Sunday, April 8, 2012

The Other Side

My grudges, frustrations, resentments and jealousies will finally disappear.

Evel Knievel
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Hello Jon
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No one wants to read this. Whenever I write something that even hints at peeking under the covers of life into something that has the aroma of otherworldliness, people sense it and put a hundred miles between themselves and my vagabond journey. Well, I can't help that. Some topics need to be investigated with a torch and a shovel that most people would not attempt, not from lack of courage but most likely from lack of interest.

Robert Craig Knievel (1938 - 2007) Evel, was like a superman of the motorcycle. People called him crazy, a daredevil and that he cheated death. What was he trying to prove? Maybe nothing. But he was doing things no one else would attempt, maybe from lack of courage, but more likely from lack of interest.

I think Knievel was not "cheating death." I think he was looking death in the face and challenging it. He was living out on the edge of mortality and peering through it into the other side. And did he sometimes drive through to the other side? If so, what did he see?

Fatalists, nihilists will say there is no other side. This is all there is, what you get is what you get. And yet today the Christian world is celebrating a man who went through to the other side and returned, a man who said "If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death."

All the negatives, the mortal things, like "grudges, frustrations, resentments and jealousies" are the pathways of mortality, the stings of death, the victories of finality, but if there is something to go through, another side, a mentality where the negatives disappear in a greater understanding of existence then maybe Knieval saw it and, if so, that's why he could know that the negatives would disappear, would become nothing.

Who knows, maybe there are some "glad tidings" for us once we get on our motorcycles and get moving.

DB - Vagabond
Never give up.
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5 comments:

Geo. said...

Wow. Mr. Knievel used to come thru our town's county fair in the late '50s, early '60s. My brother and I were inspired to become motorcyclists but we wisely quit when we realized our idol was a better practical physicist than we --maybe better than Einstein, who said the universe is stranger than we can imagine. Provocative post, DB.

pacifica62 said...

You have mentioned my excuse ---- lack of interest. I do not care if there is another side and I never spend any time wondering what might be there. I try to live in the moment, in the now cause that is all that I have for certain. I feel absolutely no need to speculate about what might be or could be when no one alive knows if there is anything at all. When I am dead it will not matter.

Jon said...

In the end, all the negativities of life that we desperately cling to have no meaning at all.
It isn't lack of interest......but rather a supressed fear that keeps most of us from contemplating the realms of the other side.
We are all living in our own private versions of hell and bearing our own secret crosses - which will hopefully prepare us for something better and much more meaningful.

krissy knox said...

love this post, db. makes great sense to me. it is very interesting and insightful. was sharing almost these exact thoughts to someone yesterday, to which i think she thought i was crazy. oh well, LOL. thanks for a great post

Ken Riches said...

I think I am with Pacifica on this one.