Thoughts Of A Clearly Older Fellow

There are worse moments in old age than recalling some long-ago embarrassment and realizing that you have outlived all the witnesses to it.

 

You can look upon life as dust to dust or you can look upon life as seed to seed.

Sign over the gates of Hell, "DOESN'T MEAN YOU'RE A BAD PERSON."

We all know them -- people who, if they end up in the fires of Hell, will complain about their neighbors screaming too loudly.

Parenting, too, is an art form, although one in which you don't get to discard the works of your learning years.

 

Though life is short, it is sustained by the perception that death is so distant as to be irrelevant to our daily affairs.  The imminence of death is obscured by the illusion of time.

No one really wants to be someone else.  We want to be ourselves, only with someone else's money, or someone else's talents, or someone else's reflection in a mirror. 

We crave understanding, believing that with understanding will come approval.  But not everyone who disapproves of us misunderstands us.

Questionable Question Marks

 "Given that we all believe things on insufficient evidence, why not believe that there's a little good in everyone?"

"If the art of the magician is to distract attention from what's really happening, then what is life but the ultimate magic trick?"

"Need lovers always agree?  I dunno -- need poetry always rhyme?

"Ever have a day when you can't get started on anything because nothing else can wait?"

"Have you ever wondered how there came to be less wealth than fair shares?" 

Dry, Sly And Wry

As reported in Genesis, the Creator surveyed His handiwork and saw that everything was good, not great, which pretty much squares with my own assessment. 

The thing I like best about keeping my own company is that I can usually sense when it's time to leave.

Nothing last forever, which is not to say it cannot seriously overstay its welcome.

If I distrust people different from me, it is because they are not different enough.

According to recent psychological studies, the need to own a dozen cats is really a suppressed desire to own two dozen cats.

A Few Things I Want (And Don't Want)

I don't want any living thing to live in fear of me.

I don't want anyone to feel that there is a truth that cannot be uttered in my presence.

I want never to see another person's honest ambitions as a personal threat.

I want never to claim that I am anyone's conduit to the Word of God.

I want never to judge or be judged by first impression.

I want to share what I've learned, not proselytize what I've always believed. 

I want never to exert power over anyone merely to demonstrate that I can.

I want never to think that people just instinctively know when they are valued or loved or appreciated.

I want, now and then, to say to those I love what I would say to them if they had just died in my arms.

Potpourri

Trouble is, well-intentioned people often make things worse, but ill-intentioned people rarely make things better. 

Somewhere amidst life's endless array of distractions lies its purpose, although it is often a challenge to decide which distraction it is.

To correct someone's bad grammar and be accused of semantics is like correcting someone's bad arithmetic and being accused of mathematics. 

Happy people are more often happy in spite of something than because of something.

Who Be These Strangers From My Past?

We are all in the course of a lifetime many different people -- strangers to us now, shadows in our past, but their battle scars remain ours to carry, their sins ours to atone, their promises ours to keep. How do you reconcile this person you are with these people you once were? 

Who be these strangers from my past 

These ghosts who haunt my day,

Whose battle scars I carry still,

Whose debts I must repay,

Whose trinkets fill my attic space,

Whose idle thoughts my brain,

Whose sins reside upon my soul,

Forever to remain.

How came this mortal coil to be

My final residence,

This house forever haunted by

Its previous occupants? 

But What If...

We think of Doomsday as when everything will end, but what if Doomsday is when everything began? 

We speculate on there being a parallel universe, but what if there's a perpendicular universe?

Science and Religion have this in common -- that they see everything as true or false.  But, see, what if it's multiple choice?