Probing the Depths

I’ve been feeling kinda lost. Bereft of words. I was burglarized recently in a way I’d not experienced before (and believe me, I’ve been ripped-off often).

I discovered I’d been wildly plagiarized.

I hadn’t contemplated the possibility all that much over the past five years. Scarcely gave it a thought except to muse I wouldn’t be amused.

The reality was more troubling than I could have imagined.

What is plagiarism, exactly? OK. It’s the pilfering of prose. Do I place a high value on my prose? Not really. I try to select the right words and string them together. It’s a bead-worker's craft. I freely admit I took pleasure in reading some of the comments proffered in praise of the craft (albeit praise heaped on the thief).

What hurt so grievously was to see the essence of my life, the very fabric of my being, ripped apart and pawned by others for their own amusement or self-aggrandizement. Do we not all agree that our personal experiences, and how we integrate them over a lifetime, constitute our very essence? Strip away all possessions, turn bone to dust. All that remains are the experiences and how they shaped us...a life lived...memories cherished.

The thing about personal experience is that it don’t come easy and it don’t come cheap. Experiences that so often define us may have been perilous, painful, drawn-out affairs...cruel childhoods, failing marriages, illness and suffering. There are other experiences, too. Lifetimes of spiritual explorations. Whether baleful or benign, these experiences are uniquely ours and ours alone. How we come to them and come to regard them, how they shape our lives and change us...ultimately define us.

* * *

I suppose one must be of a certain age, and of a curious bent, to remember the Trieste. Fifty years ago, two men descended to the deepest depths of the ocean (seven miles deep, in fact), into an abyss named the “Challenger Deep” in the bowels of the Mariana Trench. Their vessel was named the Trieste.

(Digression: isn’t it odd that it’s been a half century since human beings ventured into the perpetual midnight depths and frolicked on the Moon? Have we lost our zest for audacious explorations?)

Trieste’s descent into the chasm took hours. The pressures were immense beyond measure. The slightest flaw or misstep could result in instant death. As the hours ticked by and Trieste dove deeper, a Plexiglass pane in an observation port cracked. Death knocked but didn’t enter. Jacques Piccard and Lt. Don Walsh stared at a world never seen before, or ever since, by human eyes.

* * *

I discovered how much it hurt to have my personal experience, my essence, treated shabbily. Childhood memories, dreams, yearnings, loved ones, matters held most dear, pains suffered and tears shed...all were sullied by an absolute stranger for purely selfish purpose.

Thieves will always lurk among us. Well, if you’re gonna steal, steal my car. It’s considered a luxury vehicle, low miles. It’s worth a pretty penny. Steal my car and I’d be inconvenienced and aggravated. I’d have to deal with the police, rental car agents, insurance representatives, car dealers and others. Yeah, I’d be aggravated. With any luck at all, the thief would serve time in prison.

But steal my personal experience, all that defines me!?!

No! Don’t you dare do that!

I can't think of a suitable punishment (although Dante has).

* * *