Care and Maintenance of The Human Machine

 A short analysis of The Human Machine’s Main Component parts 

This article was first published on the Katoptron Website, but since it is no longer available there, I have decided to post it here for easy reference in case some of you are interested.

Remember when cars were relatively simple and you could buy manuals for every model that hit the market? My first car was a red Ford Escort 1.6L, and I had just such a manual for it. These manuals were so good that you could literally maintain your own vehicle and never needed to wonder if the mechanic actually did the work specified on the invoice. My manual was well worn, had oil stains as testimony to the work I had done on the vehicle while referring to the manual and even had a blood stain on page 21, reminding me that I had nicked a finger with a pair of pliers. As such, my car was in excellent condition and I knew exactly how every component part worked and could fix anything that went wrong. A lot of people bought these manuals though, read parts of it, did the simple things (like changing light bulbs), but never really got to grips with the machinery or repaired or serviced their own vehicles.

Dealing With Loss

"Life can be seen as a graph that begins and ends at zero. Between these two points there are many ups and downs."

I promised to write about spirituality, and that is what I am doing. You may however find my point of entry – loss – a bit strange. Loss comes in many forms, and as I’ll explain, to live a maximum life, it is essential to deal with loss well. I was recently asked by a friend how to get over the loss of a loved one. My answer was that she probably didn’t really want to. You see, the reason for her sadness at the loss was that she loved the person, shared many good memories with that person and in order to get over the loss, she would have to give up the good memories she had and make them meaningless. So, it isn’t so much that we want to get over the loss as it is that we want to cope with the feelings and operate “normally”. We don’t want to be perpetual basket-cases subjected to the ridicule and whispers of others who might say that we had “lost it”. We want to be included in normal life while being allowed to remember and experience the loss.