Contemplating the performance or completion of what is noted on my calendar; or anticipating the fulfillment of all that is buzzing about in my head, I stopped to ask myself, “Then what?” This is not to say that there is no value in planning or organization – most certainly we need objectives to ensure direction and achievement of purpose. Yet there remains the haunting consideration about whether the success of reaching the goals entirely refreshes one’s state of mind or whether it merely advances one’s interminable edification.

Even without the advantage of necessity (that Mother of Invention), one’s moral or intellectual improvement is seldom static when one is undertaking a scrutiny or meditation of life. Indeed the etymology of edification is not education; rather it is from the Latin aedificare meaning to “build”.

Middle English: from Old French edifier, from Latin aedificare ‘build’, from aedis ‘dwelling’ + facere ‘make’. The word originally meant ‘construct a building’, also ‘strengthen’, hence to ‘build up’ morally.

One’s moral construct – not unlike any building – is therefore not a box of pieces to complete the puzzle of life; instead the building we create merely enables us to collect the fruition of our on-going processes and progresses. In short the attributes of the building are never-ending. Naturally it follows that the procurement of any one additional block in the completion of the edifice that is the complex of one’s beliefs is an enterprise which is unceasing and innumerable.

An unanticipated sequel to this development is once again, “Then what?” The rhetoric is not to question the utility of what we do; instead it is a reminder that few of the goals on our daily agenda are conclusive or unsurpassable. Once we’re there, we have only to ask where next? But while this may capture the inevitability of growth, it does not succeed to isolate a euphoria or a constraining satisfaction with life. That is, whatever may transpire in the manipulation of our life – in the construct of our building – there will always remain the lingering appetite for further advancement.

It can be just as assured that there will likely be cause for further disappointment and struggle. This certainty is the product of our mistaken view of currency that its borders remain unaltered. Like the springtime shore of a burgeoning river, the boundaries of our life are forever changing.

Nor is this a purely casual deduction. With each tiny step we take on the edge of life’s river we both enhance and exhaust our capital – a derivative we frequently fail to accommodate. As a result some things are washed away while others are left behind – perhaps awaiting the day when we can dreamily recall the past. It is however a task made all the more splendid and formidable by virtue of the incalculable state of the river, the ever changing traversal while having the appearance of immobility and sameness.

But Nature is a complex aphrodisiac. Its beauty and allure is constantly shifting. The grand view upriver is forever recasting in parallel to the change of seasons, the axis of the earth and the gravitation of the moon. Likewise our own ingredient in the collage that is life adapts to those identical mechanics. We can no more reverse the construct and the experience than we can stop the flow of the river. From moment to moment we re-write the tackle of our being as we complete our passage.

So while I laud the achievement of a goal, I am philosophically conscious of the transitory nature of the success – a stinging realization which I employ, not to diminish life’s exactitude and embodiment, but rather to encourage me to be “glad for what we’ve had and what’s to come”.  There is little question regarding what is next; namely, we haven’t a clue! And even if we were to speculate reasonably, that sober character can be eliminated or dissolved in a fraction of time. In the result the dutiful application is not to wonder what is to come, but to enjoy what is now. While we may no ensure an outcome, we may nevertheless avoid unnecessary speculation. Once again, cherish the present.  Everything else is but a meaningless shackle.