What do we gain?

~ when everything else is stripped away

We imagine shortcuts will save us, but the long road teaches what no software upgrade, AI or app ever could save us from owning the consequences of our actions, or from stupid people …

Struggle doesn’t build character so much as it reinvents perspective. When everything falls away, what remains may finally matter. But it’s deeper and more powerful than that. It kills people, it destroys lives and families - so coming through what has been going on in my life is no badge of honour, it’s only an indicator that so far the survival kit worked, because life hasn’t destroyed me. Not yet.

I think we all, generally, fantasize about shortcutting life’s lessons. Apps, hacks, clever workarounds.

But growth/learning from survival doesn’t arrive on grey or brown delivery trucks, delivered by noon tomorrow; we’re the package, the one that got drop-kicked, left out in the storm, dropped on its side, the side marked, ‘fragile, this side up’ and that’s what dropped us without using the ramp.

Gain comes slowly. The hard way. Through bruises, losses, and fears, I’ve not outrun anything - these are ones I’ve simply endured. So far.

These past months-no, years-that have given me more than anyone might wish or bargain for; large losses and setbacks feel more like small victories now.

Bureaucratic entanglement, CRA and others have been a slow-moving spirit-defeating paralysis. Molasses moves faster. Mid-tantrum two-year-olds are easier to reason with.

Like pushing a stalled truck or a large rock uphill. Like shouting into a void, and hearing only my breath wheezing back in exhaustion.

Still standing. Still vertical. Still fed. Still warm.

And, somehow, clearer.

Not lighter, not yet.

Lighter in spirit, because the worst - emotional parts - are behind me.

What’s left of me is hollowed out a bit, but still me,

What will be left when all is over?

If that itself is no fantasy, then what is left will be invested in a future for my grandchildren and the children they will one day have. I’d like them to have a better start, more fuel in their rockets, and better preparation than their grandfather, yet with a good measure of what parts of my father and grandfather live within me.

Money matters, it’s important too, but it won’t matter so much if I don’t leave a playbook of ‘how to handle difficulties’, to leave for them.

This is no confessional endpoint.

It’s a kind of clarity.

When everything falls away, the cash flow, comforts, illusions of control — what remains are people. Some gave their time. Some gave labour. Some gave money. But mostly, what I’ll never forget is who answered. It’s who picked up the phone, those who confirmed, ‘Yes, I’m here.’ That’s magic.

I’ve seen the weight others carry. The silent kind, written on faces in buses, in stores, on the street. I see them differently now. More clearly. Some battle addictions, others illness, others just bad luck. They move forward anyway.

That shift in my perspective may be the deepest lesson of all.

I haven’t escaped anything. I’ve learned from it.

Scaled down. Cut back. Not as self-punishment, but out of respect for what life in the meat-grinder has done, lessons that left me bawling in futility to be understood, left me scrambling for solutions to ill-defined problems, frantic, desperate and spent, without the relief and release that spent implies.

To rush back into my old “normal” would mean I learned nothing.

When I question “What’s next?”, it’s no placeholder. It’s foundational.

Because my generation, this cohort of greying boomers, walking-wounded optimist club of which I count myself an honorary lifetime member, gang, we are running out of runway.

We need to be protesting, carrying signs, begging, “Save lives, build longer runways!”

But, for many, for most, this will blow by or be deflated like every other stinky fart in a windstorm, not heard, not seen, not taught, not used.

What a waste that will be.

And maybe that’s my point:

• It’s not what you know, it’s what you feel deeply enough to never forget.

• Knowing isn’t enough, if it doesn’t change you

• Lessons not applied are just pre-planted regrets-in-waiting, like seeds that might come up next spring, if we can hold on …

Basic Musings+ subscription is free; paid subscribers get bonus (+) content

- Archived SHORT STORIES + latest posting: Shadows on the Prairie

- Archived POETRY + latest postings … LEAD THE WAY and BAR SET HIGH, VERY HIGH

- Satisfaction tab: Here Comes Tomorrow

---

Other publications on my Substack:

Monday Morning Minute (32,400+) /// subscription is free; paid subscribers get bonus content

FACILITYCalgary (25,000) /// subscription is free, advertising/sponsorship

Returning this week:

REITrag

Thank you for reading Musings on Substack - the place where I publish this Musings column daily, and also post added content regularly, such as poems, short stories, and other editorial content - the ‘plus/+’ or bonus content available to ‘paid subscribers’