The Un-Mock-Up-Able

Wednesday, August 1, 2012 at 11am
By John Friedman

Sometimes you can mock things up ahead of time — you can figure out, going into something, what it’s going to be like to be *in* that something.

And sometimes you cannot.

In JFF parlance, the former is mock-up-able and the latter is un-mock-up-able. 

When something is mock-up-able, it makes a lot of sense to do the mocking up ahead of time. Indeed, one definition of wisdom is being able to predict what something will feel like/look like/etc. in the future, and, using that prediction, being able to dial in actions that will result in the unfolding of that something into a positive something. And then from that wisdom/accurate predicting/smart acting, you can find yourself, over and over again, being quite pleased with the way things are transpiring — and free from regret.

When something is un-mock-up-able, the choices are harder. Sometimes you can’t help but think about what is coming down the pike — un-mock-up-able though it may be. Your mind plays with all the possible outcomes and eventualities: what’s it going to be like when so-and-so happens?  All thoughts funnel down into cogitating about it, even though those thoughts mostly generate stress and, by my definition here, don’t help you generate ideas about what you can do to increase the likelihood of a good outcome.

Other times you can ignore the upcoming so-and-so, and, then, when the time comes, you just have to put your nose to the grindstone and your shoulder into the weight and do your best in the so-and-so moment.

*  *  *

Illness, fading health, and plain ol’  body-much-diminished-from-what-it-once-was  is, for most people, un-mock-up-able.

When it’s our own body involved, my hunch is that it’s pretty much un-mock-up-able for the vast majority of people. What would it be like if the doctor said that to me?  Uhmmm, I dunno.

And when it’s a loved one’s body, why, then, we hope that all of our years of smartening up and accreting of wisdom will serve our loved one well, and our loved one’s loved ones well, because, even then, we’re all mostly in the moment.

A big heartfelt love for my father today, who is going through different parts of life’s latter journey at an increasingly rapid rate.  Thanks, Dad, for everything.  And when I say everything, I mean every  thing.

 

376 words

Life’s ladder  journey?

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