Jobs

Yesterday's news, and today's, was the death of Steven Jobs. The majority of what I read today about his death was in tribute to the man and his legacy, but there were a few people who either despised him for some reason or were annoyed that his death upset their expectations of what they'd find in traditional and social media. The latter group of people are, in my view, truly selfish and bathed in deep self-appreciation; the death of an icon does NOT, in their view, merit interrupting their routine. I have absolutely nothing but disdain for such attitudes.

I read a transcript, and viewed a video, of Jobs' 2005 commencement address at Stanford. It was low-key, understated, and brilliant. It made me think about my life. Steve Jobs was a brilliant and very observant man.

Facebookery

I'm toying with the idea of allowing Facebook to languish in its thirst for useless change while I return to blogging more frequently. My comments won't be seen by as many people, but I suspect most people who see my comments now don't find them particularly enlightening or interesting. I can be boring right here on Blogger.

It's not that I can't adapt to change. I can and I do and I really welcome change. But when change appears to be made for its own sake and, in the process, reduces the utility and attractiveness of a product, I rebel. Maybe I'll get over it. Maybe not. In the overall scheme of things, my reaction to Facebook isn't all that important. But we'll see whether it's important enough to me to let Facebook go on its merry way without my regular presence.

Walkery and Things

I woke up a bit earlier than usual this morning, around a quarter to five. On weekdays, I try to walk two to three miles early in the morning, but I put more demands on myself on weekends. On a typical Saturday, I would wait until around six o'clock to get going, but today I opted to get right into it. So, just before five, I set out for what I told myself would be a minimum of four miles.

It has been awhile since I went north on my morning walks, so I decided to inject a little change into my morning routine and headed north.

Despite the fact that I've been taking morning walks for quite some time, I'm never quite "up" for them. It might be different if they were leisurely strolls, but they're not. I push myself, though not too hard, to start with and keep up a pretty brisk pace, almost always 15 minutes per mile or better; that's four miles or more per hour. By the time I'm ten or fifteen minutes into the walk, though, I fee much better about it and am glad I pushed through the doubt about whether I really wanted to go out.

Most mornings I stay on low-traffic residential streets or on one of the nearby hike-bike trails, but today I spent the majority of my time on fairly busy main arteries, though at the early hour of my walks there's not a great deal of traffic. The one big difference, though, is that the critters I often seen on less-traveled streets are largely missing when I hit the main roads. No bunnies, no raccoons, no possums scampering across the street. Just the occasional car or caravan of cars, plus a walker or runner every now an again.

This morning, I saw a runner I've seen on many previous walks. As usual, this young, thin, closely-shaven-headed guy who runs carrying a light pack on his back did not acknowledge me when we passed going in opposite directions. I always acknowledge other walkers and runners and bicyclists but often am disappointed that they do not return the greeting. I wonder if they are so deeply into a meditative routine that they either choose not to interact with others or are oblivious to others around them.

At any rate, this guy followed his pattern of staring straight ahead and not acknowledging my wave and "good morning!" as we passed. A short while later, though, as I was walking against traffic, closely hugging to the curb, I heard a loud voice right behind me. I was not expecting it and was startled by it. I had my headphones on and was listening to "World Cafe," so I was admittedly a bit distracted, but I keep the volume low so I can hear vehicles and people nearby. I did not quite understand what he said, but later decided he must have said "on your right" as he was about to pass me. When I heard that loud sound, though, I twisted around quickly and saw him (the same closely-shaven-headed guy who had been running the other direction earlier) and said something like "Oh! You startled me!" He said, at about the same time and just as he passed by, "I'm sorry I scared you." It woke me out of my distracted state and probably increased my heart-rate by a good fifty percent.

As I continued on my way, I began thinking about all the people I see while out on my walks. Rarely do they seem very friendly as we pass by one another. I try to smile and wave and say "good morning" whenever I pass, but rarely do I get a reciprocal attitude. While the guy with the backpack may be in his Zen state, the guy strolling along at a leisurely pace, looking at the sky and the trees and the birds, probably isn't. Nor is the woman walking her dogs. Or the chatty women walking together. Most of them, if they acknowledge me at all, seem nervous and suspicious.

I wonder why. I wonder how they would react if I asked them to stop and talk to me. "I'm writing an article on interacting on the exercise trail and wonder if you'd have a word with me?" Would I be rejected?

I may find out. I may not.

Cleansing...Will a Year Do It?

The time is approaching, apace, when I will no longer be obliged to lie about business. No longer will I be required to advocate for business models I abhor, pimp for marketing strategies I find personally offensive, and prevaricate in the name of business development.

This may be a good thing. Or it may be an opportunity for me to look inward and realize what a prostitute I have been for virtually all of my professional life.

As I recall, the first time I was expected to be the mouthpiece for a cause I found offensive was just before the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The organization for which I worked at the time was petrified by the ADA. Its members felt like they were being targeted. They felt like the "disabled" were asking for too much and unwilling to pay for what they asked. They felt like they were being asked...no, required...to spend money to make their places of business accessible without any reasonable justification for the requirement. After all, they reasoned, people in wheelchairs or people who were deaf and needed sign interpreters were unlikely to visit their places of business. Why spend money on accommodations when there was no one to accommodate?

Of course there was no one to accommodate. Absent accommodations, the people who really needed the accommodations weren't likely to be there, were they? And if they would come AFTER the ADA, it would only be to serve as needlers to the members I was representing.

Had I been blessed with balls and a strong sense of morality and personal responsibility, I would have fought the directive to defend members' positions. But I was ball-less and amoral. It was my job. I had to defend my employer. In hindsight, and in shame, I can say with conviction: "Bullshit!"

It didn't stop there, though. Aside from opposing ADA and arguing that the law was making too many unfunded demands, I argued that individuals who worked long hours for a single company doing the company's bidding should NOT be treated as employees. No, they should be classified as independent contractors because they agreed to be classified in that fashion when they were "engaged" by the business. No matter that they were bound to stay with home-bound people for 24 hours or 48 hours or more at a stretch, and no matter that their contracts provided that they would be paid only for 8 hours of work at a "contractor" rate within any 25 hour period. No, I was asked to...and I did...defend companies that didn't want the tax and administrative and insurance burden of employees. I was a peach, wasn't I? My morality was unmatched.

Looking back, I see hundreds of examples of abandoning my own principles and morals and sense of decency in favor of my employers' expectations. On those few occasions in which I argued as forcefully as I felt I could that my employers' positions were morally corrupt (even when I didn't use or suggest such terms), I was dismissed. "What's he gonna do, quit?" That's what the boards must have thought. If I had even a slim, brittle backbone, that's exactly what I would have done.

How can I make up for an entire life lived on the underside of morality? As much as I might want to do it, I don't know that I can.

The question is whether I can continue to live with the acknowledgement of my inability to made suitable amends to the world around me.

Maybe a year, more or less, on the road will allow me to clear my conscience. I guess we'll soon see.

Burdens

Tonight, I watched The Other Side of the Border, a documentary produced by the local PBS affiliate, KERA. It told the story of a number of people who have long been forced to fight the realities of their "undocumented status" and what that status means to them, to their families, and to their futures. My emotions are fragile after watching that program because I really feel for the people whose troubles were profiled, but for much more, as well.

It troubles me that the program was produced in 1987. Nothing has improved. NOTHING! If anything, the people whose lives are turned into poker hands due to bureaucratic lunacy and capitalistic racism and greed on steroids are facing WORSE conditions today. Does no one really give a fuck what happens to these people? Are they really, truly on their own? Does our economic system really just drink their blood and throw their corpses on the stinking pile to be carried off by carrion-eating governmental policy wonks and corporate greed-feasters?

I wonder what burdens people carry? Does anyone feel guilt at putting families into an unending cycle of poverty? Does anyone care that children are being guaranteed futures of illiteracy, poverty, and fear?

Today, just for today, I'm on the edge of wanting my connection with humanity to end. I feel right now that I don't want to be associated with the filth that masquerades as humanity. I assume this shall pass...but it will be a temporary lull in an otherwise loathsome state.

Today's Thoughts

A friend of mine posted a link on her Facebook page yesterday; I found it quite interesting. Surprisingly, the link is to a blog written by a minister in an Indiana church, a church affiliated with American Baptist Churches and the Church of Christ. Anyone who knows me as the heathen I am might wonder what I could admire about a sermon. Let me tell you.

While the Christian platform upon which the post was based is at odds with my own beliefs (or lack thereof, I should say), I found the writer's comments to be rooted deeply in "truth" as I believe it to be (which is to say "humanity," but outside the religious framework).

I did not post any "blather" about 9/11 yesterday, but I'm posting this today because it struck a chord with me. In response to another friend who expressed appreciation that I did not post any such "blather" yesterday, I said "If I had chosen to write about September 11, it would not have been required reading. If someone decides to mark the anniversary of something meaningful or painful by putting up blather, so be it."

Unlike many people, who deliberately chose not to watch or listen to any of the ceremeonial tributes to the 9/11 attacks, I watched and listened to more than one. I found some of what I watched and heard profoundly moving. I do not consider all the victims of those attacks to be "heroes," but I do consider the events of that horrific day worth recalling. The arguments made in the blog linked above that I found particularly appealing were those that acknowledged our own responsibilities, as a country, for our role in a global maelstorm. This, in particular, appealed to me:

When presented with an opportunity for humility, an opportunity to turn the other cheek and respond with lovingkindness, we as a people did not do so. When presented with an opportunity to look seriously at our shortcomings as players on the global stage and reconsider our historic methods of coercion, we as a people did not do so.

Instead, we have spent the better part of ten years responding from a place of fear and intolerance. We have waged wars that have not made us safer. We have said things that cannot be unsaid.

In short, we have dug ourselves further and further into debt. We have shamed ourselves.

Oh, by the way, another piece about 9/11 I watched yesterday intrigued me. It was a short (about 11 minute) video about the "boatlift" of people from lower Manhattan that day. According to the video, the boatlift was the largest water evacuation of people in human history, dwarfing the Dunkirk evacuation.

So, there you have just a sampling of where my thoughts about 9/11 were yesterday.

Just 2 Months

Time is moving at the speed of light. Just 2 more months and I'll be unemployed, with no income and no prospects for any. I'm trying not to panic, but it's not easy. There are so many things I want to do, write, experience, see, discuss. But I feel like I'm ADD in a big way. I hope that disappears; I cannot afford to bounce from idea to idea without taking any action on any of them. I cannot even write. Ugh.

Return to Bloggery

I have been horribly remiss in posting to Brittle Road. I'll try to do better. I've come across some new (to me) information, websites, email distributions, etc. in the past few weeks that I've found extremely interesting. So, if for no other reason than to record these sites for future reference, here's just a start of a summary of what I find to be of interest of late:

• From Brain Pickings, I found this piece on 7 Essential Books on Street Art fascinating. I was particularly intrigued by two of the photos shown in the piece: and
  



• Another one from Brain Pickings, this review of seven "must-read" books about cities
gives us seven books that help us, as the article's title suggests, understand urbanity. The most intriguing of the seven, based purely upon reading the reviews, is Who's Your City. Zinester's Guide to NYC comes in a close second, helped along with a wonderful graphic of Brooklyn, New York's astrological signs:

The synopsis of the book I found least compelling, Aerotropolis, doesn't mention anything about what I believe is a dead certainty: that we simply CANNOT continue to rely so heavily on air transportation.

There will be more soon. If I can get my discipline back; it's been hiding under a rock.

Not Bad

For reasons that escape me for the moment, I am feeling a little sad. Maybe sad is not the word, though I don't know what it is.

I've been watching television, something I do relatively rarely. Usually, TV reinforces my decision to avoid it. But tonight I watched a "reality" show about how people deal with uncomfortable realities. And then another one dealing with how people respond to horrific personal adversity.

How can anything on my mind compete? It can't. But I don't want it to compete. Woof. Life can be a bitch, but it's not bad for me. Not bad at all.

3 More Months

It's just a touch over three months now. Then, I'll be reasonably free to pursue things I've not been able to pursue for a long time. Like freedom. Like a new intellectual foundation upon which to base my life, or what's left of it. That may be a tad dramatic. But maybe not.

Announcement

Well, what do you think about this?

Worry

This is a personal post for me. Don't let it bother you.

I'm getting worried. Worried that I'm closing my business without giving it enough thought. Worried that I may, truly, be entering the realm of poverty, from which there may be no emergence.

I can't not deal with this because I have an obligation to my wife; I can't leave her in the lurch. But if it were just me, I could reasonably consider auto-euthanasia if thing got really bad. But I can't do that. I just hope I'm worried about things that won't come to pass.

Lethargy

I am having a rather tough time keeping my mind on work when I need to be working. There are obligations to meet, clients to satisfy, jobs to do, objectives to meet. But none of them hold any interest. They haven't for some time, but since I announced my intention, just about three weeks ago, to terminate my clients' contracts in a few months it has become worse.

There's no question I have the capacity to do the work, regardless of my level of interest or lack thereof. But something is keeping me in a constant state of lethargy with respect to "work" responsibilities. I keep telling myself it's only a few more months, I can stay focused...but then I realize I'm lying to get me off my back.

I can smooth this out. I can be mellow about it and get on to the jobs at hand. But will I? I must.

Abject Poverty

Abject poverty. It's a phrase that crosses the lips of a spoiled yuppie who describes what his life will be like in the future if he doesn't get a raise. It's a concept that somehow seems appropriate to discuss while suggesting the inadequacy of one's income. It is a condition most who know the meaning of the words cannot begin to comprehend.

Abject poverty is a condition of hopeless existence, in which the only certainty seems to be hunger and perpetual insecurity. That's not insecurity in the sense one doesn't know where the next month's mortgage payment is going to come from. It's insecurity in the sense one doesn't know where the next sip of water or the next morsel of food will come from. It's the insecurity of knowing there is no assurance of a roof over one's head tonight or a way to keep the searing heat of the sun off one's head during the meanest summer. It's having no place to turn for help, no one who can offer shelter or clothing or food to eat. Adject poverty is the most wreched condition, a condition that rips away every scrap of dignity and every confidence one will live until the next sunrise.

I do not know abject poverty. I only know of it. But what I know of it makes me think it would make me feel desperate and afraid if I had to experience it. There would be no room for humanity, at least not in my head. It would be a petri dish for depression and hatred and anger and suicidal thoughts.

Try to imagine, if you can, someone you love living in abject poverty. Imagine that person homeless, penniless, and threadbare--unbathed, uncombed, unkept to the extreme--starving and wondering whether the next meal will come before starvation or an untended wound snuffs out the last vestiges of life from a worn and fragile body.

I hope these thoughts make you feel uncomfortable. I hope they make you feel uncomfortable enough to dig into your pockets and pull out some change or some bills to use as a means of buying your way out of the discomfort by making a contribution to an individual or an organization who can help.

Lust for Australia

I stumbled upon a blog today that I have added to my blogroll and shall visit with some regularity, I think. It's called Though small it is tasty. The person who writes it (Meg, I believe) has a the same adventurous spirit about food that I have...I like that in a human. That fact that the writer lives in Brisbane (I think) makes it that much more intriguing. I visited Brisbane once long, long ago...about 1995, I think. I loved it. I want to go back.

Another blogger who has since moved back "home" to the Netherlands from a brief (2 years or so) stint in Australia used to write about her life in Australia (on the other side...in Adelaide). After reading her blog, viewing her photos, and getting wrapped up in her life there, I was ready to move...or at least make a trip. I suspect, after having read bits of Though small it is tasty, I may develop that same lust for Australia again. This time, though, I may be in a position to actually do something about it within the next few months. Of course, I'll have to sell my soul do to it, which probably won't bring much...I may have to take a freighter to make the crossing. Because a former staff member lives in Sydney now, I may be able to find someone there, too, to at least help find cheap hotels or direct us to an elder-hostel.

Ah, well, I best not make expensive plans just yet. I have to first get used to abject poverty.

A New Chapter

PLEASE: IF YOU READ THIS, DO NOT SHARE IT, NOR SHARE THE INFORMATION. IT IS, FOR THE TIME-BEING, ONLY FOR YOU WHO REGULARLY READ THE SWILL I WRITE. READ ON TO LEARN MORE.

What hath this madness wrought? I did it.

Today, I announced the closure of the latest professional chapter in my life. My clients now know; October 31 is my version of the rapture. There will be enormous amounts of work between now and then to prepare for the transition.

And, there is the distinct possibility that one or more of them will implore me to stay for awhile to help with the transition. But, for all intents and purposes, October 31 will mark the day on which my business, as it has operated for 13 years, will cease. I'm not shutting it down, just making it into a shell that I may, or may not, resurrect later.

Now, I have a request: though the chief volunteer leaders of my client groups know, the rest of world does not. Please allow me to keep it that way for a while longer. Do not post congratulations on my other blogs or Facebook pages, etc.; while I would love to read them, I still must let things play out as they will.

I am at once elated and terrified of a life lived in perpetual poverty. But I am so, so, so ready to experience it!

Girlyman--Caroline

This tune was performed in public by Girlyman for the first time last night (6.11.2011) in Fort Worth.

Creativity...Art...Vision...Or Not?

Having not painted, or having not painted "art," for quite some time, my latest attempt was a somewhat shocking reminder that, absent the technique and skill, one's vision simply cannot be transferred to canvas.

That disappointing realization led me on a thought odyssey that raised more questions than it answered. The principal question it raised was this: does the creativity represented by visual art lay within the vision upon which a piece of art was based, or does it lay within the execution of the vision? Or is it the amalgamation of the vision and the techniques and technical skills required to execute the vision? Perhaps there are more options; perhaps artistic creativity is simply an elegant adjustment of one's technical limitations to one's vision, resulting in art that successfully integrates one's skill level with one's vision.

Ultimately, I think it can be reduced to this: despite the logic and legitimacy of the arguments that define creativity, creativity is a highly personal experience. I believe it can be intensely satisfying to the artist when the vision matches the artist's technical skills. But it can be intensely frustrating when they are on different planes.

When I shift the discussion to another creative landscape with which I am more familiar, that of using the written word, it becomes clearer to me. There, it seems to me, the "success" of the product requires successfully merging creative vision with technical capabilities. Exquisite technical capabilities, without the underlying vision, results in flat, dull, unremarkable language art. Intense creative vision without the technical skills for execution results in frustratingly chaotic word-bursts on the page.

Maybe I've answered my own questions, after all. There's creativity in my vision for the visual art I want to paint. But the frustrating paint-bursts on the canvas revealed the absence of the technical capabilities to carry it to fruition.

I've long believed the core capabilities of a writer are formed very early in life, perhaps before one finishes middle school. Those capabilities emerge through the use of language, early practice, and through perhaps an innate appreciation of language and what it can do. While those capabilities can be improved, honed, and refined later on, they cannot be created later on without that earlier foundation. So, too, I think, the core capabilities of a visual artist probably emerge early; if they are nurtured early and practices and developed, they can be refined later. But I doubt the technical skills required to translate vision into visual art can be successfully created later on. A certain level of mechanical skills may be acquired late, but that magical mix of vision and execution seem, to me, to require a foundation that can't be built after the walls are up.

At least that's what I think this morning.

Sharing Treasure

I have more treasures to share with you:

Remodelista: Sourebook for the Considered Home, an uber-intriguing interior design/architecture "blog" of sorts.

Kottke.org, a great blog from whence came the thunderstorm video in the adjacent post.

Peace and Love and Noticing the Details, a blog by Anne Herbert, that strikes a chord very, very deep within me.

Wonderful Thunderstorm Video

Watch this, if you can, on full-screen, in HD mode. It is, at once, deeply relaxing and highly energizing.

Hector Thunderstorm Project from Murray Fredericks.

Memorial Day

Today is Memorial Day. Many people do not know that Memorial Day began as Decorations Day, an event created by African Americans to honor Union soldiers of the Civil War. Its scope grew and it developed after World War I into an event to honor Americans who have died in all wars. Today, it honors Americans who have died while in the military service.

It's befitting to remember and honor the men and women who have died serving our country. But it would be wrong to equate Memorial Day with honoring militarism or aggression or American superiority over other countries. It is not, and should not become, a day to celebrate military service, nor should it be considered a day to equate patriotism with support for American military engagement. Memorial Day has become, and should remain, an occasion to express remembrance and gratitude to men and women who have taken seriously their duty to their fellow Americans and who have died while performing that duty.

I am opposed to wars and especially to wars launched with the objective of strong-arming the world around us into doing our bidding. War is an entanglement into which a country should go only as a last resort and only then after all other options have been exhausted.

That having been said, the men and women of the military do not set policy about wars; they only execute the policies they are given. Whatever they do at the behest of their commander-in-chief and their country, whether that direction is right or wrong, the sacrifice of their lives, made while performing that service, warrants our deep and everlasting appreciation.

Unspoken Conversations

There are conversations waiting to be held. Waiting for what? I don't know, at least I don't know all the reasons. No one does, really. But there they are, ideas sitting patiently beneath a mountain of unknown reasons, unshared, unappreciated, unspoken.

Some of them are mine. I have conversations tucked safely away in my head. Most of them are one-sided and late to the retort, unable to deftly shred the egos of those whose word caused their creation, simply because they are too late.

Unspoken conversations define regret. They define it. They do.

Memory

If there's anything about the Buddhist philosophy with which I am at odds, it's the suggestion that one MUST live in the now. I think memories...the past...play an extraordinarily important part in our lives. They can shape the present and they can shape the future. Remembering things that once were unimportant can trigger the realization that those "unimportant" byproducts of daily life were, indeed, deeply important.

My memories of my early years have never been very clear, nor have I had many of them. Somehow, my years from 5-20 seems to have almost disappeared from my mind. But those occasional glimpses into what life was like for me when I was younger can bring back a flood of emotions. There's more to memory than recollection. Memory is the framework upon which our lives are constructed.

Heatlh Insurance: Make it Burn!

It occurs to me; we bitch and moan about health insurance companies taking us to the cleaners and refusing to provide the "services" they are supposed to provide at fees that are remotely close to reasonable. Have we ever, collectively, decided to tell them to fuck off?! It's time we did that. Every company, and individual, in the USA should simply say, "enough!" Put aside as much as you ever paid to them into a pool that will provide health care to people who need it...people who join the pool with you. Illegal? Bullshit! Let the government show up and try to take it away while we scream bloody murder to the television cameras!

I'm so utterly, completely, irrevocably pissed off at the greedy bastards who run healthcare and the insurance industry in this country I could SCREAM! It's time we stop complaining and DO SOMETHING! The assholes feel it in their pocketbooks. Make it burn, people. Make it burn!

To Your Health

The decision about whether to go without health insurance is, for me, purely a financial one. It's simply about weighing options: do I want to hand over $700-$800 per month to an insurance company for me and for each of my staff members or do take a risk and set aside some money to help pay for "catastrophic" medical bills?

It's not a decision I want to make, but I have to make it. Of course it's not only about money. It's about whether I can keep staff; will they decide they cannot risk it and simply go to a larger company at which "exposure" is not the insurance company's only criterion for pricing?

I learned from one person that the threshold at which insurance companies no longer look at rating individuals is 100 employees. Below 100 employees, you're screwed if you have employees who are "aging" and/or who have any pre-existing conditions that frighten the insurance companies. Beyond "rating" each individual, the companies can "rate up" the high risk people by 67% of the peak premium for those individuals considered to be high risks. Me. My wife. My client services manager.

So, our glorious government decided to get tough with insurance companies and require them to offer coverage to groups of at least two people. Hooray. But they allowed the companies to "rate up" individuals to the tune of 67%. Not so hooray.

The ugly, but not-so-secret, secret about insurance companies is that they are wallowing in obscene profits. While claiming they cannot risk their "low" premiums on "sick" people for fear of spreading unreasonable burdens to others who pay premiums, they are literally awash in money. One piece of evidence of that fact is the fact that they are deluging with wife with marketing materials for Medicare Part B coverage; they are actively SEEKING people over 65 as policy-holders? These are the same people they will not write without being forced to in small group settings? Aahh...but the Part B coverage is in addition to coverage provided by the GOVERNMENT. It is ADDITIONAL coverage. So catastrophic coverage is already "covered." I see. So, if you remove the risk for insurance companies, they are willing to take the risk. What the fuck, EXACTLY, is the business they are in? RISK! But they want ME to pay for it. They do not want to risk their profits by taking risks. They want ME to take the financial risks for the policies they write.

I absolutely LOATHE the insurance industry right now. I loathe the healthcare system in this country. I loathe the greed-driven approach to health "care" in this country.

I am an unhappy camper. And I don't know just what I'll do, but regardless of the direction I take, it will be financially very difficult and very hard on my ability to get and retain staff. Thanks to my old age and my perceived ill health. NOT, of course, the greedy bastards who run the healthcare insurance system in this country.

I Want to be Buddhist, I Think

I am a million miles away from achieving my objective. I will have contradictory objectives along the way. Those intervening objectives, I think, can be pleasurable and can temper the path toward that one objective, but they get in the way. I don't quite know why I pursue them, too.

But the thing I desire to is to free myself from suffering and to free others from suffering me. If I were to live how I believe, I believe I would live better than I believe I do.

These may seem to be silly riddles, but they're not...at least not entirely.

There is exceptional wisdom in Buddhist philosopy. But it's a hard target to reach.

Sad

I think I may have uncovered the problem. I'm just sad. It's me. It's not the environment, it's not other people, it's not chemicals. I'm just fucking sad. That's life. I'll get over it. If not, that, too, is just fucking life.

Just for the Record

I haven't known what to write lately, so I haven't written. At least not here, where I tend to write what I really think...sometimes. My mind has been on other things. Writing what I think has not been among them.

As I sit here wondering what to write, I realize I'm not ready, still. My mind remains on other things. It is on other things entirely.

These last few weeks I've been ill-at-ease over issues that are hard to articulate in my own mind, much less write about. I'm trying to make, and stick with, decisions, but none of them seem right or, I should say, prudent. But I am beginning to get a sense that there's an inevitability to it that suggests decisions are not mine to make. So I worry and I fret and I wonder what to do or what to do differently.

I'm being obtuse. It's only because I don't know quite what I mean. That notwithstanding, and just for the record, I am here. I really am. Right here. Right now.

Smile when you can

Smile when you can because, one day, there will be nothing to smile about and all you'll have are memories of those smiles. They will be treasures, those memories. And those smiles, too.

Largess

Once, when I was a young man, I knew the path to fulfilment would parallel the road less traveled. But fulfillment wasn't what I was after. At least I did not think that was what I was seeking. Nevertheless, those who had traveled that road called to me to follow. They knew me better than I knew myself. Or maybe that's just my wish now, my hope that I might have been better than ever I was.

That road, though, was littered with the corpses of unfunded travel, unbuilt houses, ungaraged cars, and unspoken compliments at all of those unattained things.

So I took a different route.

I took the road that would lead to largess. But I never felt entirely comfortable on that road, so I stayed safely on the shoulder, where my unease would be shielded from the stares of those who sped along the highway and where my conscience would not be so thoroughly out of place. As I was busy hiding from the prying eyes of those who were disappointed at my failure to fully embrace the philosophies that powered the race, I failed to see the disappointment in the eyes of those I'd left to make the lonely trek along that other, less traveled road. It wasn't just disappointment in their eyes, I now realize. It was contempt.

Somewhere along the way, I ran into roadblocks. I tried to run through them or over them, but I hadn't developed sufficient speed. All I did was ruin the undercarriage of the vehicle and slow my progress toward the destination. But I kept trying. I got out and pushed, from time to time, and I made some progress. The closer I got to the destination, though, the harder it was to see. A haze thickened around it. The light was blocked and I could barely make out what once had been, if not brilliant, at least bright. I thought it was bright. Wasn't it bright, before?

As the long journey along the shoulder of that well-traveled road neared the end, I found that the largess I'd been seeking had been damaged in transit. The haze had been caused by the smoldering oil-soaked rags that had been used to tie its broken pieces together. Others around me still clung to the shiny pieces that had been thrown off before the smoldering began. And they seemed to worship them. But I didn't like the looks of largess anymore. Yet when I turned around, hoping to trudge back down that road to the one less traveled, I found that those who would have been my traveling companions had long since completed their journeys. They had attained what I did not even realize we were seeking. And they were no longer willing to share the spoils of the trip. Their contempt at my abandonment of the path was complete.

You forgive a friend, but I was no longer a friend.

And so here I am, a lifetime and a universe and an experience away from the destinations that were so attractive those many years ago. The destination, as it turned out, did not really matter, for it is illusory. But somehow the journey has gone missing and I'm afraid it may be lost.