Triangles and Life

Thoughts on the meaning we make for ourselves.

I turned 33 a week ago.

My dad had three heart attacks, in quick succession, about an hour after I officially clocked in for my 34th trip around the sun. I spent most of the day helping him settle into his second admission into a hospital in less than a month, and reflecting on the brevity of our time.

The evening prior, I celebrated my 33rd birthday with a theme of triangles - It was a night heavily laden with threes.

Our proclivity to imbue symbols with deep meaning is fundamentally human. Yet, I find myself surprised, still, to have what started as a bit of a joke turn into one for myself.

Jung became fascinated with synchronicity - a term he used to define the coincidences in life that convey great meaning to the observer. I can’t argue that I haven’t left the experience with a souvenir. A simple triangle now immediately invokes something in my spirit — the desire and will to make my own meaning in life; and to cherish what I have.

If we have three acts in life, I’ve now left my first - the era of becoming; origins; genesis. I’ve become the adult who cares for an aging parent, the father to a boy who aspires to defeat super-villains, and a man who still looks at the darkness in the world with the delusional optimism that it can be conquered.

But as I realized with my father’s fortune in living to make jokes about the hospital food - we do not know when our end will come, or whether our third act will ever arrive. We must endeavor to make the life and the world we want with the time we have; the day at hand.

I have not yet accomplished all I want to in my life, nor become the person I aspire to be — Yet. But I am working, day by day, towards it.