I was hiking a week before my birthday and as I stumped along I regretted that I was a year older. That hasn’t happened before; I have laughed at people who are bothered by their birthdays. What difference does it make? Closer to being dead; so much the better.<\/p>\n
It wasn’t the death ahead that bothered me, though; it was the death behind. My impression of the year past is stillness; an unbreathing waiting for visitation. Pursuit of something worthless is one regret; failure to achieve something worthwhile is another regret; and the absence of striving is a third.<\/p>\n
Our concerns swell up and pass away; the seasons are exchanged. The earth is turned over what remains of the harvest. Aspire, perspire, expire; from first to last, respire.<\/p>\n
That is why I was out hiking; to draw in lungfuls of where I was and then let them go. For deeper breathing, I let myself stay out too late, too far. How then shall you live? I asked, and for a moment it was a good question. But it did not last, just as plunging downhill in the forest on bike had not and plowing through the lake at the end of a rope had not. I took a breath, yes, but I did not remember how to breathe.<\/p>\n
So that is my goal for this year of my life: to take breathing lessons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was hiking a week before my birthday and as I stumped along I regretted that I was a year older. That hasn’t happened before; I have laughed at people who are bothered by their birthdays. What difference does it make? Closer to being dead; so much the better. It wasn’t the death ahead that bothered me, though; it was Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cleverdialectic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cleverdialectic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cleverdialectic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cleverdialectic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cleverdialectic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=302"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cleverdialectic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":305,"href":"https:\/\/cleverdialectic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302\/revisions\/305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cleverdialectic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cleverdialectic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cleverdialectic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}