A hundred thousand prayers
by prudence on 11-Oct-2010
There's one really, really strange thing about life.
It's the biggest game any of us will ever play -- and we don't have access to the rules.
OK, there are lots of holy books, wise forebears, and modern-day gurus, who will tell you how you ought to live your life. And there's all the world's treasure trove of arts and literature to help you learn the lessons of existence, and soothe your brow when you've failed them.
But the one key rule is withheld from us -- nobody can see what tomorrow will bring.
Now, you have to admit this is a disadvantage. If you're going to live to 99, hale and hearty, you'll live your life differently from the way you would if you're going to cark it at 39.
How tragic to scrimp and save and never go anywhere, all to prepare for that fantastic retirement trip round the world -- and then snuff it just beforehand. "Oh, poor so-and-so's gone," Dad would say as he read the obituaries, "He didn't get much out of his pension." How equally tragic to blow all your money prematurely, and be left with no choices in a penniless old age.
Imagine we are allocated 100,000 prayers per life. Well, if you knew you were going to be involved in a major life crisis a few months down the track, you wouldn't want to be wasting one praying for a parking space, would you? (Most deities don't work like this, thank goodness, but you see where I'm coming from.)
Most of us -- amateur actuaries that we are -- try to steer our lives between these two reefs. We try to pick a judicious path between "live for the moment" and "prepare for the future". But we'll never know -- till that last dread minute -- if we're getting it right.
This is the sort of thing you think of when you're doing a PhD. A PhD is a miserable, miserable experience -- believe me. I would hate to die before I've finished it. Not because I wouldn't then finish it -- I'm not sure I'd care much by then -- but because I would have spent my last precious, precious years of life sweating and worrying over the thing.
At risk of wasting one of those prayers -- please, may I survive my PhD? And a bit longer? Please?? Please...
It's the biggest game any of us will ever play -- and we don't have access to the rules.
OK, there are lots of holy books, wise forebears, and modern-day gurus, who will tell you how you ought to live your life. And there's all the world's treasure trove of arts and literature to help you learn the lessons of existence, and soothe your brow when you've failed them.
But the one key rule is withheld from us -- nobody can see what tomorrow will bring.
Now, you have to admit this is a disadvantage. If you're going to live to 99, hale and hearty, you'll live your life differently from the way you would if you're going to cark it at 39.
How tragic to scrimp and save and never go anywhere, all to prepare for that fantastic retirement trip round the world -- and then snuff it just beforehand. "Oh, poor so-and-so's gone," Dad would say as he read the obituaries, "He didn't get much out of his pension." How equally tragic to blow all your money prematurely, and be left with no choices in a penniless old age.
Imagine we are allocated 100,000 prayers per life. Well, if you knew you were going to be involved in a major life crisis a few months down the track, you wouldn't want to be wasting one praying for a parking space, would you? (Most deities don't work like this, thank goodness, but you see where I'm coming from.)
Most of us -- amateur actuaries that we are -- try to steer our lives between these two reefs. We try to pick a judicious path between "live for the moment" and "prepare for the future". But we'll never know -- till that last dread minute -- if we're getting it right.
This is the sort of thing you think of when you're doing a PhD. A PhD is a miserable, miserable experience -- believe me. I would hate to die before I've finished it. Not because I wouldn't then finish it -- I'm not sure I'd care much by then -- but because I would have spent my last precious, precious years of life sweating and worrying over the thing.
At risk of wasting one of those prayers -- please, may I survive my PhD? And a bit longer? Please?? Please...