Several years ago I wrote an article for Pickleball Magazine entitled: “Pickleball: Magic Bullet for the Slippery Slope”. It was about older athletes playing a great sport to stave off the inevitable. Whatever the ailment, from replaced knees to the horrors of cancer, we keep playing. We will not go gently down that slope.
When I decided to begin writing for public consumption on Substack, I loved the concept of the slippery slope for my newsletter title—-the image of me peering over edge, trying to make sense of this time in my life by calling on the lessons of 76 years.
Researching the definition and origin of the term “slippery slope”, I was excited to learn that Cicero coined the term in one of his essays (44 BC). My favorite high school Latin teacher would have loved my reference to his buddy Cicero. But slippery slope does not mean exactly what I thought it did. According to Britannica dictionary, it is a process or series of events that is hard to stop or control once it has begun and that leads to worse or more difficult things. Therefore birth begins the slippery slope. The fallacy with the notion of the dictionary definition is that a series of events can also lead to wonderful things. It seems to be true, however, that birth is a slippery slope which ceases with the annihilation of individual consciousness.
At 19 years old I was struck between the eyes with the reality of death and that it pertained to me. I went to bed for three days. For the next 57 years I thought and thought, trying to make sense of this crazy human experience.
I hope you enjoy my reflections and share yours with me about life and death and the time between.