions are entirely nonexistent. What will you do then? Have you thought about it? Will you freak out because you won't know where you are? Will you go crazy because you won't even have the slightest idea of WHAT you really are? Think about it.

Some of us think about it every day and with each passing day we know with increasing certainty what we will do when we get there. Some books, philosophies and religions give invaluable hints about how to get ready for that moment and about what to do when the moment comes. To read about one sure method to do so, please visit the Writings section of this Website.

Salaroche