Monday, August 11, 2008

Proof of Life


Spent the weekend working on projects for another book proposal. Tons of fun. Really. And I discovered something strange: a lot of people collect bottle caps. 

I needed a bunch and asked my family to hang onto any they used. Turns out that every one of the younger members of my family knows someone who hoards bottle caps by the buckets full. Not for any purpose, exactly. Just to have them. 

My friend Bryan says people are constantly trying to prove to themselves that they truly exist. Maybe a bucket filled with beer caps proves that somehow: I came. I twisted. I drank. Or, maybe:  I twist. Therefore, I am. 

3 comments:

Michelle O'Neil said...

Strange what people hold onto!

But glad your project is going well!

Anonymous said...

I recently heard a recording of Thich Nhat Hanh observing that a cloud cannot become nothing—that it becomes either rain or snow, but that each time you take a sip of water, the cloud is present.

So with all things.

It's impossible for us to NOT exist, in other words, so how great it would be if we'd simply relax about it. No birth and no death, only transformation.

And there's no need to cling. To bottle caps or anything else.

Carrie Wilson Link said...

Maybe just, "I twisted 'cause I'm twisted?"