Never-Ever Land

Once upon a time while I was living in San Diego, they built a Mormon temple. It was open to the public for a limited time. Tickets were free, but you had to sign up, dress appropriately and wait in line for about two hours. I had no problem with any of that, and it was near where I lived, but I never went.

There was a surfer dude in my kung fu class. I don’t remember his name. He lived across town from the temple but he went on the tour. He even borrowed a button-down shirt so he could dress properly. No, he wasn’t Mormon. He wasn’t even a Christian. He went because after the building was consecrated he’d never be allowed in again and he couldn’t stand that.

He couldn’t explain why it was so important to him, any more than I could explain why it didn’t matter to me. ‘Twas a mystery, but I think I solved it after all these years. I think he was afraid of “never”. A lot of people are afraid of “never.” Tell someone that they’ll never do something and suddenly they want to. Not me, I’m fine with it.

But for most people, normal people, “never” is a scary word indeed. Our hiney brains still believe the child’s propaganda that’s it’s possible to be anything we want to be, which also implies going anywhere we want to go and doing anything we want to do. That false promise, or those false implications, did more permanent damage than a shelf full of meaningless trophies.

There’s lots of stuff you’ll never do, lots of places you’ll never go and lots of stuff you’ll never be. Suck it up. I will never be a ballerina, and I live with that every day.

Still, sometimes when I see a particularly nice picture or read an interesting history of a place I have zero interest in seeing up close even if I could, I remember the Mormon temple. And if I had it to do over again, you know what? I still wouldn’t bother.