Borgward

They’re falling off, one by one.

Old friends that have been scuttled in the steeple chase of life.

Some were genuine thoroughbreds, but they hit a hurdle and now they’re gone. Others never got out of the gates. Most of them were in the pack, just keeping up.

Where are they now?

Settled and going through the motions. Or depressed and going through the motions. Some are confused and wandering aimlessly. Others are deluded in their rampage. A couple are stuck in their groundhog experiences. One is even fully aware but is resigned to obligations.

One thing I do know. I can’t talk to them about it. Not really. There’s no helping other runners because the second law of human dynamics tells us that such attempts are always counter-productive.

The third law says that you can’t even explain it, even if you wanted to. The minute you’re past the post, the memory of what you did to get there is effectively wiped, at least with respect to explaining it to others.

The first law says that, even with all the earned skills and courage in the world, you need luck as well. And quite a bit of it. And you need to know this to have any chance.

What happens when you’re past the post?

Well, you never blame others for anything. You can’t panic  You have whole mornings of serenity. You don’t fear loss. You see through the confusion of others. You don’t fear death. You accept the pain of others, but don’t necessarily feel the need to commune in it. You know how to love properly, yourself and others.

But most importantly, you forgive yourself for your own failings. You’re only human after all.

And you get quite content when you unexpectedly see a Borgward, a German car thought extinct in 1961, but inexplicably brought back to life by the Foton truck company in China with zero fanfare.