[pct-l] Ode to Methusela (was Benefits of Reduced Calorie Intake)

[Brett Tucker" <blisterfree@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (Brett Tucker)]

Ancient bristlecones like the Methuselah tree have lived interminably long,
lonely and wretched lives of deprivation, albeit while enjoying only the
grandest views and a fantastic panoply of evening stars. Essentially, they
cheat death by dying a little every day. By enduring life and death
simultaneously. Death neutralizes the artificial, illusory comforts of life
that most living creatures seek and find in abundance, but it holds no power
over the hardscrabble survivalist who accepts death, embraces it, casts it
off with indifference.

>From down here I see Methuselah standing atop that desert mountain, going
somewhere it seems. Searching for something. The tree of life, the look of
death in its limbs, anchored to the earth and going nowhere. Finding
nothing, this tree, but what is there - the things that are - no purpose for
it all but to be, to exist, and to marvel at its own existence.

A hiker climbs to the top of a mountain, pauses for a moment by a tree to
rest, before walking on.

- blisterfree