Sunday, December 21, 2014

THE SEASON

Sunday December 21, 2014 8:24 pm

In a book titled Zahir, meaning, 'the obvious' the author Coelho wrote the following narrative:

(Ester had asked why people are sad?)

"That’s simple," says the old man. "They are the prisoners of their personal history. Everyone believes that the main aim in life is to follow a plan. They never ask if that plan is theirs or if it was created by another person. They accumulate experiences, memories, things, other people's ideas, and it is more than they can possibly cope with. And that is why... they forget their dreams.”

I wonder... can it honestly be no more than that? (They forget their dreams?) If so, if that really is all that it is then it's altogether sublime... and yet at the very same time it is ineffably sad!

Today was my day off and I purposed to go nowhere and I made no plans other than one brief outing and then back home. I have taken no phone calls and neither have I exchanged emails... again, I purposed to use this day to get a few things done. However, plans (not unlike dreams) have a way of changing and even though well-intended my list of things to do was interrupted (inexplicably) by falling into a deep slumber on the couch! (Have you ever fallen asleep without even realizing you were going to drop off?)

I think because of that nap and my confused thoughts upon awaking is why I'm writing this blog just now. My intentions were to come to my office and pay some bills while Deb finished up the wrapping and separating of the gifts we are delivering Christmas Eve. (She is now doing her part as she is sitting in the floor on the other side of my desk and filling gift bags.)

Coelho had written an allegory I read a few years ago that seemed apt to me and when I had gone searching for it to read it again (after I decided to take a break from check- writing and do this blog) I came across the above story, and it all seemed to fit... neatly I think? In the allegory I was looking for he had compared a set of RR tracks to a marriage... 'two tracks stay together forever but they never draw any closer.' (Perhaps another's dreams do sort of become our own and we end of living their lives rather than our own?)

Perhaps I, like millions of other people have for so long lived what others want that it is impossible any longer to separate what was once my own: my thoughts... my wants... my hopes... my loves... my dreams??? Maybe that is why I'm constantly drawn in my thoughts to the last line in a poem from one of my favorite authors, Edgar Allan Poe. (“...Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?)

Myriad times I have lived two lives... one while fully awake and one while in deep slumber. Betimes it would be nigh to impossible for me to state with certainty which was the more 'true reality' for me! (It is also true there have been times when I have sought sleep to escape certain realities... and there have been times when I have found my soul sorrowful to have awoken from some sweet dreams. Those are the times I most often understand the 'dream within a dream' idea that Poe so elegantly wrote about.)

Well, unfortunately the bills won't pay their own selves so I suppose I will stop this now. However, I will include the following poem that is a hard lesson learned that I so wish I had known decades ago! Whether in a conscious state or in slumber Yeats words would do well for any soul to believe and practice.

Maybe we really are destined to fulfil and act out a role given us by circumstance, happenstance, or perhaps even some plan designed by another... and One whom we can't even begin to fathom! Hopefully though our lives are not a cosmic joke and we are poor actors on a stage and not much more than court jesters acting like buffoons!

So, whether I ever really had a choice (as I sit here and think and type) I know not... but, long ago had I been prescient and could have foretold the future I would have followed Yeats sage advice in the following poem!

Never Give All The heart

Never give all the heart, for love
Will hardly seem worth thinking of
To passionate women if it seem
Certain, and they never dream
That it fades out from kiss to kiss;
For everything that’s lovely is
But a brief, dreamy, kind delight.
O never give the heart outright,
For they, for all smooth lips can say,
Have given their hearts up to the play.
And who could play it well enough
If deaf and dumb and blind with love?
He that made this knows all the cost,
For he gave all his heart and lost. ~ Yeats

I can not imagine I will write again, at least until after the new year sometime... so, I will take this time to wish everyone who reads this a very happy holiday season to all!

(Of course, had I not fallen into a deep sleep and had unbidden dreams I would not have been writing this tonight either. So, keeping with the thought that plans change, who really knows when I will write again? Certainly not me!)

posted by Robin Johnson @ 8:24 PM

Thursday, December 04, 2014

NOT COMPLAINING, REALLY :)


Thursday December 4, 2014 10:01 pm

For a very long time I've known why numbers have played an important part in my thinking. At least in part it's because I have been able to rationalize and reduce many of my life's decisions (important and otherwise) to a simple LCD. I try and think of it as a “happiness factor.” In other words, what would be the greatest good to the most people?

Today, I did that again. 339 days ago about this time of evening I was standing among a crowd of people in downtown Louisville and everyone was having fun, and in my mind I planned something nearly a year into the future. Within the first couple of days back to work either the 2nd or 3rd of January I scheduled ten days off work: from just before Christmas until the 3rd of January 2015. Then, sometime this past June I booked a nice room at the New York Marriott Downtown, and last month I reserved a 4 wheel drive jeep from a car rental agency. (I did that just in case I might have to drive through a lot of snow going farther east and north.) This afternoon after I got home from the store I called the airport and canceled my car... and about five minutes before I decided to write my blog I called and canceled my room reservation as well.

Again today, as in times past I reduced my decision to simple math: i.e., finding and applying the LCD (lowest common denominator). A few days ago when I first learned about something I had that sinking feeling that has often been described as 'someone walking over my grave.' I guess even then without having to really think it through I knew my trip was over a few weeks before it had started.

I began this by stating that I really am not complaining... and I'm not. It is because I have been able to do some fun things this year other than just working. Still though... I think I'm going to miss the fun I would have had during the trip.

My mathematics this time was a ratio of 8:1, with me being represented as the 1... of course. So, in a sense it was a no-brainer. I ought to be thankful though that I haven't completely sinned away my conscience; for I briefly entertained the idea of acting like I was unaware of something which was needed and just go on my trip anyway. That lasted about 30 seconds as I fantasized about starting out and some of what I was planning on the trip. Then, I experienced that feeling I earlier had alluded about 'grave walking' and I knew even then that I would not be going. However, it was not until a few hours ago that I did that 'right thing' again and because of that action I was done with anymore planning. So, I canceled the car, the room, and now... I have one more call to make. That one I hate! But, I will do that as soon as I post this blog :(

I'm often reminded of a quote by Zachary Scott who famously said, “As you grow older, you'll find the only things you regret are the things you didn't do.” So, I now have just one more regret to add to my growing list in life!

My true hope though by taking this action is that my regret will be lessened by the present knowledge that the load will be a little lighter for others to carry. (I still have one thing yet to do that I don't want to do... and because of that I'm going to stall for another couple of minutes and include one more quote.) This quote I have often used in these blogs and usually... even as now it's when I've faced something which has disappointed me. This quote is so very good that I paused long enough to stand up and turn my hour glass over to remind me again that life is passing second-by-second.

Fr. Alfred D'Souza ~ “For a long time it had seemed that life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way. Something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.”

A big sigh :( Yep, these obstacles are my life! I just glanced up... and the small grains of sand are still falling... still falling.

posted by Robin Johnson @ 10:01 PM