In the words of Paul Simon “Everything put together sooner or later falls apart…” Not exactly uplifting, but yesterday when someone asked why I never write about the “existential vacuum” since that’s one of the topics this blog is allegedly about – it came to mind.
“Oh great,” I thought, “people are actually reading the fine print? Fine – I’ll come up with something…”
And then the universe intervened! Oh happy day! Hallelujah!
Here is what happened: this morning I awoke with a crash (as in “was wrenched from restless sleep against my will”, and upon investigation (after a blatant and uncensored “What the [deleted expletive] was that?” discovered that one of my three cats had knocked a pasta-filled dish onto the floor so that the floor was covered with shards of glass and penne with meat sauce. Since apparently I don’t feed them enough, they began to try to eat the pasta. So after banishing them to another room – while cleaning up the mess – I thought “This is a blessing from the universe…we forgot to put the pasta away and someone would have gotten sick if they had eaten it…”
Then I thought, “This positive spin stuff is getting old fast…all we have lately around here are broken dishes and open wounds – what’s going on?”
Of course, this brought up thoughts of the Existential Vacuum which is one of the topics of this blog (allegedly, at least if you read the “description).
For those of you who are not familiar with the term – (those who were fortunate enough not to have their lives burdened by having read Viktor Frankl's Man's Search For Meaning in high school or college - or group therapy – here’s an excerpt:
"...many patients complain today, namely, the feeling of the total and ultimate meaninglessness of their lives. They lack the awareness of a meaning worth living for. They are haunted by the experience of their inner emptiness, a void within themselves."
I must admit – it was not much of a stretch for me to feel a sense of the ultimate meaningless of life when cleaning up the mess the cats had made.
First of all – how did I end up with three cats? I’m not a “cat person”… hell – I didn’t even give them kitty names like “Cookie” or “Butterscotch” or “Spot” …and I don’t think it’s cute or clever when they jump into my plants or dive across the room…
Then I thought of the analogy of the Aegean Stables.
Everyone knows that happy tale for sure: one of Hercules’ tasks was to clean the Aegean Stables which housed a mess of horses that were virtual “poop” machines; continually producing mass quantities of excrement.
Although Herc attempted repeatedly - with superhuman strength no less - to clean them, he was continually outpaced by the oh so many horses pooping faster than he could clean…so as soon as he had cleaned one corner of the stable, the other areas were again manure-laden - so he despaired.
But – as luck would have it – Hercules had an “ah ha” moment and diverted a great river through the stables – which turned into a sort of mass flush – the whole of the stables were suddenly clean at once, and his task was accomplished!
With that in mind – I went to the sink – took the hose – and sprayed all three cats that kept coming back to the glass-sharded pasta mess. For a brief moment – I felt that I had discovered the mysteries of the universe – or at least reached a new plateau…
Then of course, I had to clean the water off the floor – and the Myth of Sisyphus started all over again…
OK – next blog will be about love, food or shopping. Have a great recipe for Penne with Pink Meat Sauce and a special crunch…
Happy Monday.
