I’ve written about my dog ‘Chica’ before, but my wife and I also have a cat. We got him from a lady who rescues feral cats and abandoned dogs. We brought him home when he was about six months old. He’s now about a year old. We named him ‘Buster’. Named him that because the top of his left ear is cut off, neatly, as if it might have been done with a scissors. Makes him look like a Buster. I don’t know why that makes him look like a Buster, but it does.
Anyway, I find it interesting that people are always asking other people, “Are you a dog person, or a cat person?” People ask me that also, and the question has never made any sense to me. Why can’t you be both? Why are love of cats, and love of dogs, considered to be mutually exclusive of one another? It’s like asking, “Are you a Democrat, or a Republican?” Why can’t you be an Independent? Are you a Christian or a Jew? Why can’t you be a Born-again Jew, a Jew for Jesus, if you will?
Chica and Buster have become great friends. The big Doberman with the floppy ears, and the little kitty with the left ear lopped off. It’s been interesting to watch the development of their relationship, the boundary setting, the trust, the rules for play, etc. Buster has set most of the rules, and Chica has had to learn to respect them. It’s had to be that way since Chica is so much bigger than Buster.
Unlike the human world where the big guy, the richest, the most powerful and influential, always gets to set the rules.
The relationship between the two began as soon as I brought Buster home. Home was already Chicas domain since she’d been with us since she was a pup. She was immediately challenged with the necessity of acquiescence, even allowing Buster into her territory, and she did concede ground, albeit not so willingly at first. The second stage of the relationship amounted to the two of them just watching each other. They watched, and took note of one another’s behavior, learned each other’s body language, and other means of communication. Then came the testing of boundaries, slowly, deliberately, and ultimately, quite successfully. They each learned what was OK with the other, and what was not.
Today, just a few short months later, the two of them are the best of friends. They kiss each other all over the face, and snuggle like bunnies. Buster will put his whole head in Chicas mouth trusting Chica to be gentle and, invariably, she is. The cat will lie on his back on a table, exposing the vulnerability of his underside, and Chica will lay her snout on his belly. Buster, hanging upside down under Chica’s jaw, will wrap his paws around the top of her head, and the back of her neck while Chica licks his belly. It’s pretty cute.
Oftentimes Buster will stand on a table, on his hind legs, claws retracted, and box Chica like a fighter in the gym having his way with a speed bag. Chica will stoically absorb the friendly assault with a toothy grin, and then come back for more.
Chica gets quite concerned when neither of us can locate Buster, whether indoors or out, and will relentlessly search for him until he’s found. It’s quite poignant to see how much the two of them like, even love, one another.
Anthropomorphism, I know, but just because psychological properties can be attributed to something
doesn't mean that it can't also be true.
I think that Buster and Chica are such good friends, and get along so well,
because they don’t ever talk about politics or religion.
At least I’ve never heard them.
Don't ask me if I'm a dog person, or a cat person.
They each touch different parts of my heart and soul.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Character
Well, some people are characters.
And some people have character.
Some people who have character are not characters.
And some people are characters but don’t necessarily have character.
I find the most interesting people to be those who are characters,
and have character as well.
But if ‘character’ is something you aspire to, having character is a lot more important, in my opinion, than being a character.
There are lots of pretend characters. Really, it’s pretty easy to be a pretend character. The world’s full of them, especially since the advent of such advanced technology, giving birth to mediums that can put people in our faces in a matter of seconds, and keep them there until we’re sick to death of them. Pretend characters don’t have actual character, they’re all about perception, they are all about attention. One just needs to have a gimmick, an intentionally pronounced personality quirk, along with a style and appearance that is somewhat out of the ordinary. An unusual accent, inflection, a peculiar, and cultivated manner of speaking, or laughing, for instance. A bizarre affectation.
People can pretty easily establish themselves as some sort of character or another with a cherry-picked shtick and the click of a mouse.
But those people are not real characters, they are character wannabe’s, just-add-water- microwave concoctions.
True characters, however, tend to think differently than everybody else, and be a bit out of the ordinary, out of the mainstream, as it were. They don’t just test out the unconventional, they actually live there. The mainstream tends to wash most of the un-ordinariness out of a person. That’s why authentic characters have not spent much time swimming in that river.
When I was growing up in Southern California there was a man in Laguna Beach by the name of Eiler Larson. Eiler stood out on the corner all day, every day, rain or shine, and waved to the people driving through town on the Pacific Coast Highway. He became known as ‘The Greeter’. People depended on him. They depended on seeing him, and being greeted by him with a big smile, a wave, and a loud “Hello there”. The Greeter had a really big bushy gray beard, long hair, a ruddy complexion, wore a red coat, and carried a cane. He was there on the corner in front of the Hotel Laguna for years, many years, more years than I can even remember. He was always there. He was a permanent fixture, and sometimes my friends and I would drive to Laguna Beach just to see him. He said he used to be a gardener before he realized he didn’t have enough time to garden and greet the folks.
Eiler was not on the corner begging for change, or hoping to be discovered to parlay his notoriety into a big payday, or fifteen minutes of fame. He was there because he needed to be there, he needed to greet people, to make them smile, to make a difference in their day. He was on that corner for four decades, from 1934 until 1974.
Then one day he was not there, and Laguna Beach has never been the same.
Eiler Larson died in 1975. There is now a larger-than-life-sized statue standing alongside the road where he used to greet, with equal enthusiasm, those of us he knew,
and those he’d never met.
The Greeter was an authentic character.
And I don’t know for sure, but I’d bet my life on it that he had character too.
And some people have character.
Some people who have character are not characters.
And some people are characters but don’t necessarily have character.
I find the most interesting people to be those who are characters,
and have character as well.
But if ‘character’ is something you aspire to, having character is a lot more important, in my opinion, than being a character.
There are lots of pretend characters. Really, it’s pretty easy to be a pretend character. The world’s full of them, especially since the advent of such advanced technology, giving birth to mediums that can put people in our faces in a matter of seconds, and keep them there until we’re sick to death of them. Pretend characters don’t have actual character, they’re all about perception, they are all about attention. One just needs to have a gimmick, an intentionally pronounced personality quirk, along with a style and appearance that is somewhat out of the ordinary. An unusual accent, inflection, a peculiar, and cultivated manner of speaking, or laughing, for instance. A bizarre affectation.
People can pretty easily establish themselves as some sort of character or another with a cherry-picked shtick and the click of a mouse.
But those people are not real characters, they are character wannabe’s, just-add-water- microwave concoctions.
True characters, however, tend to think differently than everybody else, and be a bit out of the ordinary, out of the mainstream, as it were. They don’t just test out the unconventional, they actually live there. The mainstream tends to wash most of the un-ordinariness out of a person. That’s why authentic characters have not spent much time swimming in that river.
When I was growing up in Southern California there was a man in Laguna Beach by the name of Eiler Larson. Eiler stood out on the corner all day, every day, rain or shine, and waved to the people driving through town on the Pacific Coast Highway. He became known as ‘The Greeter’. People depended on him. They depended on seeing him, and being greeted by him with a big smile, a wave, and a loud “Hello there”. The Greeter had a really big bushy gray beard, long hair, a ruddy complexion, wore a red coat, and carried a cane. He was there on the corner in front of the Hotel Laguna for years, many years, more years than I can even remember. He was always there. He was a permanent fixture, and sometimes my friends and I would drive to Laguna Beach just to see him. He said he used to be a gardener before he realized he didn’t have enough time to garden and greet the folks.
Eiler was not on the corner begging for change, or hoping to be discovered to parlay his notoriety into a big payday, or fifteen minutes of fame. He was there because he needed to be there, he needed to greet people, to make them smile, to make a difference in their day. He was on that corner for four decades, from 1934 until 1974.
Then one day he was not there, and Laguna Beach has never been the same.
Eiler Larson died in 1975. There is now a larger-than-life-sized statue standing alongside the road where he used to greet, with equal enthusiasm, those of us he knew,
and those he’d never met.
The Greeter was an authentic character.
And I don’t know for sure, but I’d bet my life on it that he had character too.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
When My Restless Sleep Is Done
Some people sleep through the night.
And some do not.
I do not. I lie in bed and wait to get up.
I lay there, usually half awake, in anticipation of daylight.
Some people are night people.
They sleep during the day.
I am not a night person.
I do not like to be out at night, and I do not like to be up at night. I like to be in bed even if I don’t sleep. In case you haven’t noticed, it’s dark at night. It’s hard to see where you’re going, or who, or what, is coming your way. It’s also hard to be warm at night. I like to be warm, so I prefer the sun to the moon for that purpose. The moon is always beautiful, it’s magical, and romantic even, but it does not keep me warm. It enthralls me, it enchants me, and it captivates me, but I usually have to wear a coat if I’m going to be outside enjoying it. The same with the stars, they provoke me to dream, to daydream, as it were, to envision ways and places beyond my own means and circumstances. I like that about the stars. Stars, like the moon, stimulate my imagination.
For me, the one drawback about the moon and the stars is that they’re out at night.
I wish they were out in the daytime so I could enjoy them more than I already do.
The other thing about the night is that darkness hides an abundance of intentions. People act differently at night than in the daytime. If you haven’t noticed that, it’s probably something you just have not cared that much about noticing. I remember hearing an old axiom that simply says, “Nothing good happens after midnight.” Well, that may, or may not, be true, and probably isn’t, but I think the idea of it is true. There are a lot of statements that are not necessarily specifically true, but which are regarded as truth.
This could be one of those. In any event, it’s a cautionary axiom.
And those are important.
And speaking of the night, Keith Richards, guitar player and songwriter for The Rolling Stones, once said something to the effect of, “I feel sorry for those people who sleep at night because they miss out on a lot of good songs.” In the context of that particular interview he was implying that he writes his best songs late at night after everyone else has crashed.
I used to write my best songs late at night also, when I was younger, and had some boundless energy.
But that’s changed. Now I lie in bed at night and listen.
And when my restless sleep is done
I get up and write down what I heard.
Even though I prefer the daytime,
I guess you could say I’m still writing my songs at night.
And some do not.
I do not. I lie in bed and wait to get up.
I lay there, usually half awake, in anticipation of daylight.
Some people are night people.
They sleep during the day.
I am not a night person.
I do not like to be out at night, and I do not like to be up at night. I like to be in bed even if I don’t sleep. In case you haven’t noticed, it’s dark at night. It’s hard to see where you’re going, or who, or what, is coming your way. It’s also hard to be warm at night. I like to be warm, so I prefer the sun to the moon for that purpose. The moon is always beautiful, it’s magical, and romantic even, but it does not keep me warm. It enthralls me, it enchants me, and it captivates me, but I usually have to wear a coat if I’m going to be outside enjoying it. The same with the stars, they provoke me to dream, to daydream, as it were, to envision ways and places beyond my own means and circumstances. I like that about the stars. Stars, like the moon, stimulate my imagination.
For me, the one drawback about the moon and the stars is that they’re out at night.
I wish they were out in the daytime so I could enjoy them more than I already do.
The other thing about the night is that darkness hides an abundance of intentions. People act differently at night than in the daytime. If you haven’t noticed that, it’s probably something you just have not cared that much about noticing. I remember hearing an old axiom that simply says, “Nothing good happens after midnight.” Well, that may, or may not, be true, and probably isn’t, but I think the idea of it is true. There are a lot of statements that are not necessarily specifically true, but which are regarded as truth.
This could be one of those. In any event, it’s a cautionary axiom.
And those are important.
And speaking of the night, Keith Richards, guitar player and songwriter for The Rolling Stones, once said something to the effect of, “I feel sorry for those people who sleep at night because they miss out on a lot of good songs.” In the context of that particular interview he was implying that he writes his best songs late at night after everyone else has crashed.
I used to write my best songs late at night also, when I was younger, and had some boundless energy.
But that’s changed. Now I lie in bed at night and listen.
And when my restless sleep is done
I get up and write down what I heard.
Even though I prefer the daytime,
I guess you could say I’m still writing my songs at night.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Moving Through The Forest
My wife and I, along with Chica, our two-year-old Doberman, recently went on a hike, hoping to find, what we’d heard to be, some spectacular waterfalls on Pilot Creek in El Dorado County, CA. The trail began just a few minutes from where we live, so without a considerable drive to get to the trailhead, we were able, instead, to spend the better part of our day enjoying the hike through the forest, and eventually lunch and relaxation at the river and falls.
It was about a five and a half, or six-mile, round-trip. Part of the hike was moderate in nature, and part was more difficult. The last quarter mile down to the river, the toughest section, was very steep, and to make it even more challenging there were a couple of large trees down across the path. They’d recently fallen, most likely the result of a winter storm. The trunks were still fortified thick with large limbs, leaves and tangled branches. Because of a drop-off on one side of the trail, and a steep hill on the other, there was really no convenient way around the trees. We had to crawl through them on hands and knees, wrestling with the density as we made our way. Chica, of coarse, went through first, delineating the path of least resistance for us to follow.
Chica is very protective by nature, and living in a rather secluded place in the mountains, it is one of the reasons we chose her particular breed for companionship. It’s been both enjoyable, and quite remarkable, to see the expression of her nature, her attentiveness, and her concern for our wellbeing. She is always ‘on duty’, and feels compelled to know what’s going on around us at all times. Our hike out to the falls was a preeminent example of how seriously she takes her job.
From the beginning of the hike Chica ran out about fifty yards ahead of us, and then would circle around one side, come back to the trail about fifty yards behind us, and then head out the other side, only to appear about fifty yards up the trail in front of us again. She ran a wide perimeter for the entire hike out to the falls, and back. She crashed through some very thick forest and brush, and some very steep terrain to investigate lingering scents, to maintain her vigilance, her guardianship of those she understood to be in her charge. As I mentioned, the hike was about five and a half or six miles for us, but she must have covered twenty-five or thirty by the end of the day, maybe more.
What Chica was doing was not reckless, or frenzied self-indulgence. She was, in fact, carrying out what, by instinct, she knew to be her responsibility. It was an innate response to our vulnerability in the forest. She worked a pattern that would ensure that no harm would come to my wife or me, that no threat, man or beast, would come between her and us. She was doing a job, prompted, and driven by, her nature, the absolute core of her nature, and she took the work very seriously. Chica would come back to us when we called her, but also checked back in with us every couple of minutes even when not called. She worked systematically, and kept her full attention on prevention. It was, obviously, quite fulfilling for her, and quite satisfying.
It was also quite endearing.
Watching Chica throughout the course of the day, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the responsibility parents have to safeguard their children in today’s world, a responsibility not only to know where they are, but also to manage who, or what, gets into their lives. I found myself thinking that if every parent took an instinctual approach to their children’s welfare (like Chica has with her protection of us), rather than a relative, and compromised approach, it would be a very different, and much less painful world for the kids to embrace. It is the parent’s commission to set up a perimeter around their children, to run a pattern of protection, as it were, to ensure that no harm would come to them, that no threat, man or beast, would come between the parent and the child.
Some are quite adept at the practice, some learn along the way, and, unfortunately, some just don’t want to be bothered.
There are many beasts not of the two, (or the four) legged variety. With our cultural addiction to Television, Cell phones, the Internet, Video games and such, young people have a pretty perilous terrain to navigate through these days. The parent’s protection gene tends to get worn out, or at least worn down, pretty quickly. But parents must go the extra mile, they must find it within themselves to be vigilant, to be alert, to be sober, to be adult. Even when they don’t feel like it.
Life is a forest, of sorts, and the forest doesn’t really care what happens to our children.
I wish I could send Chica with every child moving through the forest.
It was about a five and a half, or six-mile, round-trip. Part of the hike was moderate in nature, and part was more difficult. The last quarter mile down to the river, the toughest section, was very steep, and to make it even more challenging there were a couple of large trees down across the path. They’d recently fallen, most likely the result of a winter storm. The trunks were still fortified thick with large limbs, leaves and tangled branches. Because of a drop-off on one side of the trail, and a steep hill on the other, there was really no convenient way around the trees. We had to crawl through them on hands and knees, wrestling with the density as we made our way. Chica, of coarse, went through first, delineating the path of least resistance for us to follow.
Chica is very protective by nature, and living in a rather secluded place in the mountains, it is one of the reasons we chose her particular breed for companionship. It’s been both enjoyable, and quite remarkable, to see the expression of her nature, her attentiveness, and her concern for our wellbeing. She is always ‘on duty’, and feels compelled to know what’s going on around us at all times. Our hike out to the falls was a preeminent example of how seriously she takes her job.
From the beginning of the hike Chica ran out about fifty yards ahead of us, and then would circle around one side, come back to the trail about fifty yards behind us, and then head out the other side, only to appear about fifty yards up the trail in front of us again. She ran a wide perimeter for the entire hike out to the falls, and back. She crashed through some very thick forest and brush, and some very steep terrain to investigate lingering scents, to maintain her vigilance, her guardianship of those she understood to be in her charge. As I mentioned, the hike was about five and a half or six miles for us, but she must have covered twenty-five or thirty by the end of the day, maybe more.
What Chica was doing was not reckless, or frenzied self-indulgence. She was, in fact, carrying out what, by instinct, she knew to be her responsibility. It was an innate response to our vulnerability in the forest. She worked a pattern that would ensure that no harm would come to my wife or me, that no threat, man or beast, would come between her and us. She was doing a job, prompted, and driven by, her nature, the absolute core of her nature, and she took the work very seriously. Chica would come back to us when we called her, but also checked back in with us every couple of minutes even when not called. She worked systematically, and kept her full attention on prevention. It was, obviously, quite fulfilling for her, and quite satisfying.
It was also quite endearing.
Watching Chica throughout the course of the day, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the responsibility parents have to safeguard their children in today’s world, a responsibility not only to know where they are, but also to manage who, or what, gets into their lives. I found myself thinking that if every parent took an instinctual approach to their children’s welfare (like Chica has with her protection of us), rather than a relative, and compromised approach, it would be a very different, and much less painful world for the kids to embrace. It is the parent’s commission to set up a perimeter around their children, to run a pattern of protection, as it were, to ensure that no harm would come to them, that no threat, man or beast, would come between the parent and the child.
Some are quite adept at the practice, some learn along the way, and, unfortunately, some just don’t want to be bothered.
There are many beasts not of the two, (or the four) legged variety. With our cultural addiction to Television, Cell phones, the Internet, Video games and such, young people have a pretty perilous terrain to navigate through these days. The parent’s protection gene tends to get worn out, or at least worn down, pretty quickly. But parents must go the extra mile, they must find it within themselves to be vigilant, to be alert, to be sober, to be adult. Even when they don’t feel like it.
Life is a forest, of sorts, and the forest doesn’t really care what happens to our children.
I wish I could send Chica with every child moving through the forest.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Poetic Awakening
It was dark outside, in the early morning, the very early morning, before dawn, before wakefulness, before nature had yet come to life, or the mountain taken its position of grandeur in the greater assemblage that is the Sierra Nevada.
I sat in warm water, in wet comfort, while shivering cold and frost blanketed all that was not sheltered by immersion, as I was. All that was not encompassed by, protected by, 102 degrees of separation. A welcoming tub. A figurative womb, if you will.
Quietly enmeshed in the process of selective rebirth, I watched humbly from the deck as the contrast of dark earth and a tranquil, gradually lightening sky played itself out like an old black and white movie, calmly, slowly, but confidently, developing a brilliant and exceptional script. It was not plodding in any way, or accidental. It was purposeful. It was deliberate.
Being part of the emergence, part of the awakening, I waited. And I watched. I was an extra, a stand-in, a bit player, really, in the grand scheme of things, in a plan that was the enhanced intention of a fine director.
The trees, and the mountain, stood strong, stood sturdy, silhouetted, coal black, cold and foreboding against the rising heavens. Against the possibility, the probability even, of redemption. I remained transfixed, spellbound in the grip of its magnificence, and its dramatic splendor.
And then, vaguely, faintly, as if a mirage, the slightest touch of pink, wanting, waiting, to kiss the distant horizon. Inaudibly, cautiously, but eventually touching the sky like an adolescent boy might contemplate, and then realize, a reluctant first kiss with the young girl sitting next to him at the movies.
As I remember, he would have sat through the remainder of the film with an erection pressing hard to be relieved.
I finished my tub as the sky burst forth, flamboyant with color, the mountain gradually clothing itself for the day in traditional shades of green, yellow, brown, orange and red.
Awakening again my sense of the poetic.
I sat in warm water, in wet comfort, while shivering cold and frost blanketed all that was not sheltered by immersion, as I was. All that was not encompassed by, protected by, 102 degrees of separation. A welcoming tub. A figurative womb, if you will.
Quietly enmeshed in the process of selective rebirth, I watched humbly from the deck as the contrast of dark earth and a tranquil, gradually lightening sky played itself out like an old black and white movie, calmly, slowly, but confidently, developing a brilliant and exceptional script. It was not plodding in any way, or accidental. It was purposeful. It was deliberate.
Being part of the emergence, part of the awakening, I waited. And I watched. I was an extra, a stand-in, a bit player, really, in the grand scheme of things, in a plan that was the enhanced intention of a fine director.
The trees, and the mountain, stood strong, stood sturdy, silhouetted, coal black, cold and foreboding against the rising heavens. Against the possibility, the probability even, of redemption. I remained transfixed, spellbound in the grip of its magnificence, and its dramatic splendor.
And then, vaguely, faintly, as if a mirage, the slightest touch of pink, wanting, waiting, to kiss the distant horizon. Inaudibly, cautiously, but eventually touching the sky like an adolescent boy might contemplate, and then realize, a reluctant first kiss with the young girl sitting next to him at the movies.
As I remember, he would have sat through the remainder of the film with an erection pressing hard to be relieved.
I finished my tub as the sky burst forth, flamboyant with color, the mountain gradually clothing itself for the day in traditional shades of green, yellow, brown, orange and red.
Awakening again my sense of the poetic.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Where My Fingers Go
I don’t really feel like writing this morning, but I thought I should kick off the New Year by writing. Because writing is a practice, and a discipline, it’s a good thing to do even when I’m not feeling particularly inclined. However, since I don’t actually have any interesting thoughts for you today, I decided, instead, that I would just start typing and see where my fingers go. I know, if my fingers go where my thinking goes, that could get me in a lot of trouble. But, what’s a little trouble among friends? Right?
Maybe what I have to say will prove to be interesting to you.
And maybe it won’t.
I don’t really know.
Like the rest of you, I’m still trying to figure out this whole ‘life’ thing, whether consciously, or otherwise.
But one thing I do know is that every life is different, but equally important.
And every time of life is different as well, for each of us.
One kind of has to figure out one’s own life, one’s own path. Besides the application of our own personal experience, and the wisdom gained from it, the best any of us can really do is to take the wisdom and experience of those who’ve walked the road ahead of us (ancient, or otherwise) and apply some of the more meaningful, and useful, lessons (of their experience) to ourselves, wherever, and however, they best fit. Some of it will fit fairly well, and some of it will be a little baggy, or just a bit too tight for our liking.
Some things will not fit at a certain time of our lives, but will at others. And conversely, some will fit at certain times, but not so well at others. It all depends on timing, psychic metabolism, and how we happen to be living at the time. We gain and lose spiritual, and intellectual, dimension in life just as we do physical weight. Maybe the biggest decisions we face in life are in just deciding what to keep, and what to discard from our proverbial closet.
And when.
I dress myself in what fits. If it doesn’t fit I don’t leave it hanging too long in my closet wishing that it would. I like to save the closet space for what I can actually wear.
What fit in 1967, 1975, 1985, 98, or 2010, whether it be social, political, religious, or ideological, does not necessarily work for me today. I will keep the parts that continue to make sense, and eliminate the parts that don’t.
Today has never been here before, and I have never faced life with the same degree of accumulated knowledge, wisdom, and experience as I face it with today. Even yesterday I was a day short of what I have now.
The same can be said of each of us.
Every life is different, but equally important.
And every time of life is different as well.
What we do with that accumulation of living is our own choice.
And that, friends, is where my fingers have gone today.
Maybe what I have to say will prove to be interesting to you.
And maybe it won’t.
I don’t really know.
Like the rest of you, I’m still trying to figure out this whole ‘life’ thing, whether consciously, or otherwise.
But one thing I do know is that every life is different, but equally important.
And every time of life is different as well, for each of us.
One kind of has to figure out one’s own life, one’s own path. Besides the application of our own personal experience, and the wisdom gained from it, the best any of us can really do is to take the wisdom and experience of those who’ve walked the road ahead of us (ancient, or otherwise) and apply some of the more meaningful, and useful, lessons (of their experience) to ourselves, wherever, and however, they best fit. Some of it will fit fairly well, and some of it will be a little baggy, or just a bit too tight for our liking.
Some things will not fit at a certain time of our lives, but will at others. And conversely, some will fit at certain times, but not so well at others. It all depends on timing, psychic metabolism, and how we happen to be living at the time. We gain and lose spiritual, and intellectual, dimension in life just as we do physical weight. Maybe the biggest decisions we face in life are in just deciding what to keep, and what to discard from our proverbial closet.
And when.
I dress myself in what fits. If it doesn’t fit I don’t leave it hanging too long in my closet wishing that it would. I like to save the closet space for what I can actually wear.
What fit in 1967, 1975, 1985, 98, or 2010, whether it be social, political, religious, or ideological, does not necessarily work for me today. I will keep the parts that continue to make sense, and eliminate the parts that don’t.
Today has never been here before, and I have never faced life with the same degree of accumulated knowledge, wisdom, and experience as I face it with today. Even yesterday I was a day short of what I have now.
The same can be said of each of us.
Every life is different, but equally important.
And every time of life is different as well.
What we do with that accumulation of living is our own choice.
And that, friends, is where my fingers have gone today.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
My New Years Revolutions 2011
* This coming year I resolve to overlook any major disagreements I might have with anybody, and concentrate, instead, on all the petty little differences.
* I’m going to be good to my feet this winter.
I will change my socks twice a day until I run out of socks. Then I’ll borrow some from my neighbor until he runs out. By then it should be summer, and I can begin going barefoot again.
* I will not look anyone in the eye this year when I’m talking to them.
It just makes people way too uncomfortable.
* It seems that my songs make people uncomfortable also.
So I will only write songs about cars. And girls.
In bikini’s. On the beach.
Or for the more mature among us,
rides, bitches and ho’s.
* I will disregard the flooding of our skies with chem-trails, the gathering storm, if you will, choosing instead to accept the ‘weather modification’, and the poisoning of our air, soil (crops), and water as proof that our beloved government is just trying to save us all from the indignity of old age.
* I remember a song from 1968 (MacArthur Park), with lyrics that said “. . . Someone left the cake out in the rain. I don’t think that I can take it, cause it took so long to bake it, and I’ll never have that recipe again. . . . .”
I’m going to leave a cake out in the rain this year, to see if I can take it.
Just for the hell of it.
* I will no longer express my thoughts. I will not express any opinions about honesty, courage, ethics, morality, politics, religion, society, celebrities, reality shows, or social networking sites.
Fortunately, honesty, courage, ethics, morality, politics, religion, society, celebrities, reality shows, and social networking sites all speak very clearly for themselves.
* I will formally establish the Cult of Spiritual Illumination (CSI). I will be its guiding influence, and only member. Meetings will be held in my own head, in random places, and at random times.
I will donate all the profits from my seminars, workshops, and CD’s to a rehab facility for former members. I will be the only former member.
* I will not evaluate, appraise, opinionate, weigh, assess, critique, or exercise deductive reasoning in any way, about any thing.
Then I will not be judged for being judgmental.
* I will compromise every viewpoint in order to achieve a respectable, acceptable, and non-objectionable, blend of relativity.
Something we can all live with.
* (For you Pop Culture aficionados) I will make my best effort to watch the new Oprah Winfrey Network every day of the year. Us ‘regular’ people can never get enough of the kind of guidance, and balanced perspective on life, that we can now get daily from the obscenely rich, who know our struggles, and, of course, our pain.
After all, Oprah did make her own toast once, two years ago,
when her dietitian, her chef, her secretary, her maid, her butler, her chauffeur, her personal trainer, her manicurist, her beautician, her food taster, her errand boy, her masseur, psychotherapist, and all their backups, were given the morning off to go vote.
Actually, I believe she has her own toast flown in from Paris now.
But, hey, that’s beside the point.
* I will no longer encourage our culture to rise to a level of self-respect.
After all, there’s no money in that.
* I will give leaders ‘the benefit of the doubt’. That is, I will continue to doubt them and they will continue to benefit by my detachment and inaction.
* I will no longer divulge my personal secrets, and guilty pleasures.
I will only disclose yours.
And, of course, your choice of fruit.
* I will quit calling for the elimination of pretension.
That would require the elimination of politicians, celebrities, celebrity wannabe’s and, of course, ‘spiritual’ leaders.
God knows we couldn’t live without these pillars of virtue.
* I will only offer advice when it is not asked for.
People only ask for advice when they don’t really want it in the first place, and have no intention of taking it anyway.
* I will only take advice from those who admit their failures.
Only they know how they got there.
Everybody else just pretends to be successful,
since success is the main criteria by which people like to identify potential friends and associates.
* This year I will encourage social climbers to keep both feet on the ground.
Except, of course, when they’re groveling on hands and knees. Then I will encourage them to keep two hands, both knees, and the toes of each foot on the ground.
* This year I intend to let sleeping dogs lie,
rather than insisting that they sleep standing up.
Footnote: For those of you who don’t read my blogs, could you please forward a short text, or email, to let me know that you’re not reading?
Then, when calculating my readership, I can take the six billion, 890 million, 597 thousand, one hundred and twenty people currently living in the world, subtract the number of people who say they’re not reading, and be confident that everyone else I have not heard from is continuing to read every word I have to say.
I can then solicit advertising deals for my website based on that number of readers.
Disclaimer: Any resemblance of any of these comments to people who are either living or dead (myself included) is purely coincidental, and is not intended to be reminiscent of, or an indictment of, anybody that I know, or do not know.
Or anybody I used to know.
Or might one day know.
Or might never know.
In either my former life, in this life,
or the next.
Wishing a remarkable and unusual New Year to all of you.
* I’m going to be good to my feet this winter.
I will change my socks twice a day until I run out of socks. Then I’ll borrow some from my neighbor until he runs out. By then it should be summer, and I can begin going barefoot again.
* I will not look anyone in the eye this year when I’m talking to them.
It just makes people way too uncomfortable.
* It seems that my songs make people uncomfortable also.
So I will only write songs about cars. And girls.
In bikini’s. On the beach.
Or for the more mature among us,
rides, bitches and ho’s.
* I will disregard the flooding of our skies with chem-trails, the gathering storm, if you will, choosing instead to accept the ‘weather modification’, and the poisoning of our air, soil (crops), and water as proof that our beloved government is just trying to save us all from the indignity of old age.
* I remember a song from 1968 (MacArthur Park), with lyrics that said “. . . Someone left the cake out in the rain. I don’t think that I can take it, cause it took so long to bake it, and I’ll never have that recipe again. . . . .”
I’m going to leave a cake out in the rain this year, to see if I can take it.
Just for the hell of it.
* I will no longer express my thoughts. I will not express any opinions about honesty, courage, ethics, morality, politics, religion, society, celebrities, reality shows, or social networking sites.
Fortunately, honesty, courage, ethics, morality, politics, religion, society, celebrities, reality shows, and social networking sites all speak very clearly for themselves.
* I will formally establish the Cult of Spiritual Illumination (CSI). I will be its guiding influence, and only member. Meetings will be held in my own head, in random places, and at random times.
I will donate all the profits from my seminars, workshops, and CD’s to a rehab facility for former members. I will be the only former member.
* I will not evaluate, appraise, opinionate, weigh, assess, critique, or exercise deductive reasoning in any way, about any thing.
Then I will not be judged for being judgmental.
* I will compromise every viewpoint in order to achieve a respectable, acceptable, and non-objectionable, blend of relativity.
Something we can all live with.
* (For you Pop Culture aficionados) I will make my best effort to watch the new Oprah Winfrey Network every day of the year. Us ‘regular’ people can never get enough of the kind of guidance, and balanced perspective on life, that we can now get daily from the obscenely rich, who know our struggles, and, of course, our pain.
After all, Oprah did make her own toast once, two years ago,
when her dietitian, her chef, her secretary, her maid, her butler, her chauffeur, her personal trainer, her manicurist, her beautician, her food taster, her errand boy, her masseur, psychotherapist, and all their backups, were given the morning off to go vote.
Actually, I believe she has her own toast flown in from Paris now.
But, hey, that’s beside the point.
* I will no longer encourage our culture to rise to a level of self-respect.
After all, there’s no money in that.
* I will give leaders ‘the benefit of the doubt’. That is, I will continue to doubt them and they will continue to benefit by my detachment and inaction.
* I will no longer divulge my personal secrets, and guilty pleasures.
I will only disclose yours.
And, of course, your choice of fruit.
* I will quit calling for the elimination of pretension.
That would require the elimination of politicians, celebrities, celebrity wannabe’s and, of course, ‘spiritual’ leaders.
God knows we couldn’t live without these pillars of virtue.
* I will only offer advice when it is not asked for.
People only ask for advice when they don’t really want it in the first place, and have no intention of taking it anyway.
* I will only take advice from those who admit their failures.
Only they know how they got there.
Everybody else just pretends to be successful,
since success is the main criteria by which people like to identify potential friends and associates.
* This year I will encourage social climbers to keep both feet on the ground.
Except, of course, when they’re groveling on hands and knees. Then I will encourage them to keep two hands, both knees, and the toes of each foot on the ground.
* This year I intend to let sleeping dogs lie,
rather than insisting that they sleep standing up.
Footnote: For those of you who don’t read my blogs, could you please forward a short text, or email, to let me know that you’re not reading?
Then, when calculating my readership, I can take the six billion, 890 million, 597 thousand, one hundred and twenty people currently living in the world, subtract the number of people who say they’re not reading, and be confident that everyone else I have not heard from is continuing to read every word I have to say.
I can then solicit advertising deals for my website based on that number of readers.
Disclaimer: Any resemblance of any of these comments to people who are either living or dead (myself included) is purely coincidental, and is not intended to be reminiscent of, or an indictment of, anybody that I know, or do not know.
Or anybody I used to know.
Or might one day know.
Or might never know.
In either my former life, in this life,
or the next.
Wishing a remarkable and unusual New Year to all of you.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Selections From The Collection III - 2010
End of the year compilation of excerpts from my writings over the past twelve months. If any of these selections inspire you to go back and re-read the individual entries in their entirety, you can find them by Name, or Date, on the menu to the right of this posting.
224. Blowing In The Wind: 12/29/10
I saw a flag this morning. It was blowing in the wind.
It reminded me of people flapping their lips, unprovoked by anything other than their own need for validation, or maybe for their need to be reminded that they are, in fact, still alive. Flags are typically prompted by a quiet breeze, a steady wind, or some kind of storm. People, at times, talk just because they’re afraid not to, because they’re uncomfortable with silence. The sound of their own voice somehow mitigates the emptiness, minimizes the discomfort, manages and moderates the environment for them. I don’t begrudge them that. I only wish, at times, that they would choose their audience a little more carefully, and maybe their subject matter. I’m not a very good audience for incessant blather.
223. An Avenging Angel: 12/16/10
Last night I was reminded that life, however it happens,
gets inside of us, and lives there.
It becomes the blood from which we draw
the remainder of our lives.
To the degree that we can manage our own filters,
we should.
Enough of life gets on, and in, us that is completely out of our control.
But it all stays with us.
222. Life’s Re-occurring Dilemma’s: 12/10/10
It is practically built into our DNA to make determinations about whether or not someone is ‘deserving’ of our attention, charity, kindness or time. And it’s especially easy to do when we don’t actually know them. I had no conscious reason to not give the guy some gas, so I guess I may have unconsciously determined him to be unworthy of my contribution, for whatever reason.
And that’s what bothered me.
I don’t want to think that about myself.
And I don’t want to think that about him either.
221. Whatever Happened To Dennis McIntosh?: 12/9/10
For my life to be monitored, and moderated, by others is anathema to everything that my soul is really about. I monitor and moderate myself. It is an internal mechanism that we all have. For me to be measured by a culture that I do not recognize as particularly thoughtful, reflective, necessary, or fulfilling is of little importance to me. I gravitate towards nature, without prompting, and without provocation. The more unnatural our culture becomes, the less interest I have in embracing it, and the less inclined I am to seek acceptance there. In fact, I have no desire to seek acceptance there. I have a healthy degree of self-acceptance that requires little validation from external forces. To the degree I can be free of those concerns, I will be.
220. There Was A Time: 12/1/10
Many things began changing for kids with the creation of new Psychiatric Disorders to cover every nuanced human behavior. With the invent of such disorders, a drug could then be prescribed for every condition.
Not without consequence, this excess of ready-made diagnoses’, and ‘drug therapy’ has been robbing young people of the will to fight through their pain, accepting the pronouncements of ‘professionals’ instead.
Unaware of the arsenic in the comfort food.
219. Thanks Giving: 11/25/10
Giving thanks is not obligatory, but it does make life better.
I feel bad for people who don’t believe in God.
They have no one to be thankful to.
218. Seven Things I Think: 11/19/10
1. If you never question your faith you’re not worthy of it.
2. If you don’t also have faith in yourself you will probably follow someone else.
3. If you follow someone else you undermine yourself.
4. If you can’t trust your own instincts you don’t really trust yourself.
5. If you follow the lead of someone else you sabotage your own instincts.
Unless, of course, your instincts are to follow someone else. (See #2)
6. If your instincts lead you away from the core of your inner self you better develop some better instincts.
And finally. . . . . . . . .
7. If you trust a politician, any politician, you invalidate the meaning of the words ‘trust’, and ‘politician’. (Look them up).
217. A Wire In The Way: 11/11/10
There’s a telephone wire that borders the back of my property, just beyond the property line. It’s clearly visible from the deck, and from many of the windows.
A telephone pole is situated behind some trees, so it is not visible. There is beautiful lush forest continuing beyond the telephone line, displaying a variety of trees. Oak, Cedar, Madrone, Douglas Fir, and Pine. The mountains, ridges, and canyons, stretch for miles into the distance, encompassing many different elevations of topography, and lush blankets of growth. The colors are stunning, and the view is spectacular. The first snow of the year has recently settled upon the highest, and most distant, peak. It will probably be gone in a couple of days if we don’t get another storm passing through.
216. Some Rise by Wrong: 11/5/10
“Some rise by wrong, and some by virtue fall.”
Those words were written by Bruce Hornsby.
I don’t know the name of the song. Maybe you do.
I can’t get over this Lyric.
As a songwriter, I appreciate the difficulty of expressing a thought, a concept, an illumination, with the simple turn of a phrase.
“Some rise by wrong.”
These four short words point out perfectly the inequities in life.
As fallible, often shallow and insensitive people, we too often tend to view, as successful, those who have money, who have an impressive collection of possessions, and maybe a trophy wife to present as the ultimate evidence of that success.
And we are equally inclined to view the poor, the disenfranchised, the struggling, and painfully affected, who go without, as failures, as losers.
215. Trust, and Confidence: 10/30/10
I do not look for life-lessons in the living of my daily life. I do not necessarily even consciously seek to find the hidden in the, otherwise, transparent. When I watch a baseball game I really just intend to enjoy the game for the intrinsic pleasure of the game itself. But life-lessons present themselves to me wherever I am, in whatever I’m doing, and with whomever I happen to be with at the time. I can’t just turn away from those illuminations as if they were a second helping of banana cream pie. That would be foolish on my part. And, furthermore, it would be hypocritical of me to teach if I am not also willing to learn.
214. Mental Chronicles 5: 10/25/10
* Question: “What’s the difference between ‘here’ and ‘there’?
Answer: There really is no difference.
No matter where you go, or how long it takes to get there, once you arrive there you’ll have to say, “I’m here”.
Which is where you started out from in the first place.
Might as well enjoy the ride.
213. Speaking Of Profanity: 10/18/10
“God damn!”
I don’t really like using that exclamation, but
it’s the perfect marriage of the holy and the profane.
Religion, as you well know, seems to create such profound contentiousness between people. The use of religious terminology does the same. I continue to experience
radioactive fallout for something as innocuous as expressing an opinion with words that even imply a connection with religion, no matter how vague, or abstract. I find it kind of disconcerting, and disheartening, that we live in a world where people are not entitled to opinions, where people are knocked down for having one, or for the words they use, like a clay pigeon being blasted out of the sky with a shotgun.
I find it very disturbing, but hey, like it’s gonna keep me from discussing anything?
212. A Certain Lineage: 10/12/10
The forest is a good parallel for life.
There are some aspects of it that we can count on. There is a certain sameness. Generally speaking, the trees are rooted where they’ve always been, the topography is constant, and the rocks continue to lie partially buried like pimples on the surface of the earth. The trails remain in place, wearing into the ground, like a good pair of shoes, over time, conforms to your feet.
It’s what we can depend on, a few of the things that we can anticipate being there tomorrow. Tomorrow is never promised to anybody, but there’s a reasonable expectation that the landscape will be then as it is now, or at least very similar. The constancy, the reliability, the fidelity of nature, as it were, is something that gives security to us in an otherwise undependable, and unpredictable, world. It is, I think, part of the reason I’m so drawn to it.
211. Natureing: 10/6/10
I’ve coined a new word. Natureing.
There are activities associated with words that affect, and impact, our lives.
Meditating, praying, studying, working, exercising, etc. These words, and many others, engage the practitioner in the process that is known as ‘cause and effect’.
A ‘cause’ is something that makes something else happen.
An ‘effect’ is what happens as a result of the cause.
And, obviously, the ‘effect is why people participate in the cause.
I engage in ‘Natureing’ almost every day, and on many days, many times throughout the day. It is simply the process of engaging with nature. Some call it ‘communing’. I don’t really commune, that’s just not my style. But I do participate in, and with, nature. And I fully engage my sense of appreciation when I do.
210. Balance: 9/23/10
There is a natural balance in life. We see, and experience it, in nature. It is a very important aspect of life, an aspect that, if missing from our own lives, leaves us at the mercy of the emotional, psychological, and physical elements of its absence.
In one’s personal life nobody just happens upon balance, or finds it by accident. There is a process of ‘finding’ it, just as there was with my little grandson. And then there is the practice of ‘keeping’ it. Finding, and keeping. Both require some knowledge, some wisdom, and some experience. Experience produces knowledge. Knowledge, when blended with experience, generates wisdom. Wisdom enables us to measure intangibles. And it gives us the wherewithal to deal with them.
209. The Honesty Of Intention: 9/12/10
It may not really matter to you, but I want to say that I have always been someone whom others have been perfectly comfortable projecting their own ideologies on to, their own belief systems. So-called Conservatives have considered me to be either ‘one of them’, or ‘one of those liberals’, depending on what they’ve needed me to be to validate their own position.
And So-called Liberals have done the same, only in reverse on the issues. Truth is, I am neither of those. It’s not good to view people in those terms. I sometimes do, but I try not to. Like you, sometimes I get caught up in the anger, or the immediacy, of an issue, but I don’t subscribe to anybody else’s idea of what’s right, and what’s wrong. I know what’s right, and I know what’s wrong. And so do you. I don’t need an ideology to instruct me.
208. Let’s Stop Throwing Shit At The Wall: 9/7/10
People have disagreements on ‘moral’ issues. They always have. They also disagree on social issues, the need for, and manner of, addressing them, and even the necessity for solutions. People make social issues into moral issues, and they make moral issues into social issues. Maybe every moral issue is also a social issue, and every social issue a moral one, I don’t know. But perspectives do overlap, and it is seldom that part of an issue cannot be shared by both points of view. It is also seldom, however, that one position will allow room for the other. That’s a shame. We are all diminished by that disallowance.
Disagreement is no cause for alignment in totally separate camps, which end up throwing insults at one another like some incarcerated crazies might throw shit at the wall.
207. Relationships 2: 8/31/10
I know we’d all like to consider ourselves as independent of our parents, but whether we want to admit it or not, relationships are modeled by parents.
We grow up learning how to conduct relationships by watching how our parents conduct them. Children grow up to imitate, and perpetuate those behaviors. If we grow up in a healthy family, where honesty trumps deceit, where openness overrides secrecy, where courage conquers pretension, we are much better equipped to enter into adult relationships than if the opposite would have prevailed in the family.
If parents are open and honest with each other, as well as with their children, those children have a good start on having similar kinds of relationships as adults.
206. Relationships: 8/18/10
Relationships take effort, a lot of effort. They must be defined, and they must be negotiated, otherwise they tend to fold in on themselves like a parachute catching a downdraft. They can be an expansive element of one’s life, but can also become a dangerous inversion of one’s expectations. Relationships, to be successful, require that both parties play by the same set of rules. And if they don’t, it is only a matter of time before they implode.
205. The Tranquil Sky: 8/3/10
The tranquil sky, stretching wide across a lingering horizon, painted with the loving hand, and expertise, of one who knows what stimulates, and invigorates, the soul of a man such as myself. I do not suppose the Artist chose to paint it for my pleasure alone (although I’d like to think that) but for you as well. I can only hope that you are awake this morning to embrace it. The expanse that is my view from where I write creates, and enables, a similar expanse from inside me, from deep within the hidden recesses of my faith, and of my sometimes pain, extending outward now, opening my arms to the possibility of the unforeseen, the unexpected, and the mostly undeserved.
204. It’s Really Not That Important: 6/28/10
I used to think there are a lot of things in life that are important. Too many things, maybe. I used to think that it was important to determine what is important, and then to add those things to my priority list. But the list would keep growing, and there would always be something of priority waiting to be addressed. I guess it’s good to pay attention to things, but not necessarily to everything that might end up on the list. Anything, really, could find its way to the list, and then once it’s there it would become a priority, no matter how far down the list it might happen to be. After all, if it’s on the list it takes on the mantle of importance, and that makes it important whether it’s actually important or not.
203. Trails: 6/19/10
Over the past year my wife and I have spent considerable time cutting in walking trails through the forested land that we are fortunate enough to ‘own’ (as if the earth can actually be owned by someone). But the sections we worked were those that, by virtue of their natural flow, kind of designed themselves. We just had to follow their lead and do the clearing. Of course there was some decision making in the process because there were many junctures where the trail could have gone this way or that, or the other way even. Although most of the options appeared to be good, ultimately, we had to decide on the direction. When those trails were finished we could walk them, pleased with, and somewhat proud of, the outcome because it truly was a partnership with nature. Nature, in a sense, quietly guided our willing hands.
202. I Don’t Trust Happiness: 6/7/10
Unhappiness is something you can depend on. It will never leave you as long as you continue to embrace it. It will be your constant companion, through thick and thin, through brief moments of elation even. It will be waiting to comfort you as those occasional, but fleeting, feelings of happiness return you to its care. Unhappiness takes little effort, and it comes quite easily to those who seek the familiarity of its presence. It can be like a warm blanket, or an old friend. It can be shelter from the world, or from the wind. Unhappiness will follow you like a shadow, without invitation, and without argument or disagreement. It will cling to your soul like molasses.
201. Clearing Out The Clutter: 5/3/10
A man I know has recently been working around his property, clearing brush, trimming trees, cutting down the dying, the dead, and the unproductive, and opening space to provide himself with some breathing room and a better view.
I have been doing the same since becoming owner, and caretaker, of some beautiful acreage in the mountains. When property is neglected, left unattended, it becomes whatever it will become by virtue of its own untamed nature. However, in order to coexist comfortably with nature, one must be, undoubtedly, amenable to compromise. One must allow for the natural world to exist partially on its own terms, but require it to exist partially on the terms that he decides on for himself. To allow the full force of nature would prove to be overwhelming, and eventually threatening, to the sensibility and wellbeing of any individual. To succumb to the will of nature would not, could not, ever turn out for the better. But, conversely, to subjugate nature entirely to one’s own will would, ultimately, reduce a persons life to confinement in an over-controlled, finely manicured ‘natural’ prison of one’s own making. A gated community, if you will. A place where you pay other people to control the wild around you, to protect you from the natural world.
200. Number 2 Hundred: 5/18/10
I like that number. I like the way it looks, and I like the way it sounds. When I was younger, playing on different sports teams I always wanted to be Number 2. I never wanted to be ‘1’, or ‘#1’, or even ‘Number 1’. Being ‘Number 1’ would be way too much pressure. And it’s kind of a self-aggrandizing number anyway. But, actually, I wouldn’t mind being ‘Number Won’. That would be kind of cool. I like the implication of that.
Anyway, back to my point. I didn’t really want to be ‘2’, or ‘#2’ either. But I always wanted to be ‘Number 2’. I never could be. They don’t allow special numbers like that for guys like me. Maybe for LeBron James, if he wanted it, but not for me.
If I’d had to settle for ‘2’, or ‘#2’, I’d rather have been ‘two’, or ‘too’ even. Or better yet, ‘Also’. Being ‘Also’ would be awesome. ‘Also’ means ‘too’, which sounds the same as ‘two’, which actually is ‘2’.
Well, it gets complicated.
199. An Ode To Spring: 5/13/10
Here in North America Spring is rapidly approaching, there is an amorous arousal on the Continent, and with it comes the inclination, compulsion even, for humans to do what most humans do to ensure that we, as a species, continue to exist.
Friending on our Facebooks, and Tweeting on our Twitters.
198. Loving / Being Loved: 4/30/10
Loving is not necessarily always doing what somebody else would like, or even what they think might satisfy them. Sometimes it is being, for them, the voice of reason, the solid ground from which their soul can take root and grow.
Sometimes love is coming to the rescue.
And sometimes love is doing nothing at all.
In many respects it takes the love of others to enable our own ability to love. But it can also be said that loving enables ones ability to be loved.
It works both ways.
Personally, I think that when we cultivate loving, the love of others finds us.
It just finds us, usually unexpectedly,
but it finds us.
197. It’s Really More Simple Than It Seems: 4/15/10
Life is never easy, but there is a less complicated way to live, there is a general guide to live by, a means of keeping ones equilibrium in life. It is often the second choice of any given individual, but it is, ultimately, the best choice. It is a tried, true, and historically tested manner of being. It is ancient wisdom, and it is applicable in contemporary life as well. It is not complicated, and it is embraceable by all but the truly self-indulgent. It is for those wishing to live in harmony with consciousness, and for those simply wanting not to stray too far from what they know to be of value and importance. It is a principle that allows the pleasure, and the enjoyment of life, but holds at bay the temptations that call to us like sirens in an enveloping fog. It is a place where honesty trumps deception, and where kindness supercedes self-service. It is a place of self-denial by choice, rather than by imposition. It is where integrity resides, and self-importance falls away like dead skin.
196. What Are We Thinking? 4/11/10
You’ve probably been reading about the sexual abuse scandal involving U.S. swim coaches who have been molesting, groping, and secretly taping numerous young female swimmers around the country. Thirty-six coaches have been banned for life. Now I bet that really makes us feel good about ourselves! Not that they’re going to go coach somewhere else, or anything like that!!!
Question: If all the so-called ‘authorities’ are so motivated to prevent the devastation in these children’s lives, why do they not have the courage to make changes that actually work?
Answer: Oh, I don’t know, could it be that ‘harmless’ little Political Correctness (Personal Cowardice) gene I’m always talking about? Just wondering.
195. PoliTricks: 4/7/10
Don’t read this if idealism creates, and governs, your ideology. It’ll only make you mad.
Idealism used to be the social/political domain of Hollywood, thirteen year-old girls, and fifteen year-old boys. Unfortunately, it has now infected a disproportionate number of actual adults. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the pot we’ve been smoking like tobacco, or the pharmaceuticals we’ve been chewing like candy.
194. They Sense Us: 4/2/10
After receiving my Census survey, which contains questions that are none of the Governments friggin’ concern, is it any big surprise that the form is supposed to be returned to the “2010 Census Data CAPTURE Center”? What, do they want to know where to find me just in case I happen to disagree with their policies? They’ve asked for my name, and my phone number. My phone number? Why would they need to call me? Are they afraid that maybe I counted the number of persons living at my residence wrong? Or might they just want to chat? They’re not entitled to my name, or my phone number. I am entitled to anonymity. I, personally, am none of the Governments business.
193. There’s Something To Be Said: 3/23/10
It’s been said, “When you have nothing to say, it’s usually best to say nothing.” Most people, typically, do have something to say, but most people, also, will usually say nothing. Something is often better said than nothing being said because saying something can give someone else’s deafening silence some illuminating context. Are you following me? It can reveal the silence to be what it frequently is, insecurity, fear, or intimidation. The spoken also gives the silent an opportunity for its own expression, to move beyond its, otherwise, timid and invisible nature. It can give silence an opportunity to speak, or, if need be, to hunker down and embrace its own timidity. Some people can remain silent forever, and some people just need the expression of others to initiate their own. Saying nothing seemingly implies, albeit wrongly, that there is nothing to be said. That will sometimes be the case, but there is almost always something to be said.
192. Pride of the Irish: 1/17/10
They call it Saint Patricks day
but I can’t see where the man did me no good.
Who made him a saint
anyway?
Is that something like
an uncle?
Just because he wore a big hat,
carried a long staff,
was white, had a beard
and drove some weird snakes
outa town
don’t mean nothin’ where I live.
Sounds to me like
he must have been a maniac
or somethin’
Besides,
he’d prob’ly get arrested
if they caught him doin’ that
today.
191. Chica, the Dog: 3/13/10
Starting out, I have to say I recognize that listening to someone talk about their own dog is not much different from listening to a parent talking about their child, or even showing slides of the family vacation. If you’re not intimately acquainted with the object of affection, or if you weren’t there, you’re probably going to be bored with hearing about it. “My little Amber is the cutest, smartest, most unique child I’ve ever known. She’s only a year old, and she can already count to three.” Never mind that little Amber is actually the only child the parent has ever really known. But, it is almost impossible to separate those sentiments from the larger reality of who little Amber, or in this case, Chica, actually is. So, if you don’t want to hear about my dog this would be a good place to stop reading.
190. The Honesty Of Anger: 3/10/10
He is not an honest man, and I do not intend to entertain his disingenuousness throughout the future. I take to heart many of those valuable historical parables so many of us were raised with, and this one in particular.
“Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing.”
No matter how many times they might mention God, or their church.
If he were in trouble, or in need, yes, I would offer him assistance.
He is a fellow traveler on this planet, and our commission as humans is to love one another. But sometimes love requires that a situation be dealt with directly, that one not protect another’s fraudulent position. Sometimes love requires taking the more difficult stand. And yes, sometimes love requires the honesty of anger.
189. My Fathers Desk: 3/3/10
I have my fathers desk. He gave it to me when it became apparent that he would never be using it again. My dad has gotten very old. It’s an old desk too, an old school teachers desk; ironic, because my dad was never really a teacher. Didn’t have the patience for it. There is a lot of wear and tear on this desk. That’s one of the things I like about it. I also like that it was his desk. I don’t like new things very much. They lack depth and character. Old things always contain a lot of interesting assimilation. Assimilation is the process of becoming part of, or more like, something greater. This desk is greater than it was when it was made. It has a lot of living engrained in its finish, and in its wood.
188. Life Is A Three Act Play: 3/1/10
Life has a beginning, a middle, and an end. We tend to think of life as a one-act play, but actually, we’re born, we live, and we die. Those, I believe, are three separate acts. If we include the Beyond, there are four. We tend not to see the ‘born’ part as a segment of our life, nor do we see the ‘die’ part that way. We only see the ‘life’ part as significant to living. I see all three of these acts as separate and independent of each other, but fundamentally intertwined with one another, and equally significant as well.
187. I Have A Good Wife: 2/25/10
There’s a difference between being a good woman, and being a good wife. I have known many good women over the years who would not necessarily be very good wives. But, to be a good wife one has to first be a good woman, the two are very inter-related.
I’m not an expert on wives, or women, for that matter. But I am an expert on what applies to, and relates to, me. My wife certainly fits well within those parameters. And she is a good wife. Some women consider being described as ‘a good wife’ to be an insult. I suppose that’s because they, myopically, choose to relate to the description as the totality of what they are seen to be. But I don’t think anyone ever meant to describe their own wife as ‘only’ a good wife, and nothing else, at least not anybody you’d really care to know.
186. Avatar, The Movie: 2/22/10
I saw ‘Avatar’ yesterday. If I’m not mistaken, it took eight years to make, and cost about 250 million dollars, and sometime before I even get this blog posted, it will break the all-time record for dollars earned, breaking the record set by ‘Titanic’, which was also made by James Cameron. It’s been reported that many people leave the movie feeling dizzy, disoriented, and depressed. Although I understand why so many leave depressed, I just left angry. The movie’s feelings-based politics, and social ideology, were insulting to anybody with the courage to subjugate their feelings to the reality, and truth, of historical context.
185. I Wish Him All The Best: 2/19/10
I just finished watching the Tiger apology on TV.
I’m sure many of you saw it as well.
I have been critical of Tiger Woods. He has been a man that I have never respected because of his Diva, arrogant, egocentric behavior on the golf course. I have respected his dedication, and the hard work he devoted to his craft, but I never respected him as a person, or as a man.
Until Now.
184. Mental Chronicles 4: 2/18/10
As some of you know, I like to watch the auditions of American Idol. I stop watching when the competition gets to Hollywood and everybody starts pretending that they totally support their competition.
But I remember one young American Idol wannabe’s audition, who, before her song, stated that she thinks she ‘deserves to be’ the next American Idol because if she were chosen she thinks she’d make ‘a good role model’. She went on to say, “You know, I’d recycle, and I’d care about the people in Africa, and stuff like that.”
Huh! I was under the impression that I was watching American Idol,
not the Miss America pageant.
183. Thought Casserole: 2/13/10
I’ve probably never had an original thought.
But, most likely, I think of different things than you do.
And that makes my thoughts worth expressing. The same is true of yours.
You think of different things than me.
182. Internal Congestion: 2/10/10
Writing takes me out of myself. Out of my internal congestion, you might say.
Now, those of you who know me would probably agree that it’s a good thing for me to get out of myself. I wouldn’t say that I’m ‘into’ myself, per-se, it’s just that I do live ‘within’ myself. That would be a very comfortable place for some people to live, but not necessarily for me. Kind of scary in there sometimes, kind of confusing at other times. I might even say ‘exasperating’. But, nevertheless, writing takes me out of myself.
And that’s all I’m going to say about me.
181. Love: 1/26/08
I was watching a movie the other night. I would not call it a particularly good movie, in fact, I won’t even bother to mention the title because it is not really the point of these thoughts. However, there was a line in the film that got me thinking. I know, you’re probably wondering, “OK, what’s he thinking about now?” But here’s the deal. One of the characters was saying that he had heard from several Hospice workers he knew that, when on their deathbed, the two questions the dying seemed to ask themselves were, 1) “Have I ever loved anybody?” And 2) “Has anybody ever loved me?”
Interesting questions.
Interesting because they are the kind of questions that, I think, we would seem to take for granted. “Of course I’ve loved somebody, and of course somebody has loved me.” Seems like a no-brainer, the kinds of questions one could answer without really even having to think about it. But are they really?
If love is so prevalent, and so common in an individual, why is it that one of the two deathbed questions just happens to be “Have I ever loved anybody?”
180. Only For Today: 1/21/10
Snow covers the ground today like hope clothes the faith of pilgrims. Icicles hang low from eaves left frozen overnight. My warm breath rises in the morning chill like prayer seeking the mind of God, or His ear, to be more exact. Trees droop heavy with the weight of change, the sky having quietly dumped its own burden when it became too much for its weakening arms to hold. Some of that load now left clinging to Pine branches high above the ground, wishing, like the sky, for a little relief of their own.
179. Such Unimaginable Happenstance: 1/14/10
Pray for the people of Haiti, particularly for the children who lost their parents,
and the parents who lost their children.
And while you’re at it, give some thought to the misdirected importance we give the privileged in our own county. Tell me that, in Gods eyes, there is not a broken, wounded, misplaced, or suffering child in Haiti that is not equally, or more, important than the spoiled royalty we serve with our money and adoration. Tell me that Michael Jackson’s life, or Anna Nicole Smith’s, or Farrah Faucet’s, for that matter, was of greater importance than was the baby of a poverty stricken mother whose shantytown shack has fallen down in shambles around her, her child lost to the rubble of such unimaginable happenstance.
178. Dirty Little Secret: 1/13/10
I don’t normally write about my business dealings, or personal health issues, except maybe to illuminate a particular behavior, or to demonstrate some aspect or another of human nature. But I feel rather compelled to let you in on a situation I encountered yesterday in the course of attending to an illness I’ve been struggling with for the past two weeks. I’ve been laying low with a bronchial infection, which began as a mild cold, progressed to a persistent cough, and ultimately, became the bronchial infection that I ended up seeking treatment for. It’s a serious, but not life threatening condition, unless left untreated, in which case it could develop into pneumonia. I should have obtained a prescription of antibiotics earlier, but like many men do, I put it off until it became very apparent that I better do something about it.
177. Parking Meters: 1/10/10
I’ve been thinking about Parking Meters.
Don’t ask me why. I just think about what presents itself.
So, let me see if I have this right. In the City, the taxpayers pay for the construction of the streets, their maintenance and repair. They pay for the installation and maintenance of the parking meters. They pay the salaries of the parking police who are employed to catch them parked with expired meters. They pay to park there, then they pay the expired meter fines (taxes) that can range up to a couple of hundred dollars, depending on the location and time of day.
176. The Hole We’ve Been Digging For Ourselves: 1/8/10
The hole we’ve been digging for ourselves is the hole we’ll eventually bury ourselves in.
Our society has gradually become so dismissive of the dishonest, inappropriate and reckless actions of one another that we find ourselves slowly burying ourselves alive in our own behaviors. If it seems to you that things have gotten too far out of control, it’s only because things have gotten too far out of control. By ‘out of control’, I’m not speaking of being independent of the control of others; I’m referring to the alarming loss of self-control so evident in the lives, manners, and actions of so many, including our supposed leaders and ‘role models’. The younger generation is mimicking the behavior of the older generation who in turn are mimicking the behavior of the younger generation.
175. My Continuing New Years Revolutions, 2010: 1/1/10
This is a personal inventory of the New Years Revolutions I made for 2009.
I’ve graded myself to see where I stand. To my way of thinking, there’s no reason to make new revolutions as long as I can keep making excuses for not keeping
the ones that I’ve already made.
224. Blowing In The Wind: 12/29/10
I saw a flag this morning. It was blowing in the wind.
It reminded me of people flapping their lips, unprovoked by anything other than their own need for validation, or maybe for their need to be reminded that they are, in fact, still alive. Flags are typically prompted by a quiet breeze, a steady wind, or some kind of storm. People, at times, talk just because they’re afraid not to, because they’re uncomfortable with silence. The sound of their own voice somehow mitigates the emptiness, minimizes the discomfort, manages and moderates the environment for them. I don’t begrudge them that. I only wish, at times, that they would choose their audience a little more carefully, and maybe their subject matter. I’m not a very good audience for incessant blather.
223. An Avenging Angel: 12/16/10
Last night I was reminded that life, however it happens,
gets inside of us, and lives there.
It becomes the blood from which we draw
the remainder of our lives.
To the degree that we can manage our own filters,
we should.
Enough of life gets on, and in, us that is completely out of our control.
But it all stays with us.
222. Life’s Re-occurring Dilemma’s: 12/10/10
It is practically built into our DNA to make determinations about whether or not someone is ‘deserving’ of our attention, charity, kindness or time. And it’s especially easy to do when we don’t actually know them. I had no conscious reason to not give the guy some gas, so I guess I may have unconsciously determined him to be unworthy of my contribution, for whatever reason.
And that’s what bothered me.
I don’t want to think that about myself.
And I don’t want to think that about him either.
221. Whatever Happened To Dennis McIntosh?: 12/9/10
For my life to be monitored, and moderated, by others is anathema to everything that my soul is really about. I monitor and moderate myself. It is an internal mechanism that we all have. For me to be measured by a culture that I do not recognize as particularly thoughtful, reflective, necessary, or fulfilling is of little importance to me. I gravitate towards nature, without prompting, and without provocation. The more unnatural our culture becomes, the less interest I have in embracing it, and the less inclined I am to seek acceptance there. In fact, I have no desire to seek acceptance there. I have a healthy degree of self-acceptance that requires little validation from external forces. To the degree I can be free of those concerns, I will be.
220. There Was A Time: 12/1/10
Many things began changing for kids with the creation of new Psychiatric Disorders to cover every nuanced human behavior. With the invent of such disorders, a drug could then be prescribed for every condition.
Not without consequence, this excess of ready-made diagnoses’, and ‘drug therapy’ has been robbing young people of the will to fight through their pain, accepting the pronouncements of ‘professionals’ instead.
Unaware of the arsenic in the comfort food.
219. Thanks Giving: 11/25/10
Giving thanks is not obligatory, but it does make life better.
I feel bad for people who don’t believe in God.
They have no one to be thankful to.
218. Seven Things I Think: 11/19/10
1. If you never question your faith you’re not worthy of it.
2. If you don’t also have faith in yourself you will probably follow someone else.
3. If you follow someone else you undermine yourself.
4. If you can’t trust your own instincts you don’t really trust yourself.
5. If you follow the lead of someone else you sabotage your own instincts.
Unless, of course, your instincts are to follow someone else. (See #2)
6. If your instincts lead you away from the core of your inner self you better develop some better instincts.
And finally. . . . . . . . .
7. If you trust a politician, any politician, you invalidate the meaning of the words ‘trust’, and ‘politician’. (Look them up).
217. A Wire In The Way: 11/11/10
There’s a telephone wire that borders the back of my property, just beyond the property line. It’s clearly visible from the deck, and from many of the windows.
A telephone pole is situated behind some trees, so it is not visible. There is beautiful lush forest continuing beyond the telephone line, displaying a variety of trees. Oak, Cedar, Madrone, Douglas Fir, and Pine. The mountains, ridges, and canyons, stretch for miles into the distance, encompassing many different elevations of topography, and lush blankets of growth. The colors are stunning, and the view is spectacular. The first snow of the year has recently settled upon the highest, and most distant, peak. It will probably be gone in a couple of days if we don’t get another storm passing through.
216. Some Rise by Wrong: 11/5/10
“Some rise by wrong, and some by virtue fall.”
Those words were written by Bruce Hornsby.
I don’t know the name of the song. Maybe you do.
I can’t get over this Lyric.
As a songwriter, I appreciate the difficulty of expressing a thought, a concept, an illumination, with the simple turn of a phrase.
“Some rise by wrong.”
These four short words point out perfectly the inequities in life.
As fallible, often shallow and insensitive people, we too often tend to view, as successful, those who have money, who have an impressive collection of possessions, and maybe a trophy wife to present as the ultimate evidence of that success.
And we are equally inclined to view the poor, the disenfranchised, the struggling, and painfully affected, who go without, as failures, as losers.
215. Trust, and Confidence: 10/30/10
I do not look for life-lessons in the living of my daily life. I do not necessarily even consciously seek to find the hidden in the, otherwise, transparent. When I watch a baseball game I really just intend to enjoy the game for the intrinsic pleasure of the game itself. But life-lessons present themselves to me wherever I am, in whatever I’m doing, and with whomever I happen to be with at the time. I can’t just turn away from those illuminations as if they were a second helping of banana cream pie. That would be foolish on my part. And, furthermore, it would be hypocritical of me to teach if I am not also willing to learn.
214. Mental Chronicles 5: 10/25/10
* Question: “What’s the difference between ‘here’ and ‘there’?
Answer: There really is no difference.
No matter where you go, or how long it takes to get there, once you arrive there you’ll have to say, “I’m here”.
Which is where you started out from in the first place.
Might as well enjoy the ride.
213. Speaking Of Profanity: 10/18/10
“God damn!”
I don’t really like using that exclamation, but
it’s the perfect marriage of the holy and the profane.
Religion, as you well know, seems to create such profound contentiousness between people. The use of religious terminology does the same. I continue to experience
radioactive fallout for something as innocuous as expressing an opinion with words that even imply a connection with religion, no matter how vague, or abstract. I find it kind of disconcerting, and disheartening, that we live in a world where people are not entitled to opinions, where people are knocked down for having one, or for the words they use, like a clay pigeon being blasted out of the sky with a shotgun.
I find it very disturbing, but hey, like it’s gonna keep me from discussing anything?
212. A Certain Lineage: 10/12/10
The forest is a good parallel for life.
There are some aspects of it that we can count on. There is a certain sameness. Generally speaking, the trees are rooted where they’ve always been, the topography is constant, and the rocks continue to lie partially buried like pimples on the surface of the earth. The trails remain in place, wearing into the ground, like a good pair of shoes, over time, conforms to your feet.
It’s what we can depend on, a few of the things that we can anticipate being there tomorrow. Tomorrow is never promised to anybody, but there’s a reasonable expectation that the landscape will be then as it is now, or at least very similar. The constancy, the reliability, the fidelity of nature, as it were, is something that gives security to us in an otherwise undependable, and unpredictable, world. It is, I think, part of the reason I’m so drawn to it.
211. Natureing: 10/6/10
I’ve coined a new word. Natureing.
There are activities associated with words that affect, and impact, our lives.
Meditating, praying, studying, working, exercising, etc. These words, and many others, engage the practitioner in the process that is known as ‘cause and effect’.
A ‘cause’ is something that makes something else happen.
An ‘effect’ is what happens as a result of the cause.
And, obviously, the ‘effect is why people participate in the cause.
I engage in ‘Natureing’ almost every day, and on many days, many times throughout the day. It is simply the process of engaging with nature. Some call it ‘communing’. I don’t really commune, that’s just not my style. But I do participate in, and with, nature. And I fully engage my sense of appreciation when I do.
210. Balance: 9/23/10
There is a natural balance in life. We see, and experience it, in nature. It is a very important aspect of life, an aspect that, if missing from our own lives, leaves us at the mercy of the emotional, psychological, and physical elements of its absence.
In one’s personal life nobody just happens upon balance, or finds it by accident. There is a process of ‘finding’ it, just as there was with my little grandson. And then there is the practice of ‘keeping’ it. Finding, and keeping. Both require some knowledge, some wisdom, and some experience. Experience produces knowledge. Knowledge, when blended with experience, generates wisdom. Wisdom enables us to measure intangibles. And it gives us the wherewithal to deal with them.
209. The Honesty Of Intention: 9/12/10
It may not really matter to you, but I want to say that I have always been someone whom others have been perfectly comfortable projecting their own ideologies on to, their own belief systems. So-called Conservatives have considered me to be either ‘one of them’, or ‘one of those liberals’, depending on what they’ve needed me to be to validate their own position.
And So-called Liberals have done the same, only in reverse on the issues. Truth is, I am neither of those. It’s not good to view people in those terms. I sometimes do, but I try not to. Like you, sometimes I get caught up in the anger, or the immediacy, of an issue, but I don’t subscribe to anybody else’s idea of what’s right, and what’s wrong. I know what’s right, and I know what’s wrong. And so do you. I don’t need an ideology to instruct me.
208. Let’s Stop Throwing Shit At The Wall: 9/7/10
People have disagreements on ‘moral’ issues. They always have. They also disagree on social issues, the need for, and manner of, addressing them, and even the necessity for solutions. People make social issues into moral issues, and they make moral issues into social issues. Maybe every moral issue is also a social issue, and every social issue a moral one, I don’t know. But perspectives do overlap, and it is seldom that part of an issue cannot be shared by both points of view. It is also seldom, however, that one position will allow room for the other. That’s a shame. We are all diminished by that disallowance.
Disagreement is no cause for alignment in totally separate camps, which end up throwing insults at one another like some incarcerated crazies might throw shit at the wall.
207. Relationships 2: 8/31/10
I know we’d all like to consider ourselves as independent of our parents, but whether we want to admit it or not, relationships are modeled by parents.
We grow up learning how to conduct relationships by watching how our parents conduct them. Children grow up to imitate, and perpetuate those behaviors. If we grow up in a healthy family, where honesty trumps deceit, where openness overrides secrecy, where courage conquers pretension, we are much better equipped to enter into adult relationships than if the opposite would have prevailed in the family.
If parents are open and honest with each other, as well as with their children, those children have a good start on having similar kinds of relationships as adults.
206. Relationships: 8/18/10
Relationships take effort, a lot of effort. They must be defined, and they must be negotiated, otherwise they tend to fold in on themselves like a parachute catching a downdraft. They can be an expansive element of one’s life, but can also become a dangerous inversion of one’s expectations. Relationships, to be successful, require that both parties play by the same set of rules. And if they don’t, it is only a matter of time before they implode.
205. The Tranquil Sky: 8/3/10
The tranquil sky, stretching wide across a lingering horizon, painted with the loving hand, and expertise, of one who knows what stimulates, and invigorates, the soul of a man such as myself. I do not suppose the Artist chose to paint it for my pleasure alone (although I’d like to think that) but for you as well. I can only hope that you are awake this morning to embrace it. The expanse that is my view from where I write creates, and enables, a similar expanse from inside me, from deep within the hidden recesses of my faith, and of my sometimes pain, extending outward now, opening my arms to the possibility of the unforeseen, the unexpected, and the mostly undeserved.
204. It’s Really Not That Important: 6/28/10
I used to think there are a lot of things in life that are important. Too many things, maybe. I used to think that it was important to determine what is important, and then to add those things to my priority list. But the list would keep growing, and there would always be something of priority waiting to be addressed. I guess it’s good to pay attention to things, but not necessarily to everything that might end up on the list. Anything, really, could find its way to the list, and then once it’s there it would become a priority, no matter how far down the list it might happen to be. After all, if it’s on the list it takes on the mantle of importance, and that makes it important whether it’s actually important or not.
203. Trails: 6/19/10
Over the past year my wife and I have spent considerable time cutting in walking trails through the forested land that we are fortunate enough to ‘own’ (as if the earth can actually be owned by someone). But the sections we worked were those that, by virtue of their natural flow, kind of designed themselves. We just had to follow their lead and do the clearing. Of course there was some decision making in the process because there were many junctures where the trail could have gone this way or that, or the other way even. Although most of the options appeared to be good, ultimately, we had to decide on the direction. When those trails were finished we could walk them, pleased with, and somewhat proud of, the outcome because it truly was a partnership with nature. Nature, in a sense, quietly guided our willing hands.
202. I Don’t Trust Happiness: 6/7/10
Unhappiness is something you can depend on. It will never leave you as long as you continue to embrace it. It will be your constant companion, through thick and thin, through brief moments of elation even. It will be waiting to comfort you as those occasional, but fleeting, feelings of happiness return you to its care. Unhappiness takes little effort, and it comes quite easily to those who seek the familiarity of its presence. It can be like a warm blanket, or an old friend. It can be shelter from the world, or from the wind. Unhappiness will follow you like a shadow, without invitation, and without argument or disagreement. It will cling to your soul like molasses.
201. Clearing Out The Clutter: 5/3/10
A man I know has recently been working around his property, clearing brush, trimming trees, cutting down the dying, the dead, and the unproductive, and opening space to provide himself with some breathing room and a better view.
I have been doing the same since becoming owner, and caretaker, of some beautiful acreage in the mountains. When property is neglected, left unattended, it becomes whatever it will become by virtue of its own untamed nature. However, in order to coexist comfortably with nature, one must be, undoubtedly, amenable to compromise. One must allow for the natural world to exist partially on its own terms, but require it to exist partially on the terms that he decides on for himself. To allow the full force of nature would prove to be overwhelming, and eventually threatening, to the sensibility and wellbeing of any individual. To succumb to the will of nature would not, could not, ever turn out for the better. But, conversely, to subjugate nature entirely to one’s own will would, ultimately, reduce a persons life to confinement in an over-controlled, finely manicured ‘natural’ prison of one’s own making. A gated community, if you will. A place where you pay other people to control the wild around you, to protect you from the natural world.
200. Number 2 Hundred: 5/18/10
I like that number. I like the way it looks, and I like the way it sounds. When I was younger, playing on different sports teams I always wanted to be Number 2. I never wanted to be ‘1’, or ‘#1’, or even ‘Number 1’. Being ‘Number 1’ would be way too much pressure. And it’s kind of a self-aggrandizing number anyway. But, actually, I wouldn’t mind being ‘Number Won’. That would be kind of cool. I like the implication of that.
Anyway, back to my point. I didn’t really want to be ‘2’, or ‘#2’ either. But I always wanted to be ‘Number 2’. I never could be. They don’t allow special numbers like that for guys like me. Maybe for LeBron James, if he wanted it, but not for me.
If I’d had to settle for ‘2’, or ‘#2’, I’d rather have been ‘two’, or ‘too’ even. Or better yet, ‘Also’. Being ‘Also’ would be awesome. ‘Also’ means ‘too’, which sounds the same as ‘two’, which actually is ‘2’.
Well, it gets complicated.
199. An Ode To Spring: 5/13/10
Here in North America Spring is rapidly approaching, there is an amorous arousal on the Continent, and with it comes the inclination, compulsion even, for humans to do what most humans do to ensure that we, as a species, continue to exist.
Friending on our Facebooks, and Tweeting on our Twitters.
198. Loving / Being Loved: 4/30/10
Loving is not necessarily always doing what somebody else would like, or even what they think might satisfy them. Sometimes it is being, for them, the voice of reason, the solid ground from which their soul can take root and grow.
Sometimes love is coming to the rescue.
And sometimes love is doing nothing at all.
In many respects it takes the love of others to enable our own ability to love. But it can also be said that loving enables ones ability to be loved.
It works both ways.
Personally, I think that when we cultivate loving, the love of others finds us.
It just finds us, usually unexpectedly,
but it finds us.
197. It’s Really More Simple Than It Seems: 4/15/10
Life is never easy, but there is a less complicated way to live, there is a general guide to live by, a means of keeping ones equilibrium in life. It is often the second choice of any given individual, but it is, ultimately, the best choice. It is a tried, true, and historically tested manner of being. It is ancient wisdom, and it is applicable in contemporary life as well. It is not complicated, and it is embraceable by all but the truly self-indulgent. It is for those wishing to live in harmony with consciousness, and for those simply wanting not to stray too far from what they know to be of value and importance. It is a principle that allows the pleasure, and the enjoyment of life, but holds at bay the temptations that call to us like sirens in an enveloping fog. It is a place where honesty trumps deception, and where kindness supercedes self-service. It is a place of self-denial by choice, rather than by imposition. It is where integrity resides, and self-importance falls away like dead skin.
196. What Are We Thinking? 4/11/10
You’ve probably been reading about the sexual abuse scandal involving U.S. swim coaches who have been molesting, groping, and secretly taping numerous young female swimmers around the country. Thirty-six coaches have been banned for life. Now I bet that really makes us feel good about ourselves! Not that they’re going to go coach somewhere else, or anything like that!!!
Question: If all the so-called ‘authorities’ are so motivated to prevent the devastation in these children’s lives, why do they not have the courage to make changes that actually work?
Answer: Oh, I don’t know, could it be that ‘harmless’ little Political Correctness (Personal Cowardice) gene I’m always talking about? Just wondering.
195. PoliTricks: 4/7/10
Don’t read this if idealism creates, and governs, your ideology. It’ll only make you mad.
Idealism used to be the social/political domain of Hollywood, thirteen year-old girls, and fifteen year-old boys. Unfortunately, it has now infected a disproportionate number of actual adults. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the pot we’ve been smoking like tobacco, or the pharmaceuticals we’ve been chewing like candy.
194. They Sense Us: 4/2/10
After receiving my Census survey, which contains questions that are none of the Governments friggin’ concern, is it any big surprise that the form is supposed to be returned to the “2010 Census Data CAPTURE Center”? What, do they want to know where to find me just in case I happen to disagree with their policies? They’ve asked for my name, and my phone number. My phone number? Why would they need to call me? Are they afraid that maybe I counted the number of persons living at my residence wrong? Or might they just want to chat? They’re not entitled to my name, or my phone number. I am entitled to anonymity. I, personally, am none of the Governments business.
193. There’s Something To Be Said: 3/23/10
It’s been said, “When you have nothing to say, it’s usually best to say nothing.” Most people, typically, do have something to say, but most people, also, will usually say nothing. Something is often better said than nothing being said because saying something can give someone else’s deafening silence some illuminating context. Are you following me? It can reveal the silence to be what it frequently is, insecurity, fear, or intimidation. The spoken also gives the silent an opportunity for its own expression, to move beyond its, otherwise, timid and invisible nature. It can give silence an opportunity to speak, or, if need be, to hunker down and embrace its own timidity. Some people can remain silent forever, and some people just need the expression of others to initiate their own. Saying nothing seemingly implies, albeit wrongly, that there is nothing to be said. That will sometimes be the case, but there is almost always something to be said.
192. Pride of the Irish: 1/17/10
They call it Saint Patricks day
but I can’t see where the man did me no good.
Who made him a saint
anyway?
Is that something like
an uncle?
Just because he wore a big hat,
carried a long staff,
was white, had a beard
and drove some weird snakes
outa town
don’t mean nothin’ where I live.
Sounds to me like
he must have been a maniac
or somethin’
Besides,
he’d prob’ly get arrested
if they caught him doin’ that
today.
191. Chica, the Dog: 3/13/10
Starting out, I have to say I recognize that listening to someone talk about their own dog is not much different from listening to a parent talking about their child, or even showing slides of the family vacation. If you’re not intimately acquainted with the object of affection, or if you weren’t there, you’re probably going to be bored with hearing about it. “My little Amber is the cutest, smartest, most unique child I’ve ever known. She’s only a year old, and she can already count to three.” Never mind that little Amber is actually the only child the parent has ever really known. But, it is almost impossible to separate those sentiments from the larger reality of who little Amber, or in this case, Chica, actually is. So, if you don’t want to hear about my dog this would be a good place to stop reading.
190. The Honesty Of Anger: 3/10/10
He is not an honest man, and I do not intend to entertain his disingenuousness throughout the future. I take to heart many of those valuable historical parables so many of us were raised with, and this one in particular.
“Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing.”
No matter how many times they might mention God, or their church.
If he were in trouble, or in need, yes, I would offer him assistance.
He is a fellow traveler on this planet, and our commission as humans is to love one another. But sometimes love requires that a situation be dealt with directly, that one not protect another’s fraudulent position. Sometimes love requires taking the more difficult stand. And yes, sometimes love requires the honesty of anger.
189. My Fathers Desk: 3/3/10
I have my fathers desk. He gave it to me when it became apparent that he would never be using it again. My dad has gotten very old. It’s an old desk too, an old school teachers desk; ironic, because my dad was never really a teacher. Didn’t have the patience for it. There is a lot of wear and tear on this desk. That’s one of the things I like about it. I also like that it was his desk. I don’t like new things very much. They lack depth and character. Old things always contain a lot of interesting assimilation. Assimilation is the process of becoming part of, or more like, something greater. This desk is greater than it was when it was made. It has a lot of living engrained in its finish, and in its wood.
188. Life Is A Three Act Play: 3/1/10
Life has a beginning, a middle, and an end. We tend to think of life as a one-act play, but actually, we’re born, we live, and we die. Those, I believe, are three separate acts. If we include the Beyond, there are four. We tend not to see the ‘born’ part as a segment of our life, nor do we see the ‘die’ part that way. We only see the ‘life’ part as significant to living. I see all three of these acts as separate and independent of each other, but fundamentally intertwined with one another, and equally significant as well.
187. I Have A Good Wife: 2/25/10
There’s a difference between being a good woman, and being a good wife. I have known many good women over the years who would not necessarily be very good wives. But, to be a good wife one has to first be a good woman, the two are very inter-related.
I’m not an expert on wives, or women, for that matter. But I am an expert on what applies to, and relates to, me. My wife certainly fits well within those parameters. And she is a good wife. Some women consider being described as ‘a good wife’ to be an insult. I suppose that’s because they, myopically, choose to relate to the description as the totality of what they are seen to be. But I don’t think anyone ever meant to describe their own wife as ‘only’ a good wife, and nothing else, at least not anybody you’d really care to know.
186. Avatar, The Movie: 2/22/10
I saw ‘Avatar’ yesterday. If I’m not mistaken, it took eight years to make, and cost about 250 million dollars, and sometime before I even get this blog posted, it will break the all-time record for dollars earned, breaking the record set by ‘Titanic’, which was also made by James Cameron. It’s been reported that many people leave the movie feeling dizzy, disoriented, and depressed. Although I understand why so many leave depressed, I just left angry. The movie’s feelings-based politics, and social ideology, were insulting to anybody with the courage to subjugate their feelings to the reality, and truth, of historical context.
185. I Wish Him All The Best: 2/19/10
I just finished watching the Tiger apology on TV.
I’m sure many of you saw it as well.
I have been critical of Tiger Woods. He has been a man that I have never respected because of his Diva, arrogant, egocentric behavior on the golf course. I have respected his dedication, and the hard work he devoted to his craft, but I never respected him as a person, or as a man.
Until Now.
184. Mental Chronicles 4: 2/18/10
As some of you know, I like to watch the auditions of American Idol. I stop watching when the competition gets to Hollywood and everybody starts pretending that they totally support their competition.
But I remember one young American Idol wannabe’s audition, who, before her song, stated that she thinks she ‘deserves to be’ the next American Idol because if she were chosen she thinks she’d make ‘a good role model’. She went on to say, “You know, I’d recycle, and I’d care about the people in Africa, and stuff like that.”
Huh! I was under the impression that I was watching American Idol,
not the Miss America pageant.
183. Thought Casserole: 2/13/10
I’ve probably never had an original thought.
But, most likely, I think of different things than you do.
And that makes my thoughts worth expressing. The same is true of yours.
You think of different things than me.
182. Internal Congestion: 2/10/10
Writing takes me out of myself. Out of my internal congestion, you might say.
Now, those of you who know me would probably agree that it’s a good thing for me to get out of myself. I wouldn’t say that I’m ‘into’ myself, per-se, it’s just that I do live ‘within’ myself. That would be a very comfortable place for some people to live, but not necessarily for me. Kind of scary in there sometimes, kind of confusing at other times. I might even say ‘exasperating’. But, nevertheless, writing takes me out of myself.
And that’s all I’m going to say about me.
181. Love: 1/26/08
I was watching a movie the other night. I would not call it a particularly good movie, in fact, I won’t even bother to mention the title because it is not really the point of these thoughts. However, there was a line in the film that got me thinking. I know, you’re probably wondering, “OK, what’s he thinking about now?” But here’s the deal. One of the characters was saying that he had heard from several Hospice workers he knew that, when on their deathbed, the two questions the dying seemed to ask themselves were, 1) “Have I ever loved anybody?” And 2) “Has anybody ever loved me?”
Interesting questions.
Interesting because they are the kind of questions that, I think, we would seem to take for granted. “Of course I’ve loved somebody, and of course somebody has loved me.” Seems like a no-brainer, the kinds of questions one could answer without really even having to think about it. But are they really?
If love is so prevalent, and so common in an individual, why is it that one of the two deathbed questions just happens to be “Have I ever loved anybody?”
180. Only For Today: 1/21/10
Snow covers the ground today like hope clothes the faith of pilgrims. Icicles hang low from eaves left frozen overnight. My warm breath rises in the morning chill like prayer seeking the mind of God, or His ear, to be more exact. Trees droop heavy with the weight of change, the sky having quietly dumped its own burden when it became too much for its weakening arms to hold. Some of that load now left clinging to Pine branches high above the ground, wishing, like the sky, for a little relief of their own.
179. Such Unimaginable Happenstance: 1/14/10
Pray for the people of Haiti, particularly for the children who lost their parents,
and the parents who lost their children.
And while you’re at it, give some thought to the misdirected importance we give the privileged in our own county. Tell me that, in Gods eyes, there is not a broken, wounded, misplaced, or suffering child in Haiti that is not equally, or more, important than the spoiled royalty we serve with our money and adoration. Tell me that Michael Jackson’s life, or Anna Nicole Smith’s, or Farrah Faucet’s, for that matter, was of greater importance than was the baby of a poverty stricken mother whose shantytown shack has fallen down in shambles around her, her child lost to the rubble of such unimaginable happenstance.
178. Dirty Little Secret: 1/13/10
I don’t normally write about my business dealings, or personal health issues, except maybe to illuminate a particular behavior, or to demonstrate some aspect or another of human nature. But I feel rather compelled to let you in on a situation I encountered yesterday in the course of attending to an illness I’ve been struggling with for the past two weeks. I’ve been laying low with a bronchial infection, which began as a mild cold, progressed to a persistent cough, and ultimately, became the bronchial infection that I ended up seeking treatment for. It’s a serious, but not life threatening condition, unless left untreated, in which case it could develop into pneumonia. I should have obtained a prescription of antibiotics earlier, but like many men do, I put it off until it became very apparent that I better do something about it.
177. Parking Meters: 1/10/10
I’ve been thinking about Parking Meters.
Don’t ask me why. I just think about what presents itself.
So, let me see if I have this right. In the City, the taxpayers pay for the construction of the streets, their maintenance and repair. They pay for the installation and maintenance of the parking meters. They pay the salaries of the parking police who are employed to catch them parked with expired meters. They pay to park there, then they pay the expired meter fines (taxes) that can range up to a couple of hundred dollars, depending on the location and time of day.
176. The Hole We’ve Been Digging For Ourselves: 1/8/10
The hole we’ve been digging for ourselves is the hole we’ll eventually bury ourselves in.
Our society has gradually become so dismissive of the dishonest, inappropriate and reckless actions of one another that we find ourselves slowly burying ourselves alive in our own behaviors. If it seems to you that things have gotten too far out of control, it’s only because things have gotten too far out of control. By ‘out of control’, I’m not speaking of being independent of the control of others; I’m referring to the alarming loss of self-control so evident in the lives, manners, and actions of so many, including our supposed leaders and ‘role models’. The younger generation is mimicking the behavior of the older generation who in turn are mimicking the behavior of the younger generation.
175. My Continuing New Years Revolutions, 2010: 1/1/10
This is a personal inventory of the New Years Revolutions I made for 2009.
I’ve graded myself to see where I stand. To my way of thinking, there’s no reason to make new revolutions as long as I can keep making excuses for not keeping
the ones that I’ve already made.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Blowing In The Wind
I saw a flag this morning. It was blowing in the wind.
It reminded me of people flapping their lips, unprovoked by anything other than their own need for validation, or maybe for their need to be reminded that they are, in fact, still alive.
Flags are typically prompted by a quiet breeze, a steady wind, or some kind of storm. People, at times, talk just because they’re afraid not to, because they’re uncomfortable with silence. The sound of their own voice somehow mitigates the emptiness, minimizes the discomfort, manages, and moderates the environment for them. I don’t begrudge them that. I only wish, at times, that they would choose their audience a little more carefully, and maybe their subject matter. I’m not a very good audience for incessant blather.
I know, some of you might feel like I do the same thing with my writing, but the difference is that you don’t need to read what I write. Those of you who choose to can shut it down at any time. But, far too often, social protocol requires that one listen to the sound of the flapping, whether it be solo, or part of a group.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about interactive social conversation, or even the exchange of information, I’m talking about people flapping their lips simply because they can, holding everybody else hostage to their indulgence. You know what I’m talking about. We’ve all been in those situations. We’ve even contributed to them.
A flag is content to be still, to not display its colors, or even its capability. It, in a sense, trusts what it is, and speaks only in response to the prodding of the elements. It does not flap to kill time, to trumpet itself, or even to keep its own company.
More flags, and less nervous chatter, would be nice.
It reminded me of people flapping their lips, unprovoked by anything other than their own need for validation, or maybe for their need to be reminded that they are, in fact, still alive.
Flags are typically prompted by a quiet breeze, a steady wind, or some kind of storm. People, at times, talk just because they’re afraid not to, because they’re uncomfortable with silence. The sound of their own voice somehow mitigates the emptiness, minimizes the discomfort, manages, and moderates the environment for them. I don’t begrudge them that. I only wish, at times, that they would choose their audience a little more carefully, and maybe their subject matter. I’m not a very good audience for incessant blather.
I know, some of you might feel like I do the same thing with my writing, but the difference is that you don’t need to read what I write. Those of you who choose to can shut it down at any time. But, far too often, social protocol requires that one listen to the sound of the flapping, whether it be solo, or part of a group.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about interactive social conversation, or even the exchange of information, I’m talking about people flapping their lips simply because they can, holding everybody else hostage to their indulgence. You know what I’m talking about. We’ve all been in those situations. We’ve even contributed to them.
A flag is content to be still, to not display its colors, or even its capability. It, in a sense, trusts what it is, and speaks only in response to the prodding of the elements. It does not flap to kill time, to trumpet itself, or even to keep its own company.
More flags, and less nervous chatter, would be nice.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
An Avenging Angel
The sky was ablaze this morning.
I was recovering from the lingering remnants of a bad dream.
It was a long night as I was visited by a once-faded memory.
The sky enabled my recovery, not in any conscious way,
but recovery, nevertheless,
like an avenging angel reaching out of the sky
to slay the inner demon.
Dreams happen.
Sometimes they’re pleasant, and sometimes they’re not.
I learn something about life, and about myself,
in my dreams.
Last night I was reminded that life, however it happens,
gets inside of us, and lives there.
It becomes the blood from which we draw
the remainder of our lives.
To the degree that we can manage our own filters,
we should.
Enough of life gets on, and in, us that is completely out of our control.
But it all stays with us.
Of that we can be sure.
There will not always be an avenging angel reaching out of the sky
to slay the inner demon.
I was recovering from the lingering remnants of a bad dream.
It was a long night as I was visited by a once-faded memory.
The sky enabled my recovery, not in any conscious way,
but recovery, nevertheless,
like an avenging angel reaching out of the sky
to slay the inner demon.
Dreams happen.
Sometimes they’re pleasant, and sometimes they’re not.
I learn something about life, and about myself,
in my dreams.
Last night I was reminded that life, however it happens,
gets inside of us, and lives there.
It becomes the blood from which we draw
the remainder of our lives.
To the degree that we can manage our own filters,
we should.
Enough of life gets on, and in, us that is completely out of our control.
But it all stays with us.
Of that we can be sure.
There will not always be an avenging angel reaching out of the sky
to slay the inner demon.
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