February

Abstract

February is the death-month in nature. I cannot find a single living thing in the cabin now: not a spider, not a beetle, not a wriggling bug. February reminds me that death is always part of the natural bargain. In a world where humans do not really know very much, they do know that they are going to die; that much is certain. Death is part of the deal. Life is much more valuable because each person is going to die. The bard knew this well: “This thou perceiv’st which makes thy love more strong,/To love that well which thou must leave ere long” (Sonnet 73). Love it well because you have to leave it before too many years have passed, Shakespeare says. No love without death. No life without life that is lost. “Not life, but a good life is to be chiefly valued,” said Plato’s master in the Crito. So once the good is gone, it is time to let go of the life. This is a lesson that the Romantics knew well in the nineteenth century and that the coming generations of twenty-first century human beings are going to have to learn as well.

There is in reality neither truth nor error, neither yes nor no, nor any distinction whatsoever, since all—including the contraries—is One.—

—Chuang-tse