About a year ago I was diagnosed with a serious heart condition which cannot be fixed by surgical intervention. This means I have to rely on medications to control the condition. In other words, I am stuck with it. When the cardiologist advised my of my illness I said no, this is not possible, this sort of thing always happens to the other fellow not to me, I am superman, I am invincible.

We all know that once we are born, one day we shall die: as one wag put it “nobody gets out of life alive.” But I have never given my mortality much thought and continued to live in the belief that I am invincible. But now, when I try to ‘leap tall buildings in a single bound’ or run ‘faster than a speeding locomotive,’ I usually end up being taken by ambulance to the hospital Emergency Department.

After several such trips to the hospital ED, it dawned on me that the cardiologist may be right and I do have a serious heart condition.

These trips to the hospital ED also made me realize that, while paramedics are angels of mercy, ambulance trips are are cramped, noisy and bumpy and patients do not accrue frequent flyer reward points. Also, when I arrive at the ED by ambulance, I jump the queue and other patients have to wait longer for treatment which made me feel like a nuisance.

I also realized that being ‘wired up’ in ED is not the place to be if I want a good night’s sleep or need to take a pee. On one visit, the hospital administrator turned up with the discharge papers to be signed  and asked if I had a ‘power of attorney’ in place or had signed a ‘do not resuscitate form.’ I felt like saying “come back when I am dead and I will sign the form.” But I just shook head in silence and stayed out of trouble.

The end result of my own folly is, when I am home alone, I have to wear an ambulance ‘alert’ button around my neck to summon the paramedics in an emergency. I also have to wear a medical ID dog tag in case I am unconscious when the paramedics arrive. Isn’t the aging process bloody wonderful.

Then cam the Covid-19 lock down. Being a ‘high risk’ category patient I was well and truly grounded and had to learn how to behave myself.

My imposed isolation gave me the opportunity to catch up on all the neglected little maintenance jobs in and around the house. I also looked for something else to occupy my time during isolation and decided to research my family history and put together a family tree.

Researching my dead ancestors made me more acutely aware of my own (self denied) mortality which, in turn, triggered the urge to explore the immortality of my soul and eternal life promised by Jesus Christ.

I soon found myself in trouble because the more versions of the Biblical story Jesus I read and watched on television, the more ‘improbable the story became.

So I now find myself asking if the Bible really is the ‘Gospel Truth.’

I do not consider myself to be a religious man in terms of church dogma, nor am I an outright atheist but see myself sand an ‘open thinker.’ This thinking makes me wonder if there is a greater power at work somewhere in the universe that we humans have not yet discovered.

Also, if UFO sightings are genuine and there is no reason to believe they are not, there has to be other ‘blue’ planets out there that are, at present, beyond our reach. If the universe is made up of the same elements that gave us life, then those planets will be populated with people similar to us and ‘alien monsters’ belong in the realms of ‘science fiction.’

Because of UFO visits to Earth, people from those planets must be far more technologically advanced than we are. This make me wonder if the populations of those planets have similar primitive social structures and beliefs as ours or, are they more sophisticated and without prejudice, poverty or crime and punishment.

I often imagine that such a society will one day ‘inherit the Earth’ and will all live together in peace and harmony.

I am not disparaging the beliefs of other people and, in some ways, I envy their convictions. But, somewhere out there is the answer to the enigma of our creation and one day we shall discover it. But alas, not during the time I have left. After all, I am man – I am (not) invincible.

aquarianmist