Polarities 3: Death & Taxes

 

I know these are usually yoked together as the only two things in life of which we can be certain, but I think they also offer an interesting polarity. I like doing my tax (sorry to those of you on a deadline, but if that’s you, then this is some excellent procrastination). In the focused specifics of a tax return I enjoy, temporarily, the absence of critical thinking, artistic endeavour, metaphorical understanding, and general striving towards Eudaimonia. I like seeing all the little numbers lining up and coming to the expected total. I savour the feeling of being both participant, in the placing of these numbers, and witness to their universal quality. I need only avoid error, and they will reveal themselves in their perfect simplicity. So neat. So pleasing.

Of course, I wouldn’t want to do my tax every day. Neatness is the winsome rural scene that makes one smile when passing through but tarry too long and the initial charm leads quickly to existential crisis.

And so indeed to the phenomenon of death, that vertiginous negation, beyond comprehension yet pervasively present. For what would we be if not time-bound? This very questioning is the work of the right hemisphere – to imagine beyond the confines of our present moment, to feel outside our own skin, to plunge into the murky pools of metaphor and poetry in order to salve our recalcitrant spirits that seek meaning above neatness, divinity above precision. This is the landscape of the soul, where inspiration and greatness occur, where life, love, dreams and art spew their messy, unfathomable reality, where the magnificence of existence is felt.  

And although I argue strongly that our culture becomes more unbalanced by the decade due to our discomfort with this realm of the sensuous, and that our obsession with certainty leads inevitably to further in-sanitization (thanks, just coined that), it is also sometimes quite nice to have a cup of tea and put some digits in a box.

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