Inert Ingredients

In the sunset and dusk of my older brother's life, he slipped into the role of philosopher. I couldn't have a normal conversation with him without a swift lapse into some deep wisdom like he was unpeeling ancient Chinese secrets from a Tibetan mountain top. It was annoying, but every so often he'd unearth a useful nugget. We were never brotherly close as some are, and there were years with little communication, but when he saw that his life was ending, he made a few major life changes, one of which was to reach out to me, perhaps, in part, to lay down some life principles that, in my three years less life, I may have not fully grasped. 

I am beginning to understand his urgency as I watch my impending sunset. Rather than imagining myself as a serene Buddha-like character, I'm thinking more like a benevolent adopted grandfather, thoughtfully rocking gently in a slightly creaky rocking chair. I am surrounded by young people thirsty for wisdom as much as I yearn to dole it out. I am patiently nursing a pipe which I magnanimously allowed to be lit by one of the youngsters. I don't smoke a pipe, by the way, other than a brief flirtation in my early 20s. Pipe smoking gives the illusion of wisdom because one has to pause thoughtfully from time to time as though one is entering a trance-like state from which deep thoughts flow while, in reality, as you know if you've ever navigated a pipe, one has to draw and poke and puff to keep the darned thing lit. 

My own grandfather - my maternal grandmother's second husband and father to my mother's stepbrother and uncle (that's one person - Arkansas, you know) smoked a pipe, but, to my remembrance, did so without the accompanying wisdom pronouncements. He also never let me light the thing for him, although I did get to blow out the huge wooden match he used to light it. Those matches could be struck against anything with friction to ignite the bulbous red head of sulfur and phosphorus. Really cool cats, like my philosopher brother, could light them up with a stroke against their boot, or zipper (which added an element of danger), or even along their rough denim jeans. Grampa used the side of the ash bucket which was at his feet and beneath the door to the pot belly stove that seemed always stoked and insufferably hot regardless of the season. The ash bucket also served as a convenient spittoon for Gramma, who was addicted to snuff. I say addicted because when she was deprived of it in the nursing home later, she raided ashtrays to gather enough tobacco to make her own. Anyway, it was a whole scene and utterly irrelevant to the story. 

Anyway, let me take you back to the day when there were no cell phones to peruse while doing one's business seated in the bathroom. In those days, boys and girls, after we had already read all of the old magazines in the rack - a most unsanitary occupation now that I think about it - we turned to the shampoo bottles, deodorant, and various medications and preparations one might find nearby to read the ingredients. One ingredient in medicines was frequently noted: inert. Many years later - last Thursday, I think - I recalled that while taking a post-biscuit and gravy aspirin, that it also contained inert ingredients. Unlike the olden days of encyclopedia books, I was able to get my Google out and inquire about inert ingredients and discovered, if AI is to be believed, that pills and capsules have an average of 75% inert ingredients. 

Now, you may have leapt ahead of me to create your own wisdom nugget and, if that's the case, you may stop reading this and go back to scrolling Ragebook - I mean Facebook - but here's my take. I recently read through Ecclesiastes. If you don't remember or, tragically never knew, this is a book in the Bible written by King Solomon, one proclaimed to be the smartest and richest man in the world (Pre-Elon) who made a lot of observations about life and decided it was all vanity, vanity. Like Solomon, without the rich part, I too am at a point in life where I ponder what's really worth it in life. With great purpose and intentionality, I achieved things in life. I have framed things hanging in my home office, and stacks  of certificates in the closet, and even award ribbons on my old uniform shirt (Ebay is amazing!) I've been on TV and radio and read by tens of thousands. I've had titles and audiences. Not enough to be remotely famous, but not nothing. Except they are nothing in the eternal scope of things. Dust in the wind, faded tapestry, whisps of smoke, withered grass. Vanity, vanity. 

But in between the "big" moments, there was filler - what we might consider inert ingredients. Forgettable things, minor things, momentary things, all seemingly irrelevant, and yet they make up the filler of life - inert ingredients as it were. They provide the color, the palatability, the flavor; they carry the potent stuff and hold it together, making it digestible. The inert carries the weight of the life-giving medicine. 

So, here's hoping you have a glorious inert-filled day. It's all good.