Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock
Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2004. The old chestnut of a philosophical construct: If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, what would you do today?
Ideally, you’d spend lots of time in the park, barefoot (the sun would be warm and shining of course), using your cell phone to call everybody to tell them you love them.
Practically, if the doctor called this minute, you might just finish the box of ice cream rather than just have a bowl.
The construct of the movie "Big Fish," and to some extent the Daniel Wallace novel on which it is based, is: If you know you’re going to die on such-and-such date, years in the future, what would you do now?
The show’s Edward Bloom does what we’re all supposed to: live life to the fullest. He’s slowed by two ordeals, though: The knowledge that you may not die for 30 years but you can hurt like heck or be sick as a dog today, if you tangle with a werewolf or hike through a spider-filled forest. The other is the moral compass: You don’t commit adultery at all and you don’t steal — much (movie plot).
It worked for him.
That’s on the profound level. On the mundane surface: If you know you’re going to get fired from your job tomorrow, how will you act today?
Do a really good job and try to dissuade the decision from management? But it’s fate. Take off for the park, cell phone and ice cream? Take off for the library to sit with a copy of today’s help-wanted ads?
In America at least, we who have jobs (not self-employed etc.), are hired "at will" and can be fired "for cause." Implicit is that we keep the job indefinitely if we do well or even moderately well. You do let down your guard.
As a temporary worker, though, I am much closer to the "for cause" reality. You tiptoe. You act seriously. On most days, finally though, you relax. This is life, not boot camp. Temps have end dates but if the project ends, there you go. Sometimes it goes longer, too.
So when the doctor says you got a day, week or year, it’s always give or take. -30-
