Impartial Observations of Life

One of my dad’s favorite Buddhist sayings when we were growing up (for which we gave him no end of shit) was “Be…an impartial observer…of life.” While I would never have admitted it at the time, those words and the idea of them gave me a fair amount of comfort over the years. As I have become a parent, they have been an essential tool in keeping what little sanity I have left. Back up and look at the situation from outside of whatever “self” you think you are.

So, on the eve of sending our beloved boy into the big, wide world without us, I’m going to give it a try. I’m backing up. Way up. Or maybe I’m looking closer. Hard to tell. Either way, I am attempting to be an impartial observer. Of life.

How do you detach yourself from something you feel is your entire self? Well, for starters, I will look at the part of Ross that is an elemental organism, comprised of skin and bones, of organs and blood and tissue. Of matter. Of particles and cells and molecules and atoms. Mysteriously held together by the cosmic instructions that decide such matters.

I can also impartially observe the physics (what I understand of them, anyways) of Bernoulli’s Principle, the laws that were mastered and revolutionized our capacity to transport these particles at wildly-unheard of speeds to other parts of the globe. Here, my mind might wander to consider the cause and effect that these discoveries may create in the long run- our clunky, clumsy human interferences with natural systems that move too slow slow slow for our impatient minds- ever wanting to see the fruition of every effort, to make it easier, faster, more efficient, more convenient. Like the candy bar that was sent through Wonkavision, wondering what particles we are decimating in the process, and if those were really necessary in the first place. (The chocolate still tastes the same!!)

I can impartially observe the intense magnetic attachment my heart and soul feel for these collections of DNA that traveled through my own, a part of me in the same sense that I am a part of everything else. I can muse at nature’s mandate that I consider these cells my divine responsibility to safely deliver back to the world from which they already belonged, of which they were born to begin with.

The closer and closer I look at the pointillist portrait of a million tiny bursts of color-the rainbow of boy that is created from their energy- I find it hard to distinguish where he ends and the life around him begins. The same scene mirrored from a vantage point in outer space, observing our seemingly monumental existence as the microscopic specks we really are.

When I am an impartial observer, I can comprehend that it is just my perception that makes me feel like I am sending my very life farther away than I can reach, farther away than my illusion of control can keep safe. Techinically, I am merely giving a magnetized collection of matter a ride to the airport.

And I find comfort in the notion that, while it may feel like my own cells are going to fall apart at any moment, the laws of nature (barring any unforeseen opposing forces) can be counted on to hold them together.