Falling through space with no end in sight

I have had these internal experiences many times in my life. I have them a lot less now because I have a computer and can always sort of define my reality by blogging or talking to my wife or one of my kids or my friends. But, growing up and going through whooping cough at 2 then childhood epilepsy at 10 to 15 and (even though this kept me out of the draft) and I didn't have to go fight in Viet Nam, and this "falling through space with no end in sight" kind of feeling about one's life has been pretty normal for people for thousands and thousands of years. It is basically called "growing up" and later on it is called "transitions" where someone dies, someone leaves, someone gets divorced, someone goes away to college or a private school or whatever it is can be pretty traumatic to deal with for everyone involved.

There are only a few things I have found worthwhile doing in life. One of the first big ones was becoming a father and making being a father my primary discipline that all other disciplines were tied to.

Studying "Autobiography of a Yogi" when I was in my early 20s I realized I wanted to be like Lahiri Mahasaya who worked for a Railroad company in India, raised his kids but also was a master and Householder Yogi. So, I liked the idea that one's yoga could be being a father and raising kids. And even one's job or career or businesses were dedicated to this Yoga. This worked for me at age 26 when my son was born and I got married a little before this happened. So, my kids gave me a reason to try to stay alive rather than just taking so many physical risks that likely eventually I might wind up gratefully dead before my time.

Death wasn't a big deal to me especially after surviving whooping cough and childhood epilepsy. So, often people might become terrified of me because I was never afraid of dying. It wasn't that I necessarily wanted to die I just wasn't afraid of death as such. So, if someone threatened me I had already faced death many times and wasn't afraid of such threats so mostly at this point people would just back down.

My father and grandfather were both physically fearless men too sort of like John Wayne in the movies both of them. I think my great grandfather who was a captain in the Civil War in the northern Army from  Kansas was like this too, very intelligent but totally not afraid of death. This was a  pioneer quality that my grandfather, my father and likely my great grandfather all shared. I tend to be like this too.

However, the problem with this is you would just as soon be dead as alive growing up. So, you tend to take scarier and scarier physical risks as you grow up.

I was never a bully to others. This wasn't my style. Especially after almost dying twice from whooping cough and childhood epilepsy I tended to be a very compassionate person all my life because of all the suffering I personally went through. So, whenever there was an injustice or someone was about to be harmed, if I thought I could make things better I would. But, you have to be very practical about this if you want to stay alive too.

One of my best friends now was one of the people I protected when he was young. He was a young and fearless person with a giant intellect sort of like a Bill Gates and a talented musician. I was 3 years older than he was so when people picked on him I knew he wouldn't back down. I knew he would get at least a master's degree in college which he did. So, I felt he was worth protecting until he got to be about 20 and figured it out for himself more.

However, my protecting him from harm and us climbing mountains together made us lifelong friends. He eventually got his master's degree from UCLA and became a famous musician with his own recording label as well. In the old days his band (even when he was 18 opened for Chicago at the L.A. Forum way back when Chicago was really big).

So, sometimes protecting people from harm creates lifelong friendships. Recently, we climbed up on mountaineering skis to Horse Camp on Mt. Shasta.

This was sort of a disaster for me because I wasn't sure I was going to make it down in one piece because I hadn't taken time to adjust to the altitude because I just drove up the night before and had been on anti-biotics the previous week too. So, I realized I wasn't thinking very clearly because of all this so likely doing this has to be looked at as a bad decision.

So, this likely is the scariest situation I have put myself in since about 1969 or 1970. And it has made me think a lot about what is going on in my life.

The problem is that I have always been raising one or more children under 18 years old ongoing since I was 26. There has never been a day when I didn't have this responsibility to give my life definition. So, I think I'm sort of "Falling through space with no end in sight" on a lot of levels and so is my wife. We didn't marry until she was 40 and I 47 so her only biological child is leaving for college AND she has to have a knee replacement surgery this summer also. So, she is pretty out of body about the whole thing. I'm trying not to be disoriented so I can be a rock for her but I'm also having my own problems.

It least it isn't as bad as losing both our last parents (her father and my mother) the same year. That was really difficult about 5 or 6 years ago now. So, though it might take us awhile I'm sure we will find a way to adapt to all the changes.