John Swinburn

This image popped up on my computer this morning as a reminder of a time several years past. Though the scene has changed since then, I remember it. My late wife and I were sitting at a window of a waterside restaurant. The screen covering the window’s dirty glass degrades the image, which would have been far more picturesque if taken without those obstacles. Nonetheless, I remember being struck by the reflections of the boats on perfectly still water. Embedded in this post, it may be impossible to see where the boats end and their reflections, beneath them, begin. But I remember feeling a sense of awe—that the water of the lake could be so incredibly still, as if the boats had been placed on a mirror that reflected the boats and the protective canopy above them.  A simple photograph, without even a single person in it, can bring memories flooding back, filling one’s head with emotions that run the gamut between longing and regret and everything in between.

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Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity.”

~ Lao Tzu ~

The results of medical tests over the last couple of days were all good. Tomorrow, I go in for my annual visit with the nurse associate of the surgeon who performed my lobectomy three-plus years ago. She will review the results of the CT scan, which will have been done earlier tomorrow morning, and will tell me all’s well. That’s my expectation. I would rather not drive to Little Rock at 6:30 tomorrow morning, but that’s the way the world works. I would rather spend tomorrow painting and otherwise making progress on the new house. Actually, that’s not true: I would rather not paint, etc., but that’s what it’s going to take to finish the project and ready the house for our occupancy. But work has been delayed, again, because of flaws in the flooring material. A representative from the distributor is scheduled to come have a look on Monday. The owner of the flooring store told me he will put his foot down; even though the representative claimed, after seeing photos of the material, that the flooring is not flawed, the owner insists he will prevail. I expressed my appreciation. And I told him that, if for any reason the distributor refuses to replace the flooring, we are prepared to reject it outright and pick another brand and “look” that will suit us just fine. I hope this process does not go on long. In the interim, a new shower in the master bathroom will be installed. The old shower was torn out yesterday (or the day before?). Eventually, the house will be nice. Eventually. And, one day, I will be considerably older than I am now, if the universe cooperates with my plan. I have been advised that I need to be “so Zen.” As in “soooooo” Zen. As in as cool and calm and unperturbed as a Zen Buddhist monk. I may get a vanity license plate made for my car: So-Zen. I wonder: would having such a plate on my car actually cajole me into accepting the realities of traffic madness and insane drivers as simply unavoidable facets of life on Earth? I’ll let you know, if I get those plates. Or, I should say, that plate. Arkansas provides just one license plate; it is affixed the rear of the car. I can’t decide whether that is a brilliant way to save resources or an imbecilic way to give drivers a fifty percent chance of avoiding identification on roadways.

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Once the renovation of the new house is complete and we have moved in, I expect to feel comfortable and rested. The place is nestled among the trees in a relatively empty area of the Village, with only other house on our tiny cul-de-sac street–at the far end. We will sit on our deck and will view the forest, with a glimpse of the occasional deer or fox or turkey or racoon or skunk or possum. That’s the plan.

Nature is the best medicine for serenity. Peace, calmness, stillness. It’s good for the heart.”

~ Karen Madewell ~

The plan for today, though, is to go paint. And I shall, before long.

I’ve somehow wandered into March, directly from December. How in Hell do I find myself in the third month of the year? I am relatively certain that, yesterday, the idea of the year 2022 was a distant absurdity. And now, here I am, two months in and counting. Time is rushing by faster than I can think. I must put on the brakes or it will get away from me. Time will travel into an unknowable future and take me with it. What awaits us in the next moment, or the one after that? The only way to reduce the speed of time is to savor every moment before it’s gone. To live in the here and now. To accept that tomorrow eventually will come, but until it is here it doesn’t matter. These simple solutions to the disappearance of time take mental discipline, emotional energy, and relentless practice. That is, they are not simple. But they are investments in happiness. The dividends they pay are elements that, together, define what it means to be content.

I know these things. Yet I fritter away moments with worry about moments that have yet to take place. We all engage in this wasteful habit, to one degree or another. Yet simply by acknowledging participation in our own discomfort, we take the first step toward frugality. That is, using our limited moments to generate the most beneficial experiences. Including, of course, moments of contemplation, reflection, and appreciation.

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Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.

~ Marie Curie ~

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I look through my books, the ones that remained after my late wife and I donated or sold so very many before our move from Dallas to Hot Springs Village. Even at pennies on the dollar (or even far less), we made several hundred dollars by selling books to Half-Price Books.  I did not keep track, but memory suggests to me that we reduced our library to one-eighth its original size. Even so, the books on the shelves in my study must number over 100; maybe more. Regardless, I need to get rid of even more: the ones I’ve read and enjoyed, but not enough to read again; the ones I want to read, but almost certainly will not (like War and Peace and books of equal size). There are so many books I want to have read, but do not have the patience to wade through. At any rate, those books will have to go.  And travel books. And so many more.

I love books. I am a bibliophile. Books allow me to escape reality for a while, insulating me from the unpleasant challenges of the world around me. And they are not only instruments of escape. They bring me ideas and visions and spur intentions in me that I otherwise would never have had. But I am a realist, as well. Books take up space.

Books are transforming from a visible, physical form—the expression of ideas captured in ink and paper—to impossibly small computer files. That reality leads to a question: is the new, electronic form that is replacing the old, physical form really a book? Or will a book always be a physical thing, ideas expressed on paper between two covers? The secondary definition of “book” online reads as follows: “a work of fiction or nonfiction in an electronic format.” So, that answers the question. Or does it? Have we simply ignored the underlying question? What, exactly, is a book? “A work of fiction or nonfiction?” Does that really define the objects we have learned to call “books?” Or do we need to rethink what constitutes a book? And do we need to a new term that describes the capture and distribution of ideas in electronic format?

I suppose my ultimate question, not entirely relevant at this moment in history, is this: will “books” (that is, the physical things with covers) as we know them today eventually wind up only in museums? Will libraries, which house thousands of volumes of old-style books, become unnecessary? I love libraries, too. I love their silence and the reverence they pay to traditional books. And the concepts that books represent, including the freedom to think and say whatever one wishes. But libraries, like books, require physical resources that may be better used in other applications.  I hate the idea. But I think I hate it because my romantic notion about books is based on a reverence for the physical “thing” I call a book.

If you compare the adoration of books with religion, you might see the quandary. Religions sometimes get caught up in their icons and idols; religious people sometimes require reminders not to worship idols but, instead, the “god” that inspires those idols. Books might be considered the idols of ideas; when we worship books, we mistakenly may be paying homage to clothing, rather than the body beneath it. I am just thinking. My thoughts may be in the fragile edge of an unstable cliff. So be it.

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The results of my ultrasound yesterday were, in a word, “unremarkable.” That’s what I like to hear or see. “Nothing to see here, folks, move along.” My girlfriend’s more involved procedure is today. I hope she gets the same results. Waiting for test results, even routine tests, can be illuminating. One considers (or may consider…as I do) the possibility that the results could deliver unsettling news. And when one considers that, one begins to imagine how life might change. And that possibility fuels an even greater appreciation and gratitude for the kind of life one is living at this very moment. Life is splendid, even with all its challenges and disappointments. Even with its sometimes nearly unbearable physical or emotional pain. Regardless of the sometimes seemingly endless, aching depression. Life is splendid. We can only hope for that to extend as close to forever as we get.

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He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.

~ Friedrich Nietzsche ~

I will ask my brothers and sister , who was I as a child and, later, as a teenager and, later still, a young adult? Was I always as emotionally fragile early on, as I was in my so-called “prime?” Were my emotions as delicate and fracturable as they are now that I am an old man? I learned, a few days ago, of a friend’s experience with COVID-19; he said it caused him to be highly emotional—easily becoming angry and crying with compassion in response to television commercials. The idea of commercials triggering tears is funny; except it is not funny. It suggests some sort of chemical imbalance in the brain may cause emotions that, otherwise, would be under a person’s control and not subject to random and unexpected display. I wonder whether my emotionality is the product of some sort of physiological aberration; a flaw in my brain that gives me less control over my emotions than most people have. I’ve always been more than a little embarrassed by my tendency to tear-up at the slightest emotional trigger; I’ve felt the shame of unwelcome hypersensitivity. And it occurs to me my embarrassment is a response to what I have always considered, subconsciously, a mental abnormality. So, in a nutshell, my reaction to my state of mind suggests discomfort with what may be akin to (and is) a mental illness. I would not be embarrassed to seek a diagnosis for a physical ailment; so, why would I feel embarrassment to consider seeking a diagnosis for an emotional flaw? That question is not mine alone; it was put to me directly by someone else.

It’s odd, though. While I am very uncomfortable to be the only person in the room with tears streaming down my cheeks, I simultaneously feel that my ability to feel extreme empathy and compassion is almost a gift. I think I would miss that ability, if it were to be “cured.” I just wish I could control the display of external evidence of that ability. Maybe I still have strands of the dreaded “macho” gene intertwined with my DNA. When I think THAT, I get angry with society for explicitly teaching males to control their emotions; to avoid crying at all costs. I get furious with a culture that intentionally curbs empathy and rewards indifference or hatred or emotionless reactions to circumstances that should shake us to our core. I could go on writing about my visceral reaction to what I consider this societally-engineered deviance; but I won’t. It’s pointless. Yet giving in to societal stupidity is the same as endorsing it. One should fight, hard, against mutant societal instructions, not give in to them. “Do not go gentle into that good night…” Maybe equating acquiescence to malignant social mores to death is a bit dramatic, but perhaps that’s exactly what is necessary to change the world. That, and a lot of energy. I’m lacking in that department at the moment.

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Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.

~ T. S. Eliot ~

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The installation of new flooring in our new house began yesterday, but stopped early on when some flaws in the flooring became apparent. The installer saw the same flaws, discovering that they were prevalent throughout samples from both pallets of the materials. So, today, I understand the company owner will come take a look. And, from my understanding of the situation, a representative of the flooring distributor will take a look, as well. Maybe today. Maybe later. I don’t know. I just know I want the floor to look perfect, whenever it is installed. So, we will wait.

Before the flooring fiasco began, a plumber capped the pipes and drains from the old jetted tub we had removed, as well. And he will return one day, after the floors are laid, to install some other plumbing-related items.

And during the flooring discovery, new flooring was being installed in my “old” house’s workshop area behind the garage. During that endeavor, the installers discovered that the water lines for both the utility sink and the toilet are the inflexible-pipe style that, with the new flooring, would be too short to reconnect. So, they removed the sink and toilet, but those items cannot be reinstalled until a plumber comes to make the proper adjustments with new water-supply lines. I’m getting far too used to spending money with every breath I take. One day, all this “housework” will be complete. Life will return to some semblance of normal. Freedom to move about the planet will be mine.

This morning, I go in for an ultrasound of my bladder; a follow-up to a kidney stone episode of several weeks ago. During that episode, I experienced a small-scale equivalent to a “dark night of the soul” that made me have serious thoughts of suicide. I am sure it was the cocktail of drugs I was given during and after the procedure to remove the stone was responsible for that terrifying experience: anesthesia and post-procedure pain-killers. I will assume all is well with my bladder until and unless the doctors say otherwise. I do not want another experience like I had, associated with the kidney stone removal.

And today my girlfriend begins the unpleasant process of preparing for a routine medical test/procedure that requires one to stay home all day and drink enormous volumes of liquid. Her procedure is tomorrow. I will serve as chauffer and advocate.

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I’ve always loved to write. I’ve always felt my writing has the potential of delivering profound ideas in beautiful language. But nothing I’ve written thus far has delivered on its promise. Although I probably have forgotten most of what I’ve written; so it’s possible there’s a gem hidden among the rubble I’ve left. I can hope for the relevance of the past; that’s probably the best chance for attainment. I think I have to hope because my writing seems to have weakened over time. It has become simple and stale and abysmally common. Perhaps that’s because I live a pretty damn common life. Write what you know, some self-professed experts have long said. I’ve never bought that, at least not entirely. Write what you dream; that would be a better admonishment.

Uninterrupted isolation. That is what I think I need to be able to write more meaningfully. A week or two or even more, cloistered in some hidden retreat in the woods or on a desolate coast. A place that will force me to empty my mind of the mundane and focus exclusively on the brilliantly obvious aspects of existence.

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Too much thought and not enough action. Overthinking things tends to lead to stagnation. Knowledge without understanding is an unworthy burden.

The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of making a mistake.

~ Meister Eckhart ~

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I must drink more water so I can have a full bladder for my ultrasound. They want me to need, desperately, to pee; but they want me to torture myself by avoiding that quite natural inclination to acquiesce to Mother Nature. Oh, well.

If you would take, you must first give, this is the beginning of intelligence.

~ Lao Tzu ~

Every moment is both beginning and end. Each instance of the smallest measure of time launches a new experience; at the same time another tiny measure of time comes to its conclusion and, along with it, the component of the experience it presented. It occurs to me that most people ignore those tiny fragments of Time—like seconds or minutes or hours or even days—in favor of Time’s larger assemblages. I assume that is because so many processes that enrich our lives—or that bedevil them—require longer segments of Time to come to fruition. But without those miniscule fragments of Time, the larger agglomeration of moments could never become the stuff of full experiences. Lacking those fleeting moments, memorable experiences would never happen.

A paragraph has a beginning and an end. In the same way, each word in a paragraph has a starting point and a conclusion. The experiences of our lives—and the experience of Life—is comparable. Our Lives are anthologies of experiences, comprising words and paragraphs and pages and chapters and books and book series…and even long series of books. Another way to compare Life to the components of simply living is this: Life is like the entire set of the Encyclopedia Britannica and the moments that make Life are like letters.

Now, with all of this convoluted philosophical background aside, I will say it more clearly: people tend to treat life as if only its “memorable moments” matter. Birth. Graduation. Marriage. Childbirth. Employment. Blah. Blah. Blah. If we could persuade ourselves to invest the same emotional energy in each moment that we invest in these so-called milestone events, our lives could be and most likely would be dramatically more joyous. Conversely, the sad, stressful, traumatic elements of our lives might be exponentially harder to experience: Death. Life-threatening Illness. Loss of Spouse. Divorce. Job Loss. Miscarriage. But wouldn’t an almost constant sense of awe and joy and deep, endless appreciation make those inevitable horrors moderately more tolerable?

My mind is meandering this morning. I am trying to attach ideas to experiences and I am attempting to think through a method of making my life, and the lives of all I touch, more valuable and generally better. That’s a tall order, of course. But if I were not alone in pursuing an absurdly big but enormously attractive goal, maybe its attainment would be far more likely. We’re all just letters in words, but we can be pages in the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Yesterday, as I stood next to my car, filling its tank with gas, I noticed a man at a nearby pump, also filling his tank with gas. A heavy breeze and very cool temperatures made me a bit uncomfortable, wearing only a sweatshirt. The man was wearing a coat that I think may have been a Carhartt brand (they have a certain “look”).  I commented to him, “That looks like the kind of coat you need on a day like today.” He took a moment before acknowledging my comment; he may not have realized I was speaking to him, as his back was toward me. Finally, he said, “Yeah, especially with a wind like this.” I nodded, and said “Nice coat.” And that was it. He finished filling his tank and he drove away. But I thought to myself that this brief and essentially meaningless interaction filled my mind with more value than had I spent those few moments simply staring into space. I had to exercise my brain enough to form thoughts, make words, direct those words to another person, and listen to and respond to the reply. For just a moment, I felt so grateful for just recognizing the incredible magic of that experience. Two old men, engaging about the warmth and comfort of a coat: meaningless but enormously representative of the vast majority of our moments. They mean nothing, but without them there can be no others. Therefore each moment is precious beyond measure. I wish I could find a way to ensure that I recognize that every instant.

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Yesterday morning, after Zoom church, and early afternoon, I scrubbed the floors in the space behind the garage in preparation for today’s flooring installation. After I scrubbed the floors, we took a drive to visit a friend who’s camping for a few days at a campground on Lake Ouachita, less than half an hour from here. We sat in her 30-foot RV (maybe it’s even bigger?), both its slide-outs fully open. It has plenty of room for her, her four dogs, and two guests (it could easily accommodate more). It was nice to sit and talk, with no obligation to “do” anything. Just engage. That’s so comfortable, so relaxing, so extremely comforting. I suppose that’s one of the reasons people like to go RVing. I’ve never been, so it’s only supposition, but that seems like one of the appeals. After setting up in an RV campground, there’s not much one has in the way of obligations: one does only what one WANTS to do, not what one must. Well, not all the time. With a view of the lake a short distance away, the shade of tall trees, and the quiet of a relatively sparsely-populated campground, she had a nice spot. Every time I get near an RV, I start thinking again about getting one and doing some traveling. But the paucity of money, among other things, keeps getting in the way. And the responsibility for upkeep and storage and the pre- and post-trip prep. But I could get used to that. Couldn’t I? I know this: I would want an RV I can drive, not a trailer to pull behind me. I am allergic to trailers. Unless they come with a professionally trained driver for the pulling vehicle, someone who is invisible but highly engaged with RV responsibilities at all times. I don’t think they sell such trailers. Isn’t it nice to mull over the possibility, though? If one has an active imagination, one can have anything his heart desires. In his head, anyway.

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My arthritic wrists, fingers, knees, elbows, hips, and ankles are annoying. But at least they work reasonably well. I should exercise them all more frequently, though. Exercise is a good thing, I’m told. I’ve always equated exercise with exorcism, though, so I’ve tended to stay away from it. I need to retrain my mind to live in the real world; in the here and now. But wouldn’t that negate the effect of an active imagination? These are hard questions with no easy answers. I’ll keep asking them, though, until the answers are both easy and make rational sense.

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I need more coffee. I got up very late this morning, right around 6, so I’m automatically cranky. When I stay in bed too long, I arise as a rather surly curmudgeon, whereas I get up feeling happy and generous and overflowing with goodwill and smiles when I get up at my regular, early times. Seriously. I’m far better if I get up at 4 than if I finally get out of bed at 6. Getting up late makes me feel like I’ve frittered away a significant portion of the day, a portion of the day I’ll never get back. A series of moments I’ll never experience in a state of consciousness. That, my friends, is cause for never-ending sadness and perpetual mourning.  That’s my nugget of truth for the day. That, and this: I really need more coffee.

A friend of mine is off in a few days on a vacation trip of a lifetime. If circumstances cooperate when she visits Norway, she will see the Northern Lights, visit the northern part of the country where she will experience the culture of the Sápmi—both the Sami people and the region once called Lapland—and, I hope, visit Oslo. For as long as I remember, I have wanted to visit Oslo and another town nearby, Drøbak, where “The Three Mermaid” statutes frolic on the edge of the Oslofjord. I feel an inexplicable kinship to Norway and the Norwegian people. One of my fictional characters, Kolbjørn Landvik, is an old Norwegian fisherman from days long ago, a crusty but gentle old man who communicates with me mystically over time and distance.

My sense of kinship is at odds with one of my few experiences with Norwegians. though. For example, I learned several years ago about a guy locally (who lives in a small town near Hot Springs) who is the epitome of stupidity: a Trump-loving, gun-toting, hillbilly bully who moved to the U.S. to escape the open-mindedness of Norway. I do not remember details; only that I was stunned to learn that a country with which I was so enamored could have produced such an offensive deviant. Yet, in spite of my disgust with a single lump of Norwegian stupidity, I maintain my deep appreciation for the country, its people, and it culture. A few years ago, my late wife and I drove to some friends’ post-wedding celebration near Madison, Wisconsin (our friends, both male, wanted to celebrate their union in their former home state, a place then disgraced by its rabidly homophobic governor, Scott Walker). There’s a town near Madison, Stoughton, that’s known for its Norwegian heritage. For example, it hosts a celebration of syttende mai (seventeenth of May), the day the constitution of Norway was signed. I felt like I had found Kolbjørn Landvik’s kinfolk when we visited that town during our trip to celebrate our friends’ marriage.

By the way, if I do not post to my blog for a few weeks, look for me in my friend’s suitcase. I may hiding in there. I just hope I survive the flights in the cargo hold.

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I firmly am of the belief that deep exposure to—and possibly at least brief immersion in—other cultures should be a requisite for recognition that one has reached adulthood. Failure to demonstrate an understanding that other cultures have intrinsic value should be grounds for treating a person as a perpetual child; a ward of the State, as it were, who is consigned to living as an impotent, non-voting, powerless slug permitted to do only what his elders (both temporally and intellectually) and betters tell him to do. Well, I may be overselling the idea. But I believe exposure to other cultures expands one’s understanding of both the value and the failings of one’s own. And it forces one to realize that acceptance of emotional mistakes like nationalism are akin to deliberately adopting debilitating mental illness as a lifestyle choice.

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Yesterday, as I was scrambling to remove everything from the floor of a “study/work area” behind my garage, I came across several certificates of recognition for pieces of writing I had submitted to writing contests. Some certificates were for “first place” and several were for various levels of “good but not quite good enough” recognition. I’ve long since stopped writing for submission to contests. All the contests to which I have submitted in the past were judged by people who were no more qualified to judge my writing than I am qualified to judge the quality of a surgeon’s first cut. Besides, “winning” a writing contest is, for me, hollow and essentially meaningless. In every case, I wrote in response to some sort of prompt, rather than submitting something I wrote because I wanted to write it. So, already my writing was manipulated to fit into a slot that I do not necessarily fit into. My writing does not fit into the square hole or the round hole; it slides around pits and canyons, looking for an escape route. At any rate, I found those certificates. And I wondered why, if they are so meaningless to me, I kept them? Good question. I suppose, in spite of my disdain for writing contests, I am sufficiently vain to bask in the artificial accolades heaped on me through my participation. But not vain enough to keep the certificates after discovering them. I did make a note of which ones I won and in which ones I “placed,” but then I placed the cheap certificates in the recycling bin like the scrap paper they were.

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Private thoughts. Secrets. Confidential information. Whatever they are, everyone has them. All of us know things we opt not to share with the world. Maybe we share with one person or a small, close-knit group of intimate friends, but we keep our broadcasts small and close by. The ones I find most intriguing, though, are the ones we share with no one else—the ones we may wish to hide from everyone and the ones we want to share with someone but dare not. We dare not because of the consequences of disclosure. But what could those consequences be? Abandonment. Rejection. Arrest and imprisonment. Ridicule. Wave after wave of embarrassment. Diminution of social position. Assignment of pariah status. Or nothing. Nothing at all. But fear of the possibilities keep us from revealing what we think or know. The concept intrigues me. It finds its way, in one form or another, to my fiction (when I write fiction, a rarity these days). One day, I may write extensively about those private thoughts that so control us. And I may write about what can happen when we open up about secrets. How the way the worlds sees a person can change in an instant. Imagine learning that your closest friend is a murderer. An adulterer. A true believer in the power of witchcraft. A Nazi. A member of the KKK. In love with your wife. Suspicions about the secrets those closest to you might have can torment you, if you let them. That’s another fascinating thing about private thoughts: the reaction of others to what they think may or may not be locked inside one’s head. A psychological thriller could be based entirely on one person’s real or imagined private thoughts and the way a close confidant might react to the idea…hmm, I feel a short story, or even a longer one, coming on.

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It’s approaching 7:30. I’ve been up for almost two and a half hours. Back to my old reliable habits.  I think it’s just about time for breakfast.

Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there.

~ Eric Hoffer ~

I have had limited exposure to Eric Hoffer’s work, but lately I’ve repeatedly encountered references to it. The quote above resonates with me; it acknowledges something I’ve always known but could not quite articulate. I want to read some of his work, including the book, True Believers: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements. Another Hoffer quote that is especially thought-provoking to me is this one: “A mass movement attracts and holds a following not because it can satisfy the desire for self-advancement, but because it can satisfy the passion for self-renunciation.” People join cults, for example, because they feel worthless; they claim to seek radical social change, but in fact their real target is self-replacement. Perhaps Hoffer’s philosophical explorations might reveal what those same people do if they choose not to join cults; if, instead, they reject such identity-erasing attachments. Perhaps they withdraw into themselves.  I’ve read several short extracts of Hoffer’s philosophical writing. They appeal to me in part because I agree with them. That’s not the way to learn—one learns by exploring ideas outside his own beliefs—but there’s some comfort to be gained from affirmation that one’s perspectives are shared by someone as widely regarded and respected as Hoffer.

I might challenge Hoffer’s statement about self-renunciation. Rather than a passion for self-renunciation, perhaps it’s a matter of seeking renewal or replacement or exchange: I want to be someone else…someone who might support some sort of radical social change…so I will support this movement that promises the opportunity to exchange the person I am today for the person I might become tomorrow.

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I was in bed for seven hours last night. I suppose I slept most of that time, but it was a very restless sleep, interrupted several times because I felt either cold or hot or because I was sleeping the “wrong way” on my shoulder. Or because I had to get up to pee. Each time, I had a bit of a tough time getting back to sleep. But eventually I did. I had to force myself to stay in bed when I woke at 4. I went back to sleep and finally got up at 5. Sometimes, I wish I could either sleep all the time or not at all. “All the time” is growing increasingly attractive. Sleep tends to allow a person to leave those nagging aspects of real life wallowing in the gutter.

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I cooked a rib-eye roast last night, a very expensive gift to ourselves, thanks to a visit to Costco back in December. Paired with a fiery horseradish sauce, some wedges of tomatoes, steamed zucchini topped with Greek dressing, and San Francisco sourdough bread (and a little wine), it was a very nice meal. But far too rich to eat frequently. Though I could probably figure out a way to tolerate it.

We would have made a GreenChef meal, but the free package for three meals we should have received Thursday came on Friday. Everything looked fine, except for the proteins: warm chicken, warm salmon, and warm shrimp. We opted to ask for a re-do. We’ll get another try in mid-March. The first GreenChef meal we had, courtesy of a friend (who also gave us a coupon good for three free meals), was outstanding. Quick and easy and healthy. That’s the habit I/we need to get into.

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Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all others.

~ Marcus Tullius Cicero ~

I am having an incredibly hard time reconciling my deep gratitude for my life as it is with my desire to change it in fundamental ways. It’s as if I were one person being torn into two distinct and quite different pieces. This conflict requires much, much more thought. It is in such circumstances that introspection is the most valuable and potentially the most dangerous.

I spend many hours here in my study, deep in the middle of the night, drenched in thought and illuminated only by a lamp that intrudes on darkness. This early morning solitude, wherein with my fingers I engage in make-believe conversations with hypothetical raconteurs and with myself, is both salvation and destruction. My time alone, pretending to be immersed in meaningful conversations with imaginary readers, keeps me moderately sane. Simultaneously, it normalizes isolation. It makes the deviance of intense introspection seem natural. It can transform loneliness into its own curative elixir, albeit one potentially tainted with poison.

There was a time when I welcomed being awake in the wee hours as an opportunity to explore ideas that might lend interest to my fiction writing. These days, writing fiction is not as entrancing as it once was. Consequently, I do not do as much research as I once did. I remember one night, a few years ago, when I encountered information that I realized could be extremely valuable to me for a piece of crime fiction. The information had to do with how long a drug used to render a person unconscious could be detected in a victim’s body after it was administered. Normal blood and urine tests could detect this particular drug (whatever it is…I do not recall) for only a few hours. But the drug could be detected in a victim’s hair for up to four weeks after it is administered. That is the sort of thing that kept me up in days past. These days, fuel for writing fiction is not responsible for waking me or for keeping me awake. These days, it’s introspective mining; thinking that thinks about thinking, always inward, ever deeper. More and more distant from the surface. Closer and closer to the core.

Tonight—this morning, actually—I woke just after 2:30. Of course, I slept long before “bedtime,” so I am getting sleep, just not entirely during “normal” hours. When I got up, I felt like going for a drive. If the streets weren’t slick with black ice, I might have left an explanatory note ( just in case my girlfriend were to wake to find me absent) and wandered off in search for an all-night diner. My late wife and I did that on rare occasions in years past. When we lived in Dallas, there were times that we both would find ourselves awake and hungry at 3 in the morning. More than once we joined the ranks of insomniacs at a Waffle House or a little diner I think was called Jack’s.  There’s something appealing to me about rubbing elbows with night-owls, though I’ve never been one. Not really. I mean, I never closed bars. When I was awake in the wee hours, it usually was after I’d been asleep for several hours.  This morning, I wish I could safely go out and find a 24-hour diner, just to experience that strange sense of camaraderie with other people for whom, for whatever reason, the solitude of the night feels like a soulmate.

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Here I sit, musing about my own psyche. In Ukraine, where it’s eight hours ahead of the time it is here, people do not have the luxury of musing about their psyches. They are worried about their lives and the lives of their friends and families and fellow Ukrainians as brutal Russian attacks continue. Someone identified by The Independent as a “senior western intelligence official” has said “Kiev could fall to Russians within hours as Ukraine air defences eliminated.” When I consider what the people of Ukraine are experiencing at this hour, my concerns seem so utterly petty and meaningless. In place of my anxiety or sadness or depression or whatever it is, a growing sense of rage is emerging. The idea that a dictatorial world leader could personally launch an unprovoked war on another nation, shredding the emotions of millions of innocent civilians and putting their lives in mortal danger is stunning. Should assassination of such leaders be legal? Should assassination of such monsters be a moral imperative? I would like to think that anyone responsible for initiating a war should rightfully be afraid that he or she will be the inescapable target of elimination.

You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.

~ Jeannette Rankin ~

Many Russians are enraged by Putin’s actions. And they are making their anger known through protests. Russian authorities, though, are ready to quash those protests. According to an article posted just an hour and a half ago on the NPR website, “Some 1,745 people in 54 Russian cities were detained, at least 957 of them in Moscow,” in response to those protests.

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I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.

~ Dwight D. Eisenhower ~

Like most Americans, I am not intimately familiar with the political landscape in and around the Ukraine. But I now will become more attuned to what is happening there because Russia has launched a full-scale invasion of the country. My obligation, though, is not simply to accept this administration’s explanations about the genesis of the current state of affairs. Nor should I buy into the predictably partisan response. Neither should I accept Russia’s defense of its rights or obligations to take control of the country. My obligation is what it was before the invasion: to examine information from all angles and to make my own decision. There may be some truth, for example, in Putin’s assertion that Ukrainian separatists deserved to have been recognized long ago. It is possible Ukraine simply held onto power over certain regions because the thirst for power overrode the belief in giving citizens the right to self-governance. It’s also possible that the Ukrainian separatists were simply Russian “plants,” intended to create the appearance of widespread support for the return of parts of the Ukraine to Russia.

Just as invasion is the true and tried weapon in the hands of capital against the class struggle, so on the other hand the fearless pursuit of the class struggle has always proven the most effective preventative of foreign invasions.

~ Karl Liebknecht ~

Put simply, I will not accept information spoon-fed to me by any government, nor any media that’s unwilling to openly question the veracity of information provided by any officials. I love the concept of government under the umbrella of self-governance. I am deeply skeptical, though, of “government officials;” their motives often are purely partisan. Their motives have nothing whatsoever to do with self-governance; but only their hunger for power.

Who knows how Russia’s invasion will impact our daily lives? Media reports suggest gas prices will skyrocket.  The stock market already has reacted with a sharp shiver. Will housing prices, recently so high, plummet? Will the cost of products rise dramatically as either a direct or indirect response to the cost of goods and the cost of transportation? I wish I knew the answer. And I wish I could take my long-sought trip to New Mexico, to that little adobe hideaway; my imaginary oasis that might protect me from a perpetually mad world.

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The process of finishing our house—painting the walls, having new flooring installed, renovating the master bath, having most of the doors adjusted, installing new plumbing fixtures, getting those final touches regarding lighting completed—still seems months away. I signed a $1600 “change order” yesterday, giving the flooring contractor the go-ahead to tear out the jet tub, and cap off the related plumbing. The costs of tearing out and replacing the shower will be in addition to that. The ice and snow and freezing rain yesterday and today have delayed the process another two days. Weekends are wasted, except for painting. I feel like I’m frittering away time as if I expect to have all of it I could ever want. At my age, that attitude could be fatal. I try to acknowledge the briefness of life and to behave accordingly. I try to appreciate every moment and recognize the next one may not be mine to experience.

And I pose these questions to myself: Are the time and money I spend on a new place to spend my time and store my possessions worth the return on investment? Or am I spending a limited store of time on ephemeral circumstances with questionable value? As much as I’d like the answer to those questions, only time will respond, and only on its own terms.

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The New York Times called Oriana Fallaci, “a dissecting interviewer of the powerful and an iconoclastic journalist.” Fallaci was born and died in Florence, Italy. Famous for her coverage of war and revolution (she was a partisan during World War II), she was well-known “long, aggressive and revealing interviews” with world leaders. Until I spent just a little time reading a bit about Fallaci’s life, I knew very little of her. I knew the name and that she had been a global journalist, but little else. When I read a little about her recently, I learned that she became increasingly well-known through several provocative and controversial articles. Her outspoken criticism of Islam earned her both praise and condemnation. Her engagement with the Ayatollah Khomeini, regarding the obligation for women to wear a head covering called a chador, during her interview of him in 1979 got worldwide attention. Here is a translation of the exchange, as reported in the Corriere della Sera:

Fallaci: I still have to ask you a lot of things. About the “chador,” for example, which I was obliged to wear to come and interview you, and which you impose on Iranian women…. I am not only referring to the dress, but to what it represents, I mean the apartheid Iranian women have been forced into after the revolution. They cannot study at the university with men, they cannot work with men, they cannot swim in the sea or in a swimming-pool with men. They have to do everything separately, wearing their “chador”. By the way, how can you swim wearing a “chador”?

Khomeini: None of this concerns you, our customs do not concern you. If you don’t like the Islamic dress, you are not obliged to wear it, since it is for young women and respectable ladies.

Fallaci: This is very kind of you, Imam, since you tell me that, I’m going to immediately rid myself of this stupid medieval rag. There!

Whether one agrees with her position or thinks she should have given more respect for a culture in which she was a guest, it is hard not to respect her for her assertiveness. I respect her for her dogged determination to get at the facts when reporting on world events. But a journalist like her, one with obvious biases, makes one a touch more conservative in believing everything journalists report. When they have an obvious bias (like her bias against Islam), one has to question whether reporting is filtered through an image-altering lens.

So, one has to respond to the following assertion with both curiosity and skepticism:

Europe is no longer Europe, it is Eurabia, a colony of Islam, where the Islamic invasion does not proceed only in a physical sense, but also in a mental and cultural sense.

~ Oriana Fallaci ~

An attack against a religion seems so awkward and fundamentally wrong…until one looks inward to the United States and sees the infiltration of Christian dogma into government and the education system. How can rational people NOT attack a religious sect whose core intent it to inject fundamentalism into every aspect of our lives? Or is my perspective jaundiced because of my innate skepticism about religion in general?

I like—but have some significant issues with—another of Fallaci’s pronouncements:

We must take positions. Our weakness in the West is born of the fact of so-called ‘objectivity.’ Objectivity does not exist – it cannot exist!… The word is a hypocrisy which is sustained by the lie that the truth stays in the middle. No, sir: Sometimes truth stays on one side only.

~ Oriana Fallaci ~

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I do not enjoy arguing. I do not enjoy debate…unless it results in a shift in my perspective on any given matter. “Knowing” is better than “believing,” from my point of view. Getting the facts and interpreting them as clearly and as cleanly as possible is far preferable to unquestioningly accepting information given to me. Clearly, I am opinionated. I believe very strongly in my perspective until someone shows me or I otherwise come upon information that changes my mind. Unlike many people (but probably like many others), I am not married to my beliefs. I readily can change my position on a matter when presented with facts or perspectives that successfully challenge that position.

Yesterday, my girlfriend and I had a conversation about the Supreme Court’s agreement to hear a case in which a website designer asserts her right to turn down website commissions for same-sex couples.  Not long ago, I would have said the website designer should be required to provide that service, regardless of a client’s sexual preferences. Now, though, I think the designer should not be forced to take that business. But I think the designer’s bigotry should be broadcast far and wide. And I think the right to be a bigot should also extend to the other end of the social/political spectrum: I should have the right to refuse to do business with right-wing Republicans because their beliefs or actions conflict with my moral code.

My girlfriend argued that the government should protect people against the kind of bigotry the web designer’s assertion illustrates. She suggested that incorporating my position into public policy could lead to businesses expressing an unwillingness to serve Blacks or other groups who are different in some way. I agree that freedoms, even the freedom to be stupid and unfriendly, should have some limits. But the fine line between “obnoxious but permissible” and “obnoxiously hurtful and prohibited” can be very hard to define. And it changes, depending on a society’s evolution.

There should be more rational, unemotional conversations about delicate issues. Those conversations could lead to an economically unproductive world peace, though. Then, where would we be?

Needless to say, we did not reach unwavering agreement on the bigoted web designer. I say give her the rope to hang herself. My girlfriend suggests the prohibition of refusing to do business with someone because a person’s beliefs or actions are somehow objectionable is objectionable of its own accord. And I see that. But I don’t see government intervention as the cure. I view economic strangulation as the cure. Tell enough people about a business owner’s bigotry and eventually the business will fold. “Or grow much stronger,” my girlfriend might say.

I say I do not arguing, then go on to express appreciation for arguments. Again, it’s not the conflict that is attractive to me, it’s the illumination…the increase in knowledge or the decrease in ignorance.  Depending on one’s perpective.

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I enjoy conversations that may not yield certainty about an issue but that provide significantly more illumination on a matter. A friend and I used to have such one-on-one conversations on occasion—sitting out on the deck or at the dining table, we would drink wine and talk about weighty matters of humankind—but lately our conversations have been less philosophical and more about pragmatic or practical issues. I’d like to spend some time with her, exclusively, and allow the natural flow of conversation to lead to those philosophical matters. I miss that with her.

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I’ve written far more this morning than I should have done, if I want anyone to read the entire thing. My reasons for writing do not necessarily stand on a desire for being read; rather, they stand on having said what was on my mind. I’ve had a lot on my mind these last three hours or so. So I document them in one way or another. I fashion a blog post out of scraps of thought that zip in and out of my consciousness.

I do think of specific people when I write. It depends on the topic. The reader who reads these words—if that reader knows me personally—can be certain I think about her or him when I’m writing. Every person I know (especially those I like) contributes to my writing in ways unique to each individual. For example, when writing about issues involving the climate or the environment or the impact of co-housing on of a few friends who are deeply interested in environmental issues. I think about a specific friend when I write about being extremely sensitive and emotional. And I think about specific people when I write about different ways of demonstrating assertiveness.

Right now, I think I should stop writing. It’s 6:00 on the dot and I’m ready for breakfast of some kind. Even if I have to eat alone at this early hour.

Once again, sleeplessness won over rest. I’ve been awake now for an hour, having gotten up just before 3:30. The thoughts running through my mind had nothing to do with the stresses of house renovations. Rather, my thoughts focused on far darker matters. I spent the better part of the hour expressing, in writing, my impenetrable hopelessness about humankind. Finally, though, I stopped writing because it was just too depressing to think those thoughts.  I saved the rather lengthy diatribe, though, in case I need one day to explain the depths of my occasional plunge into the blackest of black holes. If I were to post what I wrote, someone encountering my words probably would think me suicidal and/or in the mood to arrange for the simultaneous detonation of nuclear devices worldwide.

So, instead, I explained in the first paragraph of this post what I did for the first hour of this morning’s insomnia—plunged into depression much deeper than my usual toe-in-the-water immersion. But I’m out now, still drying myself off with a dank towel. I know the cure; but the universe seems unwilling to eliminate COVID and Putin and Trumpism and famine and poverty and virulent greed and a thousand other triggers, so I will have to satisfy myself with periodic doses of alcohol and medical marijuana and entertainment that gets my mind off the real world long enough to allow me to breathe a little.

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Life’s…a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

~ William Shakespeare ~

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When I got up this morning, I opted to wait to take my regular morning pills because I really should take them around the same time every day…which is somewhere between 5 and 6. I forgot to take them yesterday and, if I don’t do something soon about pausing this writing frenzy and taking them, I might forget them again. I also opted, when I got up, to refrain from putting on a sweatshirt, thinking a t-shirt would be adequate. But now I feel cold. I wish I had a sweatshirt on. But I’m too wrapped up in writing and thinking and whatever else is going on in my mind to bother. Putting on a sweatshirt so I can feel more comfortable seems like a pointless exercise for some reason. Ditto the taking of pills that, as far as I can tell, have no effect on me, except to require me to transfer money out of my bank account into the accounts of pharmaceutical giants and their obscenely rich executives. My skepticism is clawing its way out of my pollyannaish outlook.

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…it’s no good worrying about tomorrow. It probably won’t come.

~ J R R Tolkien ~

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This morning, my sister-in-law is coming over to see if she wants any of my late wife’s jewelry. I am not sure what I will do with what remains, but I feel pretty confident I will not discard it or give it away. I may incorporate it, later, into art. Right now, I just cannot imagine letting go of it. The idea of holding onto something that belonged to a loved one who died is fundamentally irrational, but that realization does not stop me from being irrational. Though my sister-in-law was good enough to sort through my wife’s clothes so I did not have to, I found it impossible to let go of some of the caps and shirts my wife used to wear. I still do not know what I might ever do with them, but I cannot bring myself to part with them. I wish I could overcome my irrational attachment to such things. It’s possible that having them in the house is simply prolonging my grief; but I think getting rid of them might send me over the edge. It is not that I am thinking of my late wife that is making me feel so intensely emotional this morning; I think it’s just the opposite. Because I feel so raw and emotional, that may trigger me to think of her. Hell, I do not know what I’m saying. I am just spouting hypotheses for lack of anything better to do.

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The flooring/remodeling guy is coming by this morning to discuss options for both the bathroom in the new house and an inexpensive upgrade to the “workshop” area behind the garage in this one. It’s not a workshop, really. It’s more like an upscale hobby area, complete with its own HVAC system. It’s only about 160 square feet, but it has its own half-bath and two separate areas with lots of cabinets and work surfaces.  I am SO looking forward to getting the new house ready to move into and the old one ready to sell. I want this process to be over. I’m tired of it. I want to be rid of the need to be home every day. I want to be able to get away from everything for a day or a week at a time without having to devote so damn much time to planning it out. As it is now, I don’t feel like I can leave for even a day without absurd amounts of planning and preparation. That’s part of the reason I feel so attached to concepts of minimalism. I remember how fervently attracted I was, when I was younger, to the idea of becoming an ascetic. I wonder what the hell happened to that idealistic kid? He grew old and lazy and spoiled. That’s what happened.

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It’s too damn cold to be wearing a t-shirt instead of  a sweatshirt and to be wearing flip-flops instead of lined slippers. I will give in to my discomfort. I will try to find comfort in clothing.

Finally, I stayed in bed until 6 this morning, after getting to sleep last night after 11. That’s an abnormally long stretch of sleep for me…though it wasn’t all sleep. Sometime during the wee hours, an intensely loud, grating screech from the NOAA weather radio alert jarred me awake. The automated voice announced a severe thunderstorm warning for a long list of Arkansas counties, including at least parts of Garland. Inasmuch as there was little I could do to deter a severe thunderstorm from making its way to the skies above where I live, I drifted back to sleep. Then, a couple of hours ago, a series of bone-jarring cracks of thunder woke me from a dream; in an instant, more thunder-claps erased my memory of the dream. Between the rolling growls of thunder that followed the loud “bangs” (that I assume coincided with lightning strikes), I could hear rain pounding on the roof and the windows, as if driven by high winds. All this calamitous noise made sleep, for me, impossible. Besides, it was 6 in the morning, a good two plus hours later than I’ve been waking in the recent past. I felt like I’d lost a significant portion of the day. And I had. Usually, by then, I would have been deep into my daily ritual of writing. I had to get up, if for no other reason than to make up for lost time.

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Encountering unexpected delays and expenses in getting the new house ready for occupancy is taking its toll on my peace of mind. The unpleasant surprises arising from learning how much work we need to do on our house just keep coming. I feel like I am under constant mental bombardment. My psyche is constantly battered by invisible but brutally powerful cudgels.  This mental environment is tearing into my serenity like a vicious junk yard dog tears into intruders.

I understand, of course, that I should not allow external event to cause me to worry. If I can’t change circumstances, I have no justification to worry. I do not need justification. I cannot simply sidestep unpleasant circumstances roll off my back. I can try, of course, and periodic meditation helps, but the frequency and significance of new “stuff” is maddening. I wrote a few days ago about wanting to get in my car and just drive and drive. I wanted to get to my desolate, isolated adobe house in New Mexico and contemplate life. I still want that. Only more. But I don’t necessarily want to contemplate life. I just want to relax. The little adobe house needs to have a hot tub on a deck out back. The deck should have a comfortable chair for me. And I’ll need wine. And perhaps some gin and tonic. Food. Yes, I’ll need food. That should be adequate.

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The ache of loneliness fills our hearts, and the mind covers it with fear. Loneliness, that deep isolation, is the dark shadow of our life.

~ J. Krishnamurti ~

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Today, I will have my second session with a hair stylist/barber who cuts the hair of a large number of members of my church, mostly women. But he cuts men’s hair, too, and I was ready last time to see if someone new to my head could improve my appearance with a haircut. Unfortunately, I looked just the same. But instead of sitting in a crowded barber shop listening to customers and barbers talk about sports and hunting and liberals who cause the impending destruction of western civilization, I sat in a room with only one other person—the guy who cut my hair. Unlike my normal haircut experience, I could actually engage in conversation with the guy cutting my hair. We knew many of the same people. He inquired about whether my girlfriend had sold her house. Etc. I am not sure whether the haircut was better than my “usual” haircuts by random barbers; but I liked my hair better than usual. So, I scheduled another appointment for five weeks later: today.  In the past, I’ve tended to wait much longer between haircuts; I delayed them because I found the experience at least modestly unpleasant. Even though the cuts cost more, I think I’ll get my hair cut more frequently. I only wish they would substantially improve my appearance.

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If isolation tempers the strong, it is the stumbling-block of the uncertain.

~ Paul Cezanne ~

Each of us views the world through lenses exclusive to us. The surface of the lenses are polished with the fine grit of our unique experiences. The materials from which the lenses are made vary; some are made of clear glass, others of natural materials whose crystalline structures behave like prisms or microscopes. Still others are made of synthetic polymers. The sources of the materials both distorts and clarifies the physical images we see and the way we interpret our visions.

When I seek isolation, some will see that as a desire to run away. Others will see it as a wish for quiet, replenishing solitude. Others will be blind to what I desire because my desire has no bearing on their happiness or, for that matter, their experience of life on Earth.

Some days, the experience I seek might be found in drinking a cup of coffee in the presence of someone interesting in discussing life and experience and meaning. Other days, I want lone experiences that answer questions about who I am or put me to a test of endurance. Still other days I might seek simple comfort, either alone or with someone who matters deeply to me.

Depending on the day and the hour, I see the world through different lenses, each unique to me. Like everyone, I am a million people in one body. I am both at ease with those people and at odds with them. I could devote my life to exploring how to eliminate the battles that take place between them, when the lenses become cloudy and scratched.

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That’s all for now. I must shower, shave, and prepare for the day.

Strip away the chain fast food joints, the used car dealerships, and wave after wave after wave of hideous billboards promoting the poverty of mindless consumerism.

If there’s anything left, it’s worth a look. Because what is left is the soul of a place. The tavern where locals gather to exchange stories offers a safe spot to bask in the casual comfort afforded by members of their tribe. The library, which often is simply a tavern with books, is sometimes where the literati and artists gather between drinks. And the places where tradespeople congregate to talk shop; those places grease the wheels of critical elements of community. Sometimes—often—the tavern serves this purpose; it does double duty. The old barbershop used to be the center of communication, but that has changed. Everything has changed, in fact. The places that defined the soul of a community have, in many respects, withered. They may still exist, but their days are numbered. An artificial web of slick magazines, colorful flashing billboards, and mindless trend-followers intent on proving they are on the cutting edge have replaced much of what once constituted the unique character of a place.

I’ve written about “The Third Place” on this blog many times. Ray Oldenburg—an urban sociologist who wrote the book The Great Good Place—described the first place as the home and the second place as the workplace; the third place is represented by anchors of community life that facilitate comfortable, fulfilling, and creative interactions. Bars, libraries, churches, parks, bookstores, barber shops—those are among the locations that tend to evolve into “third places.” Oldenburg coined the term “the third place;” he was the first to attach a name to the concept and to argue for its pivotal role in society at large. I have enormous regard for Oldenburg.

In years past, I’ve written about how intensely I feel about the need to deliberately create and cultivate “third places.” And, of course, I am not alone. Plenty of coffee shops and bars have adopted “third place” in their names, in the hopes of becoming community magnets toward which people gravitate for connections. They are places where people feel safe. They are places where people feel like they belong. Places where they contribute to that sense of well-being and safety.

Until COVID-19 slammed into our world, my church had become something of my third place. But I am no longer comfortable interacting with large numbers of people who interact with large numbers of other people. So that third place has in a  sense disappeared. The church is still there and I’m still very much a part of it, but it’s no longer the safe haven where I can get away from the rest of the world and feel comfortable about it and the company I keep.

Third places represent the soul of a community. Collectively, they are woven into the social fabric that defines what the community is. Is the community welcoming, or it is insular and suspicious of outsiders? Does the community stitch together people of different backgrounds, colors, beliefs, and interests…or is it two-dimensional, dull and conforming?

If, as I suggested above, the “third places” that define the soul of a community are disappearing in large numbers, what will replace them? I mean, what will constitute the glue that binds communities together as cohesive units (even when those elements may be at odds with one another)? I wish I knew. The topic is one that I would like to explore if I had the resources of first-rate university library and an available cadre of enthusiastic and energetic students anxious to add to the body of knowledge about urban sociology. My gut tells me societies will continue to have “third places,” but they will in many respects morph into entities we cannot even imagine today. The idea of massive Zoom gatherings—involving people in their homes, drinks in hand, conversing with like-minded people—comes to mind. But that’s probably too low-tech and too awkward and too unintuitive to work.

Though I get excited and enthusiastic about some things, like “The Third Place,” my enthusiasm quickly wanes when I realize I am approaching the point at which I will leave my sixth decade and move into the seventh. The time necessary to develop an adequate background to pursue many of my interests probably is not available. And even if it were, getting that background should begin, in earnest, no later than one’s thirties. That realization brings about thoughts of “if only…” That’s not a healthy attitude, so instead of bemoaning the fact that I’m not 35 years old, I have to simply let my interests be shallow and superficial, rather than deep and significant.

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In other news, I am sore. Very sore. My biceps ache. My lower back screams even louder today than yesterday. One of the reasons I awoke several times in the night last night involved cramps in my legs, hands, and arms…courtesy of the odd stances my body took while bending to paint or reaching too far while poised on a ladder.

Today, the flooring guys return, so I cannot do much (if anything) because I would be in their way. There are plenty of errands to run, though, so I will not be bored.

Time to think about more coffee and some breakfast. I roasted a pork loin last night, so I could take a piece or two, dice it, and incorporate it into an egg and/or a potato dish. Or I could simply eat cereal again. Or I could do something entirely different. That option is always highest on my list of things to do; I just have to be prepared to do it. Off I go. Where remains to be seen.

The topic of yesterday’s post continues to plague me. Haunt me. Cause me to shiver and wonder whether I am the target of a witch’s demonic spell.

What kind of person paints a ceiling dark, drab green? Does such a person worship alligators? Does he spend time wallowing in muddy swamps? Does a dark, drab green ceiling provide a mental link to the painter’s deviant upbringing? Does the painter get some level of dank, musty, reptilian comfort from such a ceiling? I ask only because I am curious why someone would do what I spent the day yesterday undoing. I covered the dark, drab green ceiling with a coat of white primer. Today, if my plans proceed as I expect they will, I will apply a coat of “ceiling white” paint to that same ceiling. My neck and my arms and my lower back will object strenuously, but I must get the job done. Next, I will apply a coat of paint to the walls of the same room ; the color of said paint is called “storm clouds” (or some such name). This room eventually will be my study, the  place where I will write and read and gaze out the window at hummingbirds visiting their feeders (yet to be hung) and other birds enjoying seeds at their feeders. And, if the universe is just, an occasional deer or raccoon or fox or turkey or other form of wildlife as it scampers across my driveway.

While I was painting the hideous ceiling, my girlfriend was applying a coat of bright yellow paint to the laundry room. When she finishes, the yellow paint will make the room bright and cheerful; it will make doing laundry a delightful chore. Eventually.

Before we finished the day painting, though, we had a plumber visit to determine whether the big jetted tub has a leak. We know for certain it once had a leak; a leak severe enough that the plywood of the subfloor beneath the edge of the tub must be replaced. Fortunately, no leak at the moment. But he found evidence that, at some point in the past, the shower drain leaked. Though it appeared not to have damaged the subfloor, the quality of the “fix” to the leaking drain appeared shoddy, at best. After examining the shower’s construction, we tentatively reached a decision. The bottom line is that we may remove the jetted tub, tear out the shower, and rebuild the shower in the same footprint it now occupies. I did not anticipate any of this. I had hoped the house was “move-in ready.” Once these and various other issues are resolved, the place will be beautiful and comfortable and a lovely place to live. I just have to keep telling myself that.

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It’s 4:20 and I’m trying to decide whether I should go back to bed and try to get some sleep. I got up just before 3, intending only to pee and get a glass of water as replenishment. But I felt myself waken more thoroughly than would be compatible with sleep, so I decided to stay up “for just a while longer.” And then, of course, I thought I’d jot a few notes to myself. And that turned into this rehash of yesterday’s mix of progress and unpleasantness. I doubt I can sleep now. Perhaps, instead, I’ll shave and shower and prepare for another productive day. Time will tell.

That which renders life burdensome to us generally arises from the abuse of it.

~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau ~

I wonder whether the Rousseau quotation applies to me. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Rousseau had a negative view of philosophy and philosophers, “seeing philosophers as the post-hoc rationalizers of self-interest, as apologists for various forms of tyranny, and as playing a role in the alienation of the modern individual from humanity’s natural impulse to compassion.” Hmm. The “post-hock rationalizers of self-interest,” huh? I think a little more critical introspection may be in order. Critical in the sense of  judgmental.

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This morning, I am tempted to get in my car and drive. And drive. And drive. I feel like driving to New Mexico, where I could rent a little adobe house in a desolate area miles from the nearest houses or businesses. I could sit in a comfortable chair in that little adobe house, looking out the window at the emptiness of the land and thinking deeply about questions we rarely dare ask ourselves. I could contemplate life and I could determine whether there is any intrinsic value in it. I think I know the answer already.

Aside from the existential aspects of my desire to get away, there is another motive. It is to recover from the emotional exhaustion I suddenly feel—related, I am sure, to the major changes in my life over the past two years. But even the “cure” to exhaustion would bring about its own set of stresses. Getting away would only delay completion of the renovation of the new house; and the slow pace of the renovation is a measurable contributor to the exhaustion for which I desire a cure.  My self-described “exhaustion” probably is nothing more than a temporary response to situational irritants. It’s not really that I am exhausted; it’s that I’m pissed off and fed up. So, it’s not that I lack the emotional stamina to deal with the crap, it’s that I just don’t want to. But the sooner I accept that I simply must deal with it, the better. I thought by now I would be writing my blog from my new house. I thought by now I would be able to take day trips on a whim, jumping in the car and driving; just on the spur of the moment. That will teach me to think. That’s one of the downers of adulthood. Accepting and dealing with reality sucks.

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In spite of my lack of enthusiasm for it today, I plan to go to the new house today to do some more painting. Some dim bulb in the past life of the house decided to paint the ceiling of the study a drab green; today, I will attempt to cover it, first with a primer coat and then with a “ceiling white” top coat. I still have to paint the walls of the study, finish painting the living room/kitchen/hallway area, finish the two bathrooms, and paint the master bedroom. Not knowing just when the new flooring will arrive, the need to paint the ceiling, especially, seems urgent; I do not want to splatter paint on the new floor while painting the ceiling. I am not worried about splatters while painting the walls; it’s easier to control the paint while painting the walls. Don’t ask me why.

Also this morning, a plumber will take a look at the plumbing around the big, hideous jetted tub; yesterday, the floor guys discovered that the floor beneath the edge of that tub was rotted due to water damage. We need to know if there is a current leak; and whether now is the time to remove the tub and cap off the pipes leading to it. There’s other “plumber stuff” to be done, too. Maybe the plumber can do it all at the same time.

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Complaining about decidedly first-world problems is embarrassing. Like everything else in life, comfort exists on a continuum. And satisfaction exists on a continuum. Gratitude for the goodness I experience should come first, long before I even consider complaining about circumstances that do not infringe on my ability to enjoy life. I know this. I try to nourish in myself an innate gratitude that overrides a sense of censure. Too often, the strength of the latter is the greater strength, though. A correspondent suggested to me that a meditation practice might help with that. A tendency toward procrastination keeps intervening with the “good intentions.”

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Freezing rain is no longer in the forecast for next week. Today, the weather gurus are predicting “mixed precipitation,” which would mean anything from dew to rain to snow to ice pellets to steam spewing from angry clouds that look surprisingly similar to images of Zeus. But that could change. And it probably will. The vagaries of nature remain impossible to accurately predict, much less control. Yet we continue trying. I just cannot get excited about weather forecasting this morning. Weather will continue, no matter what I expect. It will occur in some form or another and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.

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I suppose I always fantasize about running away from my problems. I imagine myself driving through the bleak landscape of North Dakota, heading toward Whitefish, Montana. It’s a far cry from New Mexico. Where doesn’t matter so much as does a sense of isolation, desolation, emptiness. That’s the cure for everything. It brings everything that was fuzzy and indistinct into sharp focus. It changes one’s perspective.

After a few days of delightfully comfortable weather, the icy fingers of winter clawed back with a vengeance yesterday afternoon. Today’s high temperature is forecast to reach only 46°F, after a much colder evening. Temperatures are expected to edge back up to the mid-60s by Wednesday of next week, but next Thursday may be a repeat of yesterday, except worse. At the moment, forecasters call for freezing rain by next Friday. By next Saturday morning—more than a week away—we can expect temperatures to drop to 21°F. A lot can change between now and then, of course. Meteors could rain down upon Earth, causing the oceans to spawn massive tsunamis. And the celestial invaders, super-heated by friction as they plunge through the atmosphere, could could turn the seas into boiling cauldrons. But I’m not expecting it.

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Yesterday afternoon, we visited a friend from church. After having long promised to take her one of my favorite soups, I finally made good on the promise. I made a big pot of some North African lentil soup early yesterday morning. Aromas of onions cooking in oil, combined with garlic, cumin, coriander, turmeric, paprika, and cinnamon filled the house. I associate those smells with the odors I imagine I would encounter in an outdoor market in Morocco; I’ve never been to Morocco—I’ve never been to Africa—but something about the scent of those spices cooking in oil tricks me. Those aromas conjure memories of visiting places I’ve never been, eating foods I’ve never tasted, and hearing a cacophony of unfamiliar voices speaking languages I do not understand.

My oldest brother lived and worked in Algeria for a while, several years ago. If my memory serves me, he took advantage of his time while there to travel to other African and Middle Eastern countries. I think he used his home base of Oran, Algeria as a launching point to travel to Europe, as well. I recall, only vaguely, that my sister went to visit him while he lived in Oran; either to take his two sons to visit him or to visit the three of them for a while. I think she was involved in a minor automobile accident while in Morocco. But my memory is deeply unclear about that period. I’m not even sure how old I was when my brother was in Algeria. But I recall, again only vaguely, that at his behest I bought him a piece of high-end audio equipment and shipped it to him in Oran. I wish I had, at that time, made a habit of writing about my daily experiences. Today, without that kind of extemporaneous evidence from those times, I cannot depend on my memory to tell the truth.

My friend, the one we visited yesterday, spent time in Denmark a number of years ago. Unlike me, when she was younger she kept a daily record of her travels. And she wrote letters home to her family, which they kept. She now has in her possession the letters she wrote home. She is in the enviable position of being able to read what she wrote in her own personal records and to compare that with what she wrote in letters home. One legacy of the decline—more like disappearance—in letter-writing is the effective erasure of memories. That really amounts to  the elimination of experiences, to some extent, because experiences we cannot remember may just as well never have happened. Ach! To borrow a phrase from the lyrics of a song by Tom Paxton, “it’s a lesson too late for the learning, made of sand, made of sand.”

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I’ve maintained one of my other blogs, one to which I have not posted in quite some time, because I recorded some experiences in it that I do not want to forget. I captured one such experience, about twelve years ago, with these words: “Dissatisfied, alone, wishing I could pin down what’s on my mind that’s making me feel morose and disconnected and acutely aware of the fact that I don’t matter.” A friend told me at the time that I was experiencing “a dark night of the soul.” That was her explanation, based on her religious beliefs. I did not accept her explanation then and I do not accept it now. I think I explained my feelings as having arisen in part from my oldest sister’s death a few months before this particular post. I wrote this: “It’s shocking to realize that a powerful piece of one’s life can be irrevocably ripped from it with no explanation, no reason, and no recourse. One’s “power” quickly comes into question and a realization sets in: one has no power of any consequence. The world is capable of instantly rendering powerless and irrelevant one’s control over even the smallest aspect of one’s life.”

My relationship with my sister was very different from the one I had with my brother who died recently. And I have grown more used to the idea of mortality, including mine, during those twelve years. Still, the emotions I felt at the time following my sister’s death were not entirely different from the ones I continue to harbor today. I sometimes think “normal” for me is that bleak existential angst I have so often written about; happiness and joy and appreciation for life and all it offers is abnormal. It’s a deviation from that sullen consistency that’s been my companion for most of my life. Fortunately, I suppose, the oscillation between depression and joy is not as frequent nor, usually, as dramatic as it has been in the past. That makes for less troubling lows and less enjoyable highs. I’m not sure tempering emotional extremes is as fulfilling as we’re led to believe.

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Once again, I could not stay asleep, thanks to my horrendous congestion. I finally got up around 4, after trying to fall asleep following my 2:30 awakening to pee. Sometimes, the large array of medications prescribed to improve my breathing seems to help; other times, not so much. Last night, it was not so much. I felt like I was breathing through a warm, wet cloth; and I whistled every time I inhaled and wheezed with every exhalation. Now that I’ve been up for close to two hours, I can breath just fine and the maddening noises emanating from my mouth have gone silent. I suspect I’ll attempt a nap sometime after dinner tonight, as I’ve been wont to do of late. At least that will give me a bit more sleep than otherwise I would be getting. I know from experience this period of suffocation insomnia, as I call it, will disappear before too much longer, only to be resurrected later. What triggers either the cause or the cure eludes me. I wish I knew; I would pay myself big bucks if I could uncover a way to quickly and completely control this annoyance.

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Last night, I watched a few YouTube videos that offered instructions on how to polish solid surface countertops and how to remove scratches from such countertops. The idea that I might be able to take an old, dull counter and give it new life, making it as a shiny as new is appealing to me. I’ve watched a number of other “how-to” videos, most equally interesting to me but also probably equally irrelevant. I do not have a need for most of the knowledge or skills these videos offer; only an interest. I think I can trace that interest to the fact that I’ve spent my entire work life doing things that ultimately do not matter. Shuffling papers. Talking ideas to death. Discussing policies. Revising policies. Conversing with people about how to achieve results without ever actually doing anything that would lead to measurable results. So, watching “how-to” videos is refreshing. They show how to actually accomplish a measurable objective: remove a scratch, make a countertop shine, replace an auto’s headlights, repair an automatic closer for screen doors, etc., etc., etc. People who create products or who grow crops or raise animals or repair broken stuff are happier, by and large, than people who write about creating products or growing crops or raising animals or repairing broken stuff. The actual DOING of things rather than THINKING of doing things. Although watching a video is not really DOING. But it’s more satisfying to THINK about being productive than to talk about the concept of productivity.

Okay. None of this is always true. But it is, sometimes. I want to accomplish something of which I can be proud. Build something. Repair something. Create something. Art, at least, is a creative emotional exercise in which thoughts are translated into something tangible. Rather than just more thoughts. I sometimes think writing is an artificial outlet. It has no real outcome other than to demonstrate an enormous number of ways to organize and present a limited number of letters and spaces and punctuation marks. But there’s no substance, for the most part. Obviously, some writers perform magic with their ability to organize letters into words and sentences and paragraphs and chapters. But most of us just spill letters onto a screen in haphazard fashion, hoping that some of the ideas that accompany the spillage will capture the interest of a Nobel Committee; not really. But we do engage in outlandish fantasies that have as much chance of taking place as I have of learning brain surgery by listening to a cassette tape. Ultimately, some people do things that matter. All people want to do things that matter. But there may be only a limited number of things we can do that really matter.  Yet everything matters. Or does it?

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Something that matters is this: the flooring guys left a window in my new house open when they left yesterday. I need to remind them today to be more careful in future. If it has been open during the heavy downpours of yesterday morning, new subfloors might have been needed.

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Okay. I need to have something to eat, even though it’s rather early. I am inexcusably hungry.

Human beings have the capacity to understand and, at the very least, tolerate people who look, speak, or think differently. But that capacity is tested in too few human beings. Instead of treating differences as both interesting and acceptable, humans tend to see them as unpleasant and threatening.  Different languages, appearances, and approaches to interactions with the world around us make life interesting. I find it difficult to understand insular people who assume differences are bad. The world would be so much more peaceful if we accepted others whose worldviews differ from our own. Saying that, of course, I recognize that my own prejudices and bigotries reject my preference for open-mindedness. That is to say: hypocrisy.

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“The house” occupies almost every corner of my mind almost all the time. “The house” being the one we’re updating with new paint, new flooring, several new light fixtures, some new plumbing fixtures, garage door tune-up, etc., etc., etc. Although the process of updating it is engaging, I am getting a bit tired of the project’s tendency to control every aspect of my life. Spur-of-the-moment activities interfere with the predictability required of the process of updating the house. Appointments must be kept because delaying them could result in lengthy, troubling delays. But it’s not really so bad; just a tad annoying. And I really do look forward to finishing the project, at least to the extent that we can move in, sell my house, and get on with a moderately stable life.

Speaking of “the house,” we had something of a reprieve yesterday afternoon while the flooring was being removed. We visited with a friend for a few hours and, late in the afternoon, even took her over to have a look. While occasional reprieves are nice, they seem to contribute to the delay; yet we could not have been productive yesterday afternoon, so there was no such contribution. It was a welcome and necessary delay. And today we will take a couple of hours to visit another friend. Then, back to it. I look forward to having more time to cogitate and mull and muse.

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You cannot tell whether a person is good or bad by his vicissitudes in life. Good and bad fortune are matters of fate.

~ Yamamoto Tsunetomo ~

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Facebook had a friend suggestion for me this morning. A woman from my high school class; I knew her then, but only vaguely. Her profile indicates she’s a politically conservative and religiously over-the-top fundamentalist. I skimmed a few posts: bible verses, intellectually-stunted memes, right-wing blather, and other content that suggests a dim wit cemented with unwavering opinions. Sure, sounds exactly like the kind of person I’d find appealing. I can imagine communicating with her would be a bit like arguing with a lamp post. I think Facebook has me confused with someone else.

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A year ago, ice and snow confined me to my house for several days and tested my patience. But it also caused me to consider, with gratitude, my good fortune. As much as I might have wanted to get out of the house, I was comfortable where I was. I had plenty of food, clean water, electricity, warmth, a beautiful view out my windows, and everything else I needed…and then some. Whenever I felt irritated at being caged in my house, I forced myself to consider where I might be, instead. If circumstances had been unkind to me, I might instead have been shivering in a cold tent, aching from hunger and thirst, and craving any creature comfort that might help warm me just a bit. I might have had nothing for entertainment but time…and thoughts of how I could secure enough food, water, and warmth to survive. Those thoughts, forced on my by my guilt for wanting even more, should float through my brain more often.

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He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.

~ Epictetus ~

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I have a very, very vague recollection that I once read a novel by Orhan Pamuk, but I cannot determine whether, in fact, that recollection is true. In reviewing information about the novels he has written, the only one that seems even a little familiar is Snow.  But that would be a stretch. Because I cannot determine whether I really read a Pamuk novel, I think I should create a list of all the books I’ve ever read. But that would be a nearly impossible task, because I generally forget books within a month or two (or less) of reading them.

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It’s time to embrace another day.

At least I did not get up at 3 this morning. I awoke just after 2, but managed to drift off quite a while later. But I was awake again before 4:30, so I opted to get up for the day. While sipping my first cup of coffee, I skimmed through this blog, stopping to read a post and view some photos I took in August 2015, when my late wife and I wandered through the Jones Mill Industrial Park, where we encountered a building that housed (or had housed) the Arkansas Midland Railroad. August 2015 was a carefree time. The harsh realities of life and death have forced their way into my experience since then.

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Today, the flooring company has arranged for someone to come rip out hardwood and tile in our new house in preparation for installation of the LVP. We’ll also get a visit at the new place by a representative from a garage door service company; the two garage doors and their respective automatic openers and ancillary devices need a tune-up. We spent the day yesterday, as usual, painting. We have almost finished painting both bathrooms (except areas I have been unable to reach and some spots in need of touch-up). A coat of primer went up over the lime-green walls of the laundry room yesterday, as well. Painting is much more time consuming for a novice like me than I remember it being for a novice like me. For any big painting jobs in the future, I will hire it out, regardless of cost (within reason). Good painters are worth what they are paid.

We have new faucets and various other bathroom hardware ready for installation in the master bath. And new toilets await installation in both bathrooms after the new flooring is installed. New light fixtures were installed throughout the house not long ago. Eventually, the house will be quite livable. But, first, we need a knowledgeable door repair person to check and adjust virtually every door in the house. Once we move in, we’ll direct our attention to landscaping and such. Home ownership involves a never-ending cycle of work and expense. But it may be worth it. I’m beginning to appreciate the concept of living in expensive condos, though, in which the work element is transferred to the expense part of the equation.

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Assuming all goes according to plan, a good friend will come to the new house this afternoon for nice visit. We need a break from “remodeling,” and there is no better respite from that chore than to spend time with a good friend. If the flooring guy is still there, though, we may change locations and meet at our current home. As much as I’d like to show her progress to date, I’m more interested in simply spending time with her. Only a very small number of people are such comfortable fits that I feel completely at home in their presence; she is one of them.

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Though I picked up an online grocery order just a week ago, I will go out a bit before 7 this morning to pick up another one. While I’m out, I’ll probably buy gas for my car (I’m almost out, a rarity) and stop by the post office to pick up mail from my box. Speaking of groceries and related matters, I wish I had easy access to affordable full-meal home delivery or, at least, grocery stores sold healthy, tasty, inexpensive, ready-to-eat meals that I find appealing. Lately, when we finish our work for the day at the new house, we’re in no mood to prepare a meal. Therefore, instead of a meal at the end of the day, we’ve either gone out for a burger for lunch or have bought sandwiches from Subway. Growl. Look, I’ve found something to complain about!

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I read an article on the NPR website that confirms for me the bureaucratic idiocy of the Catholic church. A Catholic priest used one wrong word in performing baptisms over a period of years; the Catholic powers-that-be decided that error invalidated the baptisms. Because, baptism is said to be the “sacrament that grants access to all the others,” any subsequent sacraments (e.g., confirmation, marriage, etc.) could be judged invalid.  The wrong word? The priest used the word “we” instead of the word “I.”  The priest spoke these words:

We baptize you in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 

The sentence should have begun with “I.” The Catholic Diocese of Phoenix said on its website, “It is not the community that baptizes a person and incorporates them into the Church of Christ; rather, it is Christ, and Christ alone, who presides at all sacraments; therefore, it is Christ who baptizes…If you were baptized using the wrong words, that means your baptism is invalid, and you are not baptized.”

Excuse me, Catholics, but this utter nonsense is…utter nonsense! What I presume to be an innocent mistake in a single word should not throw thousands of people (those who buy into this absurdity) into existential panic. My religious bigotry is showing; I realize that. But I cannot help but think people who have been brainwashed into believing in the sacredness of the rituals of a “make it up as you go” religion should not be subject to such trauma by the very church that caused them to be subject to such pain.  Okay. Off my “pulpit” for the moment.

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In spite of my distaste for organized religion, I recognize it has significant value for many people. One aspect of that value, I think, is religion’s ability to effectively quantify (maybe explain is more appropriate) the concept of sacredness or holiness. Both terms are as valid in a secular context as they are in a religious context, but religion seems to better attach meaning and value to them. Religions seem more willing than non-religious perspectives to acknowledge the emotions invested in things or ideas or people judged “sacred” or “holy.” When I consider something sacred or holy or both, I have a deep emotional attachment to it, a sense of awe, I suppose. That sense brings me to an emotional point at which my eyes may brim with tears. “A sacred bond of ever-lasting friendship,” for example, is one “tangible” example of a deeply-felt secular experience.

I’m too distracted to go into any more depth. Putting on shoes so I can go pick up groceries is occupying my mind at the moment. Personal philosophy is being edged out by practicalities.

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Off to engage with the day. And to be glad for the opportunity!

For various discernable reasons, I feel overwhelmed by obligations that, in reality, are not obligations. They are options I have chosen to treat as obligations. Perhaps “chosen” is not the right word. I should replace that word with “allowed myself.” I have transformed wishes into commands that exercise control over my time. These commands are not commands at all. They are imposters. They pretend to be obligations by dressing as obligations and speaking the language of obligations and drawing lines in the sand as if they were absolute obligations, not subject to challenge. These sly bastards have succeeded in convincing me to convince myself that I MUST behave in ways that are not REQUIRED, but merely DESIRED.

This is nothing new. And it’s not unique to me. All of us allow options to behave as if they were obligations. We allow our expectations of the consequences of failing to exercise our options to convince us that options available to us are, instead, obligations.

I realize, of course, the arguments that it’s all a matter of semantics. Well, yes and no. It is a matter of semantics in that an “obligation” may not equate to a command. But it is not a matter of semantics in practical terms. In practical terms. we treat options as if they were commands and, in so doing, we transform options into obligations that we treat as commands.

Perhaps this discussion could be made clearer with the use of concrete examples. I’m sure that is true, but I am not in the mood for concrete examples. I am in the mood for abstruse abstractions. Although this entire discussion is not especially abstruse. One simply has to be in a receptive mood in order for the simplicity of the concept to sink in.

Okay. I give in. I’ll offer at least one concrete example. Maybe more. I must finish painting the inside of several rooms in the new house before we begin the process of moving. No, I want those rooms to be painted before we move, but I am under no obligation to ensure that it is done. Nor am I under any obligation to do the work myself. If I want the job done, I could pay someone else to do it. But I have allowed my desire to have a different color paint on the walls to transform into a requirement that the walls be painted. Further, my desire to refrain from spending money on a professional painter has obligated me to do the work myself. No, my desire to refrain from spending money made me choose to do it myself. I am under no obligation to save money. Nor to do the work myself. Nor, for that matter, to ensure that the colors of the walls is different when we move in than they are today.

And that’s just one example. I could write about dozens more. Hence the feeling of being overwhelmed. I’d really rather simply sit and let the world go by. Or go visit The Momentary in Bentonville. And, while I’m at it, visit Crystal Bridges to see the latest exhibits. Or eat in some of the fine dining establishments in and around Bentonville. Or try some of the alluring bars in the same area. Or, perhaps, buy an expensive home within walking distance to all those attractions. I believe I’ve gone off the rails; my fantasies, though, correlate directly to my options that masquerade as obligations. They are all connected. I could offer proof, but I’ll just leave it as is because I have no need to prove anything to myself. Well, that’s not true, either, but discussion of my emotional uncertainty has no place in this paragraph.

See? This is what I do when my mind is hidden behind a locked door that can be opened only by entering a combination on its lock…but I’ve forgotten the combination. Or the lock is broken. Or the hinges are rusted shut. Or I’m at the wrong door and, no matter how hard I pound on the door, no one will open the damn thing to reveal that I’m in the wrong place.

It’s now 5:26 a.m. and I’ve been up since 3:02 a.m.  I was awake several minutes before I got up. I am confident I will slip into sleep early this evening. Maybe even during the afternoon hours I will nod off. But I should try to stay awake and alert until 10 or so tonight so I can actually sleep through the night. But my aching knuckle will wake me, I’m afraid, so there’s really no point in trying to sleep, knowing that sleep will elude me when my damn knuckle starts throbbing. I’m beginning to think my “sprain” may be more like a “tear.” Tissues hidden beneath the skin on my ring finger could be torn to pieces. Tendons or muscles or connective tissues in my finger might be shredded beyond repair. Yet I continue typing away, oblivious to the irreversible damage I am doing to my own phalanges. Or should I say phalanx, since it’s only the one finger?

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I may trade my Subaru Outback for a pickup truck. Probably not, but maybe. I regularly have use for a pickup, but I prefer the gentler ride of the Subaru. Actually, I’d much prefer the much smoother ride of a Lexus or a Toyota Avalon or their luxurious car cousins. But in terms of practicality, a pickup is hard to beat. A van, though, might be a contender, because its cargo area is protected from the elements. And a van can double as sleeping quarters with the right modifications—or in situations in which the collapse of civilization somehow renders living in houses in the Village unsafe. Hmm. Pickups, though, can be horrendously expensive. Vehicles that once were considered purely utilitarian and, therefore, were extremely inexpensive (compared to the “luxury” of cars with automatic transmissions and power brakes) are now akin to collectors’ items; or so it seems, based on asking prices. Seriously, $65,000 or more for a pickup? WTF! At that price, it should come with a pleasant companion (I’ll call her Samantha) who gladly would give the driver neck rubs any time he desires. But I’m getting away from my point: trading my car-like vehicle for a truck-like vehicle. I doubt that I’ll do it. I doubt, in fact, that I’ll give it serious consideration. But I’ve made rash decisions before. And I may do it again. But not right now. Not at this very moment.

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This overly-long, wandering, nonsensical diatribe is about to come to an end. My poor finger is pleading with me to stop torturing it. And I can hear readers crying out for me to do the same. Although I doubt anyone else will have read this far. But if I had the money, I would offer to buy the first a new car for the first one to contact me and say “extravaganza.”

Writing, from my perspective, is both tedious and stimulating. It combines elements of torture and elation, though not always at the same time. Perhaps the most important aspect of writing for me is its ability to prove to me that I can still think and that my imagination remains active and flexible. And that, somewhere inside me, a sliver of creativity exists that has the potential of breaking through, shattering an underlying layer of depression and anxiety.  Many days I find my fingers wandering aimlessly over the keyboard, tapping out words for no other reason than to keep my hands busy. On occasion, though, those same fingers seem to have a purpose—a reason beyond keeping company with the other prisoners affixed to the end of my hand. Today, those same fingers only pretend to have a purpose. They try to convince me that they can express a grand theme; but I know better. One of them, still aching and tender from an attempt to hold onto the leash of a neighbor’s powerful dog, screams at me to stop typing. The others urge me to ignore the whiner and allow them to release ribbons of text that might become a powerful piece of short fiction or, if I give them time, a novel with both intellectual substance and entertainment value. I cannot be fooled. The whiner, while perhaps overly dramatic in insisting he is in agony, must be given his due. I will make this morning’s needless ramble somewhat short.

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Though I did not watch the game, I know this morning that the Los Angeles Rams defeated the Cincinnati Bengals in a tight, 23 to 20 Super Bowl.

I know, too—thanks to a friend’s posting of a video showing how chickens are horribly, inexcusably abused by this country’s greed-driven leaders in poultry production—that henceforth I will allow myself to buy chicken only from sellers that can believably assert their humane treatment of the creatures before and during slaughter.

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My poor, whining ring finger can no longer tolerate this abuse. I fear I may have sprained it, though it looks just like the other fingers. Maybe some Motrin or aspirin will magically heal it. Until it’s better, I’ll rest the poor dear. At least for a while.

Here in the Little Rock Double tree, darkness pervades the quiet room. I am trying to be quiet, so as not to wake my sleeping companion. When she wakes, we will see about breakfast, then while away the hours until we walk next door to experience almost three hours, en mask, of a Broadway play, Hamilton. We watched the Broadway version, on the small screen, a few months ago. Today, though, we will witness a live performance. I’ve grown familiar with the music, though I will admit that I have not followed the lyrics very well. Last night, I read a transcript of the entire musical, so I feel even more attuned to the story and the words with which it is told.

This foray into a public venue with large numbers of people is a bit scary. Even though masks are required, we have no way of knowing who among the sea of our fellow patrons have been vaccinated. It’s a risk. At some point, I suppose, one has to let one’s guard down very briefly to maintain a sense of social cohesion. Heretofore, we have mostly stayed away from church—so this is a big deal.

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To the world you may be one person, but to one person, you are the world.

~ Unknown ~

Our detour into Little Rock obviously interrupted our work on the new house. But yesterday, the gutters were cleaned and new gutter guards were installed (assuming the job was finished). And that followed Friday’s momentous meeting with the flooring guy, during which we decided to take all the floors down to the subfloor and have new LVP put down. The flooring we selected is beautiful; it is called “Spice Acacia.” The timing depends on availability of the flooring, the installers, and the cooperation of Mother Nature. Tomorrow, I will return to my life’s work of painting the interior walls. I look forward to my freedom. And to a visit from one of my favorite people, assuming she will not shun me because of my exposure to Hamilton fans this weekend. (This public version of a private message is not intended for all audiences.)

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If you remember me, then I don’t care if everyone else forgets.

~ Haruki Murakami 

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Enough with this one-fingered typing. To those I love, may your day unfold as it should.

I’ve encountered—mostly through literature and film—several characters named “Destiny.” In most cases, the name seems oddly in conflict with the haphazard nature of their lives. Recently, I was reminded of another “Destiny” I encountered in passing, this one in the flesh. This one strikes me as the prototypical teenager, a child attempting to break into adulthood while clothed in layer after layer of thick, ill-fitting drama. But for the damage being done to her by living the quintessential soap-opera life, seeing her evolution from afar might be entertaining.

I will admit to unwarranted bias: who names their child Destiny? That act seems to me  a mother’s blatant challenge to the gods, shrieking and shaking her fist and saying, “What do you think you’re gonna do to me, huh?! I’m gonna throw this kid out there with a name that suggests she has a date with fate and I’ll just wait to see what you do about it!” Inevitably, of course, the child grows up in a double-wide trailer surrounded by chickens, living with a permanently unemployed and unemployable mother and an alcoholic father who beats his children to demonstrate his anger at his losses in poker games.

What is it that gives certain names unsavory backstories from the start? I suspect it has to do with the portrayal in literature and on film of characters with those names. Something about those characters’ troubled lives appeals to certain soon-to-be parents; it must have something to do with the parents recognizing themselves or their upbringing in the characters. Their unfortunate children must then live with the label that accompanies their names.

I realize, of course, my comments thus far may be highly offensive to people named Destiny and to people who have friends or family members with that name. To them, I would say “remember, I am just a bigoted nobody, so pay me no heed.” I write, even when my writing exposes me for what I am. It’s a sickness, I think. And there’s no treatment for it.

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The strengths and weaknesses of ties between people have been on my mind lately. What, I wonder, causes people to be drawn to specific others? We’re all very similar in so many ways—what unusual aspect of one another so captures our interests that we invest time and emotion and all manner of other personal energy in developing relationships? The question may be best examined by looking at familial ties. In families, the constant closeness with one another must reveal unique, attractive characteristics in other family members. Each member of the family has his or her own peculiar attributes that appeal in some ways to other family members. Though each idiosyncrasy varies significantly from the others, it connects our interests in personal ways.

The same thing that binds family members must apply to others. Somehow, uniquely attractive characteristics of other people come to our attention; almost instantly, a connection develops. And like familial connections, the ties can become frayed over time. Friendships dissolve or explode; romantic entanglements rupture; family ties erode and break. The power of those connections can be as strong monstrous cables that hold up bridges or  as weak as soap bubbles that explode upon contact with a blade of grass. Time seems to have little or no bearing to strength; a short-lived relationship can exceed by thousand-fold the strength of a life-long relationship.

I have lived in Hot Springs Village for almost eight years. During that time, I have experienced the formation and dissolution of several relationships that seemed strong, at first, but withered quickly and finally dissolved. But I have experienced the formation and evolution of a few other relationships that seem destined to form cables. As I look back at my life before I moved here, the number of cable-worthy relationships that developed was tiny, but the number that withered and dissolved is almost too large to count. As we age, I think we become more conscious of the impact of time; it seems to accelerate. Thanks to time, we become less inclined to invest in low-potential relationships, so fewer wither and dissolve. But we invest more time and emotion in a shrinking number of relationships that hold significant promise. Because of those investments, that smaller number yields greater long-term results. Not a large number, but a larger number.

This entire one-sided discussion may be unique to me. It probably is. Never mind what I’ve just written; it’s not for you, it’s for me.

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“Plunge.” That is a forceful word. It conveys strength. Raw power. The word actually growls as you get near it and it flexes its enormous muscles. Think of how the word is used: “He plunged a knife into his opponent’s heart.” “The diver plunged into the shark-infested waters.” “Eliza and Bernard took the plunge; the Justice of the Peace presided over their wedding at noon.” “Roberto plunged into the duties of coroner with deadly precision.” I wonder whether anyone has ever named a child “Plunge?” It would not surprise me. I like highly uncommon names. Not names like “John.”

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Speaking of powerful. Yesterday, a large, friendly, extremely powerful golden retriever (or some kind of cream-colored retriever) escaped a neighbor’s house. My girlfriend and I tried to corral him so we could return him to the neighbor two houses down. I attempted to grab the dog’s collar, but she was unwilling to have me do it. My ring finger got caught in the collar as she twisted; it felt like she twisted it off my hand. I screamed in pain; I finally extracted my damaged hand from the dog’s collar. The neighbor, aware the dog escaped, drove down to get the dog. I am certain the dog could have bench-pressed me while lifting her owner’s car with the other paw. Jesus! My finger still hurts like hell this morning.

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When I speak on the phone to someone I do not know, I have a habit of imagining what the person must look like. I am not quite sure why I do that, but I cannot seem to break the habit. I think it may be a mechanism to enhance the “value” of the person in my mind. The same thing is true when I receive text messages or email messages from people I have not met in person. I make up facial features, hair color, eye color, etc. I’ve discovered I’ve been wrong about their appearances far more often than I’ve been right. When I have imagined blond hair, it has been dark brown. When I’ve imagined brown eyes, they have been blue or hazel. Round face: oval. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. In spite of my poor record (known to me because I ultimately come face-to-face with people with whom I’ve spoken on the phone), I still do it. I just need to have an idea of what a person looks like. Am I alone in this tendency to assign appearances to voices or textual messages?

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The day is here. Darkness has dissolved into light. Time to commence my daytime activities.

My parents never had much money. Their jobs were not well-paying and rearing six kids siphoned off every cent they had. To my knowledge, they never had much in savings and they had no retirement income except Social Security which, for them, was not much. They never had money to take vacations or to build or buy nice houses or to live real middle class or, would that it could be, upper middle class lives. I was quite conscious of the fact that the house I lived in for most of my formative years was not as nice or new as my friends’ houses. I was aware of the fact that we never took the same kinds of trips my friends’ families took. I assumed we did not visit relatives in distant places because we could not afford to make the trip. Maybe that can explain, at least in part, why I am so sensitive about money. I am extremely wary of over-spending. I worry about depleting my retirement reserves before I need them. I may be over-conscious of the fact that I have only my Social Security and my personal savings to carry me through until I die, so I tend to try to preserve my personal savings and rely solely on Social Security to the extent possible. That trait can lead to being teased about my miserly tendencies and my hesitance to spend money on things other people might not think twice about: new clothes, etc. One of the many reasons I decided not to have children can be traced to  witnessing my parents’ poverty relative to the parents of the kids who attended school with me. I did not want to work my entire life, only to reach retirement age with little to no money to enjoy the time I had left. It’s hard to know how much, or how little, to spend when the amount of time I have left is a complete unknown. That’s true of everyone, I suppose. What the hell am I rambling about?

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Thinking about my own upbringing (and the few memories I have of that experience) leads me to wonder about the early lives of my friends and acquaintances. I listen to my girlfriend talking about her youth, so I know a fair amount about her experiences. But what was Steve’s early life like as an adopted child? And how about Jim’s childhood? And other people, both face-to-face friends and online friends? What about them: Patty and Ducky and Roger and Deanna and Rhonda and Janet and Mark and Robin and Phil and on and on and on. I think it would be interesting to read a “my life until right now” summary from each of them, roughly ten pages in length, that might offer a glimpse into their very personal histories. I realize how little I know about so many people with whom I’ve had long-standing relationships. And, with the exception of what I’ve remembered and exposed in this blog, they probably know little about the early experiences that shaped me.

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I think I suffer from anxiety. “Suffer” may be too strong a word, but whether it is or not, lately I feel anxiety far too frequently and too deeply. A little anxiety is good; it’s motivational and requires a person to look out for his own well-being. Too much, though, can be debilitating to some degree. So, before my sense of being somewhat overly-anxious becomes more intrusive and destructive, I decided to explore how to reduce or redirect it into something else.

I assessed the extent to which I exhibit these symptoms, said to be elements in the diagnosis of anxiety disorder:

Excessive worrying—check
Difficulties sleeping & restlessness—check
Fatigue—check
Concentration issues—check
Irritability & tension—triple check with exponential emphasis
Increased heart rate & palpitations—not that I notice
Sweating & hot flashes—no
Trembling & shaking—nooo…welllll…a little…sometimes
Chest pains & shortness of breath—check
Feelings of terror or impending doom—not quite that intense, but…

Some of the signs simply are one’s normal reactions to the world around us. To what extent does one have to exhibit the symptoms to warrant a diagnosis of anxiety disorder? I haven’t a clue. Whether I have an anxiety disorder or simply feel more anxiety than normal of late, I have no interest in taking medications to control the symptoms. Instead, it occurs to me that a simple and deliberate meditation-based approach might be just as effective or more so. So, I depend on Google to lead me to resources.  The number of resources that ostensibly help with anxiety through meditation or mindfulness is stunning; dozens of online and other resources that promise to change the purchaser’s life. After skimming several fee-based meditation offerings, I decide to stick with resources that seem genuinely informative and do not ask for money. And, importantly to me, do not offer extravagant and absurd promises.

The Mayo Clinic’s discussion of anxiety—and dealing with it through meditation—surprised me a bit with its inclusion of religious components (which I interpret as suggestion options, not as demands). In a pretty lengthy online article, it offered suggestions on how to develop a meditation practice. (What follows is mostly verbatim from the website, but with a few personal edits):

Breathe deeply. Focus your full attention on your breathing. Concentrate on feeling and listening as you inhale and exhale through your nostrils. Breathe deeply and slowly. When your attention wanders, gently return your focus to your breathing.

Scan your body. When using this technique, focus attention on different parts of your body. Become aware of your body’s various sensations, whether that’s pain, tension, warmth or relaxation. Combine body scanning with breathing exercises and imagine breathing heat or relaxation into and out of different parts of your body.

Repeat a mantra. You can create your own mantra, whether it’s religious or secular. Examples of religious mantras include the Jesus Prayer in the Christian tradition, the holy name of God in Judaism, or the om mantra of Hinduism, Buddhism and other Eastern religions.

Walk and meditate. Combining a walk with meditation is an efficient and healthy way to relax. You can use this technique anywhere you’re walking, such as in a tranquil forest, on a city sidewalk or at the mall. When you use this method, slow down your walking pace so that you can focus on each movement of your legs or feet. Don’t focus on a particular destination. Concentrate on your legs and feet, repeating action words in your mind such as “lifting,” “moving” and “placing” as you lift each foot, move your leg forward and place your foot on the ground.

Engage in prayer. Prayer is the best known and most widely practiced example of meditation. Spoken and written prayers are found in most faith traditions. You can pray using your own words or read prayers written by others. Check the self-help section of your local bookstore for examples. Talk with your rabbi, priest, pastor or other spiritual leader about possible resources. [John’s comment: In my mind, a secular “prayer” that acknowledges benefits I did not earn and offers appreciation to the “universe” for the day would more than suffice.]

Read and reflect. Many people report that they benefit from reading poems or sacred texts, and taking a few moments to quietly reflect on their meaning. You can also listen to sacred music, spoken words, or any music you find relaxing or inspiring. You may want to write your reflections in a journal or discuss them with a friend or spiritual leader. [John’s comment: My blog may serve this function, though perhaps reading others’ thoughts will be more calming.]

Focus your love and gratitude. In this type of meditation, you focus your attention on a sacred image or being, weaving feelings of love, compassion and gratitude into your thoughts. You can also close your eyes and use your imagination or gaze at representations of the image. [John’s comment: While love and gratitude are, I think, essential, focusing on a “sacred image” seems unnecessarily religious.]

Based on what I have read and my intellectual and emotional response to it, I think the outcome of working on the new house will be beneficial to an anxiety-relieving “meditation” practice. A comfortable and quiet place in the woods, in an area well-suited for walking without concerns about traffic, can be calming in and of itself. I can already envision taking daily walks that double as meditative acknowledgements of my good fortune. Repeating a mantra (something I would have considered no more than a ridiculous ritual in years past) that has some special meaning to me is an intriguing idea, though I’m not sure just what that mantra might be. I’ll think about it. I like the idea of reading and reflecting. And I already know and feel the importance of love and gratitude for everything I have—including physical possessions, a sense of being safely “at home,” and my life experiences that molded me into who I am and continue to shape me every day.

Obviously, I wouldn’t devote so much time to reading about and reflecting on anxiety if I did not feel its effects on me and on others in my sphere. I don’t think my anxiety is any greater than anyone else’s, but regardless of its severity or lack thereof. But any time it crosses the line between giving me a healthy awareness of my life’s situation and making me feel wary of “what comes next,” it merits attention.

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Secret longings. Fantasies. Wishes that, though in conflict with one another, provide the fuel for desire. These are things I will write about when I find the perfect place to think and view what hides behind the curtains in my mind. And I will return to Struggles, Arkansas and to my life and times when I was Kolbjørn Landvik or a dozen other characters on whom I may have modeled my life. I wrote a piece I called Fikshun, but I’ve never posted it here. Perhaps I will one day before long. I’ll get back to writing. I will.

If not for my growing fascination with posts made in the Facebook group, That’s It, I’m Architecture Shaming, I would not be so increasingly conscious of the brutalism style of architecture. But several members of the group regularly post photos of architectural atrocities that look like they were designed and built in deference to the totalitarianism of growling Soviet and East German dictators. And so I find myself able to identify a product of a brutalist architect with only a fast glance. Even people who are not familiar with the style will quickly recognize brutalist buildings: massive, plain grey concrete with sharp edges and devoid of “dainty” touches. One member of the Facebook group, in commenting about a photo of a brutalist building in Tasmania—now labeled a heritage site—says the building cannot really work in such a sunny locale because it “needs a backdrop of a grey sky to truly be appreciated for the love story to concrete that it is.” He nailed it. Brutalist architecture is, indeed, an homage to the “beauty” of massive, dull, grey concrete. All that having been said, though, I have found myself developing a much greater appreciation for brutalist architecture since joining the Facebook group. Having never made a comment about any of the posts, nor having posted anything myself, I am strictly a lurker. As a blogger hungry for engagement with my small band of regular readers, that is a deeply embarrassing admission.

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Just one week ago today, I placed what I considered an enormously expensive online grocery order with Walmart. This morning, I will pick up yet another very large order, though it is not quite as pricey as last week’s spending spree. If we were more energetic and better meal planners, we would be emptying the cupboards and freezers instead of stocking more and more “stuff” in them. Some stuff, of course, must be regularly replenished: milk, eggs, fresh fruit and veggies and the like, etc. But crackers and jam and peanut butter and jalapeños and olive oil and several other items probably should have made last week’s list even longer and more expensive; it’s not like we could not have anticipated a week ago needing them a week hence. Today’s order, though, includes meats (chicken and ground beef) and Greek yoghurt; we could have gotten by without them, opting instead to thaw foods in the freezer and/or open canned foods. Oh, well. Eventually, we will wade through the massive of collected foods. Before we move, we no doubt will decide life will be easier if we eat what we have, rather than pack and move boxes full of canned goods that could well belong to survivalists. Now that I’m shopping online, I rather enjoy grocery shopping. I’ve never been especially keen on wandering the aisles of supermarkets, looking for products that store management recently decided to relocate from one side of the store to the other. Ordering online is so bloody easy! I almost feel guilty that it’s not more work. But not quite.

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You are the sky. Everything else is just the weather.

~ Pema Chödrön ~

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I have long admired the writing of Pema Chödrön. She is an American Tibetan Buddhist and an ordained nun (whatever that means). According to Wikipedia, she is former acharya of Shambhala Buddhism (Greek to me) and disciple of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Chödrön is principal teacher at Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia. I think it odd that I wish I could be a student at the abbey, so I could experience the teachings of an 85-year-old Buddhist nun. I suppose my appreciation for her began when I read one of her many books, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times.

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We spent a few hours at the new house yesterday, taping trim to protect it from paint and applying a layer of paint to the walls of what will become my girlfriend’s study. She chose a grey-blue color that I initially thought would be rather unattractive (but, hey, it’s her study). After painting about eighty percent of of the room, I changed my mind. It was a stellar choice. So attractive that I changed my mind about my study; I will use the same color on the walls in mine. Unlike her study, though, I will have to paint the ceiling in mine, because someone (I assume the dimwits from whom we bought the house) painted the ceiling dark sage-Army green. That was not the only abuse those people heaped upon the house. If nothing else, though, their treatment of the place gave us the opportunity to give it the TLC it needs to, eventually, become an attractive, livable home. I’m trying to be grateful. Trying very, very hard.

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I just got notice that Walmart could not fill part of my order: no ground meat and no Greek yoghurt. If I were paranoid, I would question whether the company cannot or has simply decided it will not fill the order. Perhaps someone who works for Walmart has decided to torment me by selectively refusing to sell to me items on my shopping list. Wouldn’t that be a fun game to play, if one had access to Walmart’s online shopping system? Just randomly select items from a shopper’s list and claim the items are not available, offering the shopper a cryptic message, such as, “We are unwilling to fill part of your order; you will not receive the zucchini you desired. Our refusal is based in part on recent behaviors of certain of your family members; we find those behaviors offensive. Should those behaviors continued, delivery of your next order will include items you do not want but which you will be forced to accept and pay for. Let this be a warning to you.”

And with that, I will crawl out from under my rock and wander into the day.

I saw a re-post on Facebook this morning that caught my attention. I wasn’t sure whether the words simply resonated with me because I endorse the sentiment they convey or, instead, whether they caused me to have an intensely introspective moment:

If you aren’t grateful for what you already have, what makes you think you would be happy with more?

Many of the comments that accompanied the post expressed gratitude to a supernatural being for gifts bestowed on the commenter. I found those comments especially shallow and utterly meaningless. They expressed appreciation “to” something external to the commenter. They seemed to me to position the commenters as helpless beings whose good fortunes, such as they were, came about because of some benevolent creature over which the commenters have no control. Something about that repulses me. Those comments almost caused me to turn away from the statement as just another hokey, imbecilic meme that extracts hokey, imbecilic comments from deeply superficial people.

It is foolish to squander the time you have to live your life here on Earth by telling others how to live their own lives.

~ The Grammarist ~

But I did not allow the responses, which I found pathetic and empty, to control my response to the assertion contained in the question. Even though the question is, in my opinion, an unnecessarily negative way of expressing a highly positive philosophical position, I think one’s response to the question is what matters. The more I thought about it, the more I realized why the words hit me the way they did. And, as I continued to contemplate the words—and my harsh reaction to the comments they elicited from others—the more I realized my reaction constituted unnecessary emotional expense. And those words made me recall my several short-lived attempts to develop a daily practice of gratitude. I suppose my idea of a “practice of gratitude” is akin to others’ practices of meditation. Maybe it is exactly the same thing. Whatever it is, I want to rekindle or resurrect the desire to develop a practice of gratitude. By doing so, I expect I will more fully appreciate my existence. Not that I will happily welcome every experience I have, but that I will try to take from every experience a lesson in living.

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A friend suggested to me not so long ago that I frequently use the word “shard” in my writing. Instantly, I realized she was right. I not only used it, I over-used it. I used it because I thought it seemed precisely right for those instances in which I used it.  But I could have and probably should have selected another word if for no other reason than variety.

Another word I used with greater-than-average frequency is “spectrum.” I think the ideas I convey when I use that word cannot be as effectively conveyed with any other words. It just fits, perhaps because its meaning expresses my perception of the range and density of experience. It applies not just to the range of colors on a scale of visible light, but to the range of related experience in every facet of our existence.

I may find another way of expressing the range of related experiences. Until I do, though, I will continue to use and perhaps over-use and very possibly misuse “spectrum.”

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The underlying philosophy that guides my life—except when I allow my biases and emotions and prejudices and multitudinous flaws intervene—is embodied in the proverb that says “live and let live.” The world would be a far better and more peaceful place if humankind would simply adopt and, more importantly, live by that philosophy.  This morning, as I pondered the extent to which I embrace what I consider my core philosophy, I read what others have to say about the phrase and its meaning. Here’s something I found online at grammarist.com; I think it is especially illuminating:

To “live and let live” means to be tolerant, to live one’s own life in the manner that he wishes and to allow the other fellow to live his life in the manner that he wishes. The philosophy of live and let live does not necessarily embrace or condone the differences of others, but it promotes accepting the differences of others without trying to change them. It is foolish to squander the time you have to live your life here on Earth by telling others how to live their own lives.

It is easy to express that “live and let live” is one’s guiding philosophy but much more difficult (at least for me) to accept and respond accordingly to that guidance. I find it more than a little hypocritical to espouse tolerance while simultaneously condemning intolerant behaviors (and the people who exhibit them) in others. The preceding sentence should be tattooed across my forehead as a reminder of my own hypocrisy. Something like it should be printed on bathroom mirrors all across the planet. Actually, a paragraph or two might be necessary to fully express the underlying message.

One shouldn’t belittle oneself. Except when warranted.

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Once again, I went to bed late, yet could not sleep past 3:00 a.m. It’s about a quarter past 5 and I’m beginning to feel like I might be able to sleep if I were to try, but I’d probably sleep until 8 or 9 if I did. I have things to do today, so I’ll try to stay awake for the duration.

Time to slice a cantaloupe for this morning’s breakfast. I might supplement cantaloupe with breakfast sausage. Or I might fall asleep in front of the stove.

Mistakes can be costly in many ways. They can cost money, time, energy, confidence, and comfort. Failing to own up to them can cost even more. Respect and trust are two of the most costly aspects of denying—or failing to admit—mistakes.  Everyone makes them. Probably every day. But sometimes we can’t bring ourselves to admit them; to do so, we seem to think, would weaken us in the eyes of others. In fact, the effect of admitting mistakes has the opposite effect. That admission, whether labeled courageous or not, tends to elevate our standing among people who matter. The admission pairs well with honesty; the two are intertwined like cables.  There can be horrific consequences of mistakes, of course. When an architect or builder makes mistakes that lead to a building’s collapse, neither an admission nor a heartfelt apology is adequate. Like everything else in life, mistakes—and the forgiveness afforded their makers—fall somewhere along a scale from quite minor to monumental. As we plod along in our lives, we try to avoid making mistakes, but inevitably we make them. Most of them can be corrected, but some of them can’t. Even the ones that cannot be corrected—at least most of them—can be forgiven. The choice to forgive is not up to the person who made the mistake, though. Sometimes, it is not even  up to the one(s) harmed by the mistake. Societies choose whether to forgive mistakes that may or may not harm society as a whole. The intertwined subject of mistakes and forgiveness could be the fodder for long and illuminating philosophical conversations. But those conversations require both the right circumstances and the right people. Both elements sometimes are too briefly available, though. So, the conversations remain unspoken until everything is in place. That is true of almost everything, though, not just philosophical conversations. Our entire experience of existence relies entirely on pieces of an incredibly elaborate puzzle coming together in just the right way at just the right time, which is an enormously unlikely occurrence. Viewed from that perspective, virtually everything we experience or witness or learn about is a miracle of one kind or another. Maybe a minor miracle. Maybe a miracle of immeasurable proportions. Life itself, and the absence of life, is an unlikely reality. Maybe they both are mistakes. Life is a mistake and death represents forgiveness. Or vice versa: death is a mistake and life represents forgiveness. Long philosophical discussions can be both illuminating and ultimately pointless. Except for the illumination.

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I am not sure whether it was the pain in my knee or the troubling dream that woke me the second time. Maybe both. The knee has been giving me trouble for weeks. Maybe months. I understand the genesis of the dream, though it was a bit morbid. I was arguing with an attorney about modifying my will to leave my white sofas to a couple of friends who have made it known that they want them if ever I decide to sell them. “You don’t include pieces of furniture in your will,” the attorney snarled. I don’t recall exactly how I responded to her, but it was something along the lines of “It’s not your effing will, but I’m your effing client, so you’ll modify the effing will exactly as I prescribe!” The dream involved other items I wanted to include in my will, but I don’t remember what. I needed to modify the document right away because I expected to die soon. I wasn’t panicked in the least by that fact; I just felt a sense of urgency to get it done while I could. Weird and troubling. I can see how the dream could shake me awake. The knee has done it before. And at some time during the night last night, I remember my bedmate asking what was wrong; I must have been moaning in response to the pain in my knee. What a way to start the day: very early and with my mind on modifying my will.

You have to make mistakes to find out who you aren’t. You take the action, and the insight follows: You don’t think your way into becoming yourself.

~ Anne Lamott

After I woke, but before I got out of bed, my head flooded with thoughts about necessary repairs and modifications to the new house. I think I must have reflected on every hinge that needs to be replaced and every door that needs to be adjusted and every inch of paint that needs to be carefully applied at the juncture between the wall and the ceiling and every countertop that needs upgrading and every other imperfection that will require money to correct. By the time I swung my legs over the side of the bed, I was overwhelmed by the magnitude of what’s needed. As I think about it now, the size and scope of what’s needed is not really overwhelming, but it is far beyond what I expected when buying a house that was ostensibly “move-in ready.” I thought, initially, all it would require would be paint and a willingness to overlook its copious imperfections. I suppose that willingness has turned to dust; I need to refresh it somehow.

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The other day, I wrote about how I found this image fascinating. This morning, as I contemplate the image, I realize how the actual piece of art must appear very different, depending on one’s perspective. Viewing it from above, it looks like the image I see in the photograph. But if I bend down close, it must appear less symmetrical. And if I put my head down on the sand next to it, the components in my line of sight must appear as a rather disorderly bunch of rocks. Its beauty emerges only with a degree of distance from the elements of the art. My late wife and I once bought a mug—it may still be around here, hanging on a mug rack—with an image that, close-up, looks like a bunch of pixelated abstract dots. But if you hold the mug a distance from your eyes, you see an image that appears to be a profile of Abraham Lincoln. The image on the mug is a copy of Salvador Dalí’s lithograph, Lincoln in Dalivision, which was created on the basis of Dalí’s painting, Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea which at a distance of 20 meters is transformed into the portrait of Abraham Lincoln (Homage to Rothko). Interesting stuff. Evidence that distance and perspective play vital roles in how we see the world around us.

Mistakes are always forgivable if one has the courage to admit them.

~ Bruce Lee ~

Today is my friend’s birthday. If justice prevailed in our corner of the universe, she and her husband would rush down to Hot Springs Village so we could celebrate her successful attainment of a certain age. Alternatively, we would head north, arriving just in time to open a bottle or six of wine or champagne or excellent cognac or armagnac and present to her a charcuterie board that would rival those offered by the best French restaurants. This edible delight would be awash in sausage, ham, bacon, terrines, galantines, ballotines, pâtés, confit, and other dishes about which I have virtually no knowledge but for which I understand I should hunger because they represent the pièce de résistance of the world’s cuisine. Alas, this little corner of the world is rife with injustice. So, we’ll have to make it another time. And another meal.

In the meantime, let me explain a little something about this delightful friend of mine. As the image accompanying this post suggests, she is both complex and beautiful; a woman whose intellectual capacity and ability to engage in abstract thinking are stunning.  And her memory is astonishing—astounding. She remembers everything, from the smallest inconsequential detail about the color of the button’s on a family member’s shirt to the most crucial slice of information upon which humankind relies for survival. One can tell merely by looking at her that she is a work of art, an example of how art and intellect coalesce into something almost otherworldly.

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Happy Birthday, by the way! When will we see you?

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There are other friends, too. People like Steve and Rhonda and Patty and Ed and others. But only one, the woman pictured here, is eligible for birthday celebrations today. Which is not to say I will not think about the others. I will. Without question. But only one will be the intended recipient of today’s birthday wishes.  And there you go.

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I may write more a little later in the day. Or I may not. We shall see. In the meantime, I will hope to be able to successfully maneuver patches of ice and refrozen snow so I can meet several contractors who may help convert the new house into a highly livable oasis.