Greetings!

 

You may be familiar with the saying that what is the end of the world for the caterpillar is just the beginning for the butterfly.  Google seems to be divided as to whether this originated with 20th century author Richard Bach (Illusions, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, etc.), or ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching, etc.).  My copy of Bach’s Illusions is buried away somewhere, but I have a feeling that maybe he included it in the book as a quote from – or at least a tribute to –  Lao Tzu.  For once, nobody seems to attribute it to either Mark Twain or Sir Winston Churchill!

I don’t know what Lao Tzu might have thought, but current thinking suggests that neither the caterpillar nor the butterfly have any concept of endings or beginnings, or realize how the caterpillar lives on in the butterfly.  (However, I read a couple of years ago about some interesting research that seemed to show that an individual caterpillar could be “taught” to follow certain non-instinctive  feeding behaviors, the ghosts of which could be detected, after metamorphosis, in the butterfly.       For more information, see https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080304200858.htm)

 Obviously, we humans do not go through that kind of physical metamorphosis, but which of us has not had experiences in our lives that feel, at the time, like the end of the world, but which we do survive?

I can count three such episodes in my life:  the end of my first marriage; being made redundant at the end of my first career; and the “retirement” that marked the end of my second (and final) career.  However, the first episode resolved itself into my current wonderful marriage now approaching its silver anniversary, the second gave rise to a much more fulfilling career in which I felt like I made a (positive) difference in some people’s lives, and the third gave me the time to discover what I was probably meant to do in the first place!

But, after being given the results of a bone scan and PSA test last Wednesday, this caterpillar now knows that his world will end in six to twelve months’ time, assuming he doesn’t get hit by a truck tomorrow.  Those results merely confirmed what he had suspected since the bone pain from his advanced metastatic prostate cancer started to come back about a month ago, after having been in remission for several months.

Switching from the third person caterpillar to the first person human, I actually feel better now than I did a month ago!  I am not sure if the news has fully sunk in, but in some ways I feel a sense of relief that I now have a more realistic time frame to plan around.  Whilst I do not have a bucket list per se, and have not booked a round the world trip by private jet, I intend to make the most of whatever time I have left.  I have given myself permission to say “No!” to things I don’t want to do, and “Yes!” to what seems important to me.

I am not sure about the future of my photo-essays on this blog.  I have had great satisfaction from doing it, and I am not “pulling-the-plug” on it, at least not yet, but I am not guaranteeing it will still be a regular Monday morning feature.  Watch this space for the next exciting episode!