Life is Like a Pyramid

Pyramid at Giza (photo: Nina Aldin Thune)

Life is like a pyramid. The early years constitute the bottom in which there's a level playing field. You exist with numbers of other infants. Every year the terrain narrows until as with mountain climbing, if you are lucky, you arrive at a high point where the air is thin and there are few who have made it. The perils of ascending most peaks become greater at those heights. The final ascents are often are characterized by steep and dangerous grades, similar to the pitfalls some individuals face due to sickness, accidents or other acts of God, which can interrupt a climb before it has even begun. Of course, it can be disconcerting to see your fellow hikers falling along the wayside and sometimes there's an aftershock like the concept of après coup in psychoanalysis when the reality of what’s actually happening only makes itself apparent long after it’s occurred. It’s not only death too that takes it’s toll, but from the heights you can’t fail to miss the specter of wreckage left by those who have experienced pain and loss. You witness the misery which befalls some and not others, who have been struck down by their circumstances. They might have barely survived the calamity that characterizes their lives, but they're the wounded who you tend to, yet are forced to leave behind as you continue along your way.