Lou's Fragile Flies

There is a man making the news lately because he is trying to live forever.

There is a man making the news lately because he is trying to live forever. He has a very good publicist and a lot of money to throw at being seen — and a story that entices those that need attention to make money. They are writing about him and filming him, so it is working.

We live in another precipice of miracle and wonder, and it is understandable that humans consider immortality again.

I have not read the articles or seen any video of him. I can't recall his name but I am sure that you can look him up. 

He is working very hard to staunch innovation, the innovation that is death, and it is not something I really care to spend my energy reading about. 

Life springs from constant tension between the desire for the individual to extend its life and the need for a new idea (in the form of another individual) to have space to grow, we get better and then ultimately fail one day. Then some other organism eats what was going to be our lunch and thinks about how it can get better and thrive.

Death made each gorgeous, niche being: a lichen that prefers clinging to basalt, a white bear that swims the arctic sea, a human that throws a life into creating justice. Each needed the space afforded by the death of their predecessors. 

I am about the same age as this man. I fear death, as it seems he does. I am at an age where it is not uncommon for someone I know to die or come near to death. I have to feel the sorrow of missing them.

They are unique strands of encoded plans, realized in replicating carbon and water stews. They end, and they will never be again.

When I go fishing these days I talk to Lou. Lou was a cantankerous man, a craftsman who built boats, planes, cars, and grudges. He traveled, then put down roots, then tore them up again. 

I have the flies and other gear he left behind. There is one pattern in his kit I am particularly grateful for. It is odd and delicate and extremely productive. This grey and white pattern mixes some weight from wound copper and a floating section in a way that I have never seen before.

Most flies are durable enough for many casts and, when they are biting, many hooksets in fish mouths. 

But fish mouths pull strands and feathers from Lou’s fly. When it is working and I am catching a lot of fish, it soon becomes haggard and stops functioning. I clip it off and have to tie another on.

Lou contracted cancer. He lived with the pain and fear of it for a while. He was blessed to live in a state that allowed him to coordinate his own graceful death, which he did.

I have Lou’s flies now, and I talk to him on the river when I can't read the fish. There are only a few left of this pattern. I am setting some aside. 

I have avoided learning how to tie flies, but now I think I need to learn so that I can recreate his pattern. I bet I can find a way to make it a little more durable in the time I have left on this planet.

It is perfectly natural for an organism to try to stay alive, that is half of the tension. But seeking immortality is egotistical and destructive, consuming resources and attention trying to defeat the foundational innovation of death; the innovation that allows constant new innovations. The whole wise fabric suffers when one tries to shoulder out all the new ideas to come after. It allows one organism’s fear to demand resources that are needed elsewhere to make beauty we can’t yet imagine.