I’m Cheating at Plinko

Occasionally in casual conversation, a point is made:
we move through life with little control,
falling toward death.

I don’t buy it.
What’s the understanding?

Let’s work with the image of a plinko game.
The marble is dropped, each ping and direction change with bounces.
Point is, this is us,
traveling toward that final slot.

Sure, we can play mini-plinko before the final drop,
and point to it while still alive and say,
“Look, see, this is the proof.”

Until time itself is broken in this realm,
how else could we differ?
(Science is hard at work on that,
so maybe it’s just a matter of time.)

If one says,
“Well, all that really exists
is what we sit with
at the sharp point of now,”
okay, I get that.

The body leans with the falling marble,
a small sway at each ping,
as if that sway
could somehow alter
the next bounce.

Living like that, in each moment,
could make a few minutes appear like hours
or even days,
with the right presence in the very moment.

Nothing really stopped, though.

This dispute isn’t over.
Something is still missing on this topic.
I’m going to have to reflect on it for a while…

Actually, after a bathroom break,
this worn body under the bathroom light,
I came to the realization
that something in this
breaks the deal.

Yes, the flesh is finite.
What some have called immortal mind,
I leave nameless here.

Great ones before us
bore witness to it,
and we walk on faith
that they weren’t lying.

The body gained lots of flesh-and-blood experience,
first hand, so to speak,
through something called aging.

That’s the only way
an “inside”
can mean anything.

This image is an illusion,
not the thing itself.

The marble drops,
the body sways,
a faucet drip
counts the seconds
in an empty sink.