‘Living with the dead’ has another side to it. In our relationships, no matter to whom or what, we virtually living with the dead. Change is how relationships flow, and all flow ‘uphill’ to the sea and merge – death. The only question is when. Setting too much store by life intensifies the quandary, the difference. Going with the flow is only possible when one has no use for life.

Life is the active resistance to entropy. Yet, there is no peace until we cease to resist and go with the ‘flow’. Obviously, balance of the two, resistance and acceptance is key. In life, we are biased to resist and so balance lies in aiming for the virtue of non-contention; turning the other cheek; surrendering; desiring not to desire. Aiming for non-contention? It is a comforting hopeful ideal, even if everyone in the world knows yet no one can put this knowledge into practice. Hope is resistance to the inevitable; hope is life.

I imagine that this sounds like a real ‘downer’ point of view to many. Truth is, only when I know and accept - moment to moment - that life is a process of resistance, and yet that resistance is futile can I truly know contentment.

Her last day alive, my mother said, “This is my last day”. She was a feisty competitive soul, but that day she seemed more content than I had ever known her to be. I asked whether or not that was the case, and she said that is was. Personally, I feel she reached her pinnacle of non-contention on that day and could surrendered totally and go with the ‘flow’. The last thing she said that night was, “I’m going home”. I said, “You are home”. She said, “I know, but I’m going home”.

‘Home’