Michael Folz – 50th Reunion Essay

Michael Folz

Box 2273 | 4 Howard Ct

Tijeras, NM 87059

mfolz@q.com

505-286-5300

Spouse(s): Maureen (1983)

Education: Yale BS/MA 1973

Career: Very Small Businesses

Avocations: Travel: 2400 Counties, 200 Countries (159 By U.N. Count)

College: Pierson

Closing time. In 500 words.

Well, for one thing, it all ended up becoming pretty intense. A lot of everything went down.

But since—if you are a good Buddhist or Stoic—the half empty part is always going to be by definition infinite, I suppose that I should concentrate on the positive.

The Meaning of Life came surprisingly early: Still the mind, center the being, live a life of morality and moderation. The implementation of all this, however, wasn’t quite so easy. Because although I never had much of a problem with being satisfied with less, I also had a nature that always assumed that the only point in really doing something was to really overdo it. And the thing about that energy that we might call “spiritual” is that, once you gather together enough of it, unless you are calm and modest and humble, it tends to explode.

And I was never all that calm and modest and humble.

Then there are all the difficulties which develop from the cold hard realization of the plain damn fact that this world is not Eden. But that still you have to make your way through it. And, worse, that you need to do it honorably. Not that every other person that you see walking down the street doesn’t also have to deal with the same problem. And sometimes you feel like a bug crawling across the forest floor, laboriously pulling yourself over each twig and stick that randomly got in your way. And wondering all the while why you are doing this.

And then there are the times when you are gliding. When you’ve nailed it. When your mind is crystal clear and the world is beautiful.

And those high highs and low lows continue on and on for 50 years.

And at some point, around the age of 53 you come to understand that now you’re all like soldiers on the front line: From here on out it’s entirely random who lives and who dies.

In the meantime, and entirely beyond your control, no matter how either virtuous or ignoble you yourself were, the entire train that we’re on went way past the station. And now here we all are marinating in comic book movie land. So be it. That’s the way it goes. Because, as I said, one should accentuate the positive.

So, I can honestly report relative peace and serenity. I’ve got the blue, blue New Mexico sky. I’ve got my wood and glass house and my two acres of fairyland pinons and junipers. I’ve got a loving and loyal wife who sings like an angel. Every day there’s a chance for a personal concert as good or better (to me at least) as any in the outside world. And sometimes that mystical It is so close that I can almost let It embrace me.

And then of course there are other times when I am mindlessly searching through Netflix looking for anything even semi-interesting to watch.