I wish that I could tell you not to mind about the little things. I wish I could say the word, once spoken, could be taken back. I would love to assure you that you will always have one more chance to get things “right.” Yet, I can’t.

I can tell you many things if my only objective is to nourish false hope. If one doesn’t care whether truth puts on the mask of falsehood or whether wishful thinking replaces reality, one will listen to the worldly feel-good recipes of comforting assurance that it is “never too late.”

And while it eases the existentialistic pain of day-to-day existence to imagine things are possible that really aren’t, I’m here to let you know that living in a dream-world keeps you from being prepared for the inevitable tragedies that come with time.

As W. H. Auden wrote in his hauntingly prophetic poem,  “Time will say nothing but I told you so.” For “it only knows the price we have to pay.”

The price is high – too high for mortals, for we wish to live in the land of Forever-Hopeful, where miracles that defy logic occur and where we convince ourselves that our lives will give us enough joy, love, peace, and happiness to outweigh all of the grief, cruelty,  pain and suffering.

I could attempt to give you answers for this, but many would not listen. And who am I to solve the riddles of humanity or to explain why things happen as they do? I have beliefs, and they provide me with a much needed blanket of solace when everything about life stops making sense (if indeed it ever did) and when my own world appears to be shattering. 

But who am I to think that what comforts me will comfort you? We are not here to be consoled. To be assured that things are better than they are only offers an escape from the reality of what is.

While believing, for example, in an all-knowing, loving and infinitely merciful Creator sounds good and while we may indeed find facts that back up such a belief, if we believe in such a Creator merely to bear the weight of our worldly burdens more easily, we set ourselves up for not merely disappointment, but, ultimately,  disillusionment. 

There are tragedies the like of which will remain forever mysteries to us as we walk this earth. We will lose the things and people we love most, if not tomorrow, then eventually. And there won’t be tidy explanations wrapped up in pretty paper like Christmas presents under a tree.

We will make mistakes that are irreversible and we will cause others and ourselves pain with little to no chance of reparation,  not even to ourselves.

And through it all, there will be – if we are lucky (or, perhaps, unlucky) – those who assure us that everything will be okay, that all is not lost, and that we can begin anew each day, with hopes of still making our dreams come true.

However well-intentioned such advice is, it is far better not to wait until it is truly too late to distance ourselves from the chloroform of counterfeit hope.

J. R. Tolkien once wrote, “False hope is more dangerous than fears.”

How much better it is to begin to weigh each word we speak, to think through the choices we make with greater perspicacity, to make more time for that which is of eternal importance rather than expending our energies on the ephemerally urgent.

Although there is nothing wrong with clinging to a vision of a life better, grander,  and more beautiful than the one you are living now and while having goals and dreams are an essential component of living with purpose, it is even more important to understand how fragile this life truly is and how quickly the things we take for granted now can be taken from us.

“Will time say nothing but I told you so?” Like Auden,  if I could tell you, I would let you know.

Sascha 🦉

This page and a written material at A Pilgrim’s Odyssey is written by Sascha Norris. (C) Copyright 2023-2024 by Sascha Norris. All Rights Reserved

(Images were lensed by the preeminent New-York based photographer Rodney Smith (1947-2016)