Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Dead Birds (Warning: Bummer alert)

"Who is mightier than death?  Those who can smile when death threatens." - Ruckett

This morning, I found 3 dead baby birds in my garden.  They must have fallen out of a nest somewhere in the tree-line over my yard.  They looked pretty fresh, to the point where I couldn't tell if they were really dead or alive.  I picked the first one up with a leaf, when I saw the next two, I used a shovel, then put them in a leaf bag we've been using for loose sticks and what/not, tied them up and tried to forget about it. 

I sat there for a few minutes, re-picturing their lifeless bodies in my head and I nearly started crying.  Something seemed so damn off about it.  I was worried at first about burying them, since I thought it was an inevitability my dog would dig them up and most likely eat them.  But I couldn't take it, something about there demise seemed so fucked up to begin with, I couldn't imagine them getting a mafia death at the garbage dump.  I wanted them to at least become part of the environment they lived in and somehow make their unusually short lives partially worthwhile. 

So I dug a two foot hole, took them out of the leaf bag and put them into the earth.  I know it might sound soft, but it was heartbreaking. 

It's a truth about the world, or at least a perceived truth that has always fucked me up.  If reality really is random chaos, a series of interwoven events that leave us floating in a constant state of flux.  Every death breaks my heart, and sadly, every life breaks my heart because of it's random and inevitable end.  Being rational and logical sucks.  It's like a quote from that movie Tree of Life..."Nature is cruel, and grace is beautiful".  It's true.  The classical thinker, rooted in logic and visible truth is doomed to merely search for happiness.  Stuck in a perpetual state of existential limbo. 

I'd like to believe otherwise.  And I know the questions I ask open more doors to a series of more open ended questions that no person to ever grace this earth has ever REALLY sorted out.  I've been searching ever since I was 11 years old and I pondered the idea of eternal nothingness, ironically sparked by the Bill Murray film "What about Bob?".  I know the simple truth on both sides, of faith and nature and everything in between.  But, somehow, it just doesn't work for me...and every time I close my eyes the same questions persist. 

I know this a bummer to read.  But it's honest.  I'm not sitting at home taking pictures of my food and or name-dropping the bands I just played in Europe for a month with to all my family and friends.  I'm in a cafe, drinking a soy latte, and thinking about 3 baby birds I found this morning.  Wondering about truth, wondering about my perceived reality and the rationality of my thoughts. 

I did meet Lars Ulrich a few weeks ago, he was super friendly.