A new blog has been created for the goings on in the garden, sooooo, no more updates on that here. Check Out The New Blog!!!!
Big Brother forgive me, it's been 12 day since my last blog. (before that it was a month!) Since my last blog I have cursed the internet news several times and I have consorted with actual humans on several occasions and even conversed in person.............
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| Dirty and worn from walking the path |
Actual life, and death, has gotten between me and my virtual life. A recent passing of a human being that I dearly loved and respected, and the trip to try to see her before her passing took a bit of the stuffing out of me. It made sitting here and punching away at this keyboard seem a little bit empty. Maybe because the world is a bit emptier with out her in it. The world is a bit less with out her kind of persons in it and everyday there are fewer and fewer of them. It is for us to remain and make the most of what we have and to remember those that have come before us, knowing that they too faced a time when their elders were no longer among them.
There is a benefit to having a brain that has the qualities of a colander. I not only can't retain a lot of the information I read, but I don't have to worry about trying to give credit where it is due because I usually can't remember where I got the information. I can just make all statements with the preface that I have no original ideas and anything useful I come up with was gotten from someone else. Which is true, if you believe in a higher power than oneself, named or otherwise.
The other benefit of this type of mental capacity, or lack of, is that I tend to remember only the good parts, or the parts that are important to me. This has it's liabilities of course. I am always humbled when in the presence of people who can recall events, names, and places from history. Current studies are showing that the internet is not going to help my case at all and is causing many people to lose their recall abilities because access to information is so instantly available.
I have, since returning from the long trip across this country, almost all of it in silence, or at least quite, started once again to find joy in music and song. For sometime now I have only been interested in listening to talk radio, news and informational types of media. I felt that there was too much to learn about, to much going on, to be just listening to music for fun.
Death puts things in perspective. The loss of a loved one, and the confrontation with ones own mortality and the cycle that is and has seemingly always been, of life and death and birth and aging hasn't exactly trivialized the news of the world and the struggles that go on all over, but it has reminded me that man's life has always been such. I don't take this to mean that it is pointless to try to improve the state of man, not at all, but I do get the real value of joy in my life. Simple joy in waking up to the sound of birds, or the pleasure I get from singing along with the radio songs from my youth. Joy should not be overlooked or undervalued.
The desire to help others, to see joy in the faces of other people, especially people who have nothing to do with me has grown. I sometimes drive a vehicle that can make people smile, especially children and adults of a certain age. When I was a boy I got an ego boost from driving a car that made other guys look twice. It was egotistical, shallow and I outgrew it pretty quick. Now when I drive by in my yellow 29 yr. old VW van I see people who were just frowning, smile and stop to watch as I roll by. It works even better when I wear a tie dyed shirt. Their isn't much reason to puff out my chest in a car that looks like a shoe box on wheels and goes slower than some bicycles, but there is supreme pleasure in seeing other people break their serious, driven, stern character and just smile, even laugh.
When I think of my elders who are no longer here I almost always smile. I have little use for melancholy remembrances. They seem self indulgent. I remember with a deep sense of gratitude for having known them, for having loved them and for being able to carry with me the lessons they taught me.
I am, because of all those who came before me. I am, the culmination of the history of man, of life, of love. As part of the signature from a merchant that I have been doing business with I got sent this quote:
"It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought
or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death
brings no pleasure to the world." ~ Steinbeck
As a further I would add:
"so that the memory of our living brings joy to the world"
I think upon my elders with "An Attitude of Gratitude".
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