NOTHING MATTERS

I remember being in prep school, the New Hampton School for Boys in New Hampton, New Hampshire, walking through the falling snow after dinner to the library. And when I was supposed to be studying algebra, I was reading Albert Camus and Jean Paul Sartre knowing—without a doubt—that I was the only person in that school in that small town who had found the answer to the big question, "What is?" The answer, of course, was "nothing is."

I’ve lived a whole life since then—maybe a couple of lives. I’ve been married, had children, gone to war, come back from war, gone on some spiritual quests, held several jobs, had some heart operations, written some books… and, strange as it might seem, I’m thinking of late, that Camus might’ve been right. I see his point, anyway—it’s very Buddhist.

In the end, does it really matter what I’ve accomplished? I mean, I think of my book Beneath Buddha’s Eyes, of its flaws and how I could’ve made it better. I think of my parenting…not great. My work career—the best thing about that is that I quit it at a high point. I don’t know, what if I hadn’t done any of this stuff? What if I’d remained in Switzerland working for Maharishi and done nothing more than meditated each and every day for the past twenty years? Or not even done that. Just remained a fisherman on an anchovy boat in Santa Barbara.

Now that we’re packing up the family and heading for the boondocks, all the stuff I’ve supposedly accomplished seems irrelevant. Hopefully, we’ll leave here with a few dollars in our pockets, but I’m thinking what I should really do is clean out the clutter of accomplishments from my attic as well as all the boxes of books I’ve read…except of course, "The Stranger."

One weird accomplishment I don’t need to be proud of any longer: I remember back at New Hampton, reading Camus’ book "L’Etranger" in the original French. Wow—wasn’t I cool! I can leave that behind as well.