Looking Ahead to Looking Back

"A toast to Twenty Twenty-Five,

The year we kept the spark alive

And proved that even old romance

Can teach itself a brand-new dance."

Ah, Romance!

 "We crave romance, but if life were truly romantic, we would all be ships passing in the night.  Fortunately, life is real, so we meet in an elevator, hit it off, marry and the species goes on." 

 

"They never met, for she waited each day at the corner of Destiny and Romance, and he hung out at the corner of Main and Elm." 

"They met at the top of the Empire State building, she a small-town girl from Nebraska and he a guy from Brooklyn who got a job as an elevator operator at the Empire State Building in order to meet girls."

You Don't Say

 "I believe in cause-and-effect, although I think in most cases the effect is the last thing the cause had in mind."

"Life is a frantic race to get things done before they don't matter any more."

"Trust me when I tell you that you've overestimated the number of things indelibly stamped on your memory."

"Doesn't seem fair that a greedy few should have all the wealth when the rest of us have put just as much greed into the effort."

"I don't claim to know everything, but the older I get, the less I have to hear to know the rest." 

Meetings

"She was a stroller on the sand, a walker in the rain, a frequenter of places where nobody goes -- and they kept meeting."

"Seeking her destiny, she wandered into his last chance."

"He was a sad and lonesome clown,
And she was the circus that came to town."

 ~~ from Reflections 

Opportunity

 "It is a sad lament -- the happiness you might have found if you had taken the road that still lies right there in front of you."

"Seize every moment along the way, for what a shame it would be if the road you chose became the road not taken." 

"If you never look up, it is possible to live a dull, gray life under a clear, blue sky."

"What can be sadder than to realize that you had the key but never tried the lock."

~~ from Short Thoughts For The Long Haul

The Art of Listening

The way to get my attention is to give me yours.  I am never more aware of you than when I know you are listening to me. 

 

The first thing to learn about the art of conversation is that you are not the other person's favorite subject.

You don't have to have an opinion about everything, and if you do, not everyone has to know what it is.

I have learned to just quietly listen, finding that it is usually what people want when they ask for my opinion.

~~ from Reflections 

Questions For The Home Commute

"Did I make some complicated thing simple today, or did I make some simple thing complicated?"

"Was it wise to spend another day trying to accomplish Thing B as a means of accomplishing Thing A?"

"What are the things in my life I most cherish, and what did I do today to cherish them?"

~~ from  A Few For The Road

 

Getting On

"Another day of being old enough.  Still waiting for the knowing better to kick in." 

 

"The hardest part of thinking young is recapturing the notion that you're indestructible." 

"One thing you notice about getting older and wiser is that you get older first."

~~ from A Few For The Road

Ah, Wanderlust!

  "It is said that not all who wander are lost, which has always struck me as not getting the most out of wandering."

 "The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but what you invarably find is that the long and winding road has the better soundtrack."

"There is no force on earth more relentless than a river seeking the sea, and yet you will notice that it always takes the scenic route."

"It is sad to reach the end of your journey and find that you never left the interstate." 

~~ from A Few For The Road

A Holiday Cocktail Party Is Where...

...every year you have the same conversation with the same couple about who you both still are. 

...some stranger learns more about you in an hour than your spouse has learned in a lifetime.

...the host and hostess attempt to bring compatible people together by separating married couples.

...there is a rotation that brings married couples back together again every twenty minutes.

...you are always sorry you wrote anything on a napkin.

~~ from The Second Collection

Life Thoughts

"Will you spend your life pushing a boulder uphill so that, once uphill, you will have a boulder to sit on while regretting your life?" 

"Do things while you can and while they matter to you, because neither is a permanent state of affairs."

"Life is like sailing -- you can use any wind to go in any direction."

"Life is a collection of moments you might have appreciated more if you had only known they were moments."

~~ from Short Thoughts For The Long Haul

Thanksgiving Thought

 "So maybe there's no Santa Claus, and perhaps no Easter Bunny, but that only makes Thanksgiving more special, because there really is a Grandmother." 

Just Sayin'

"Better that love sometimes breaks your heart than never identifies itself at all."

The Real Goal

Every day spent happily striving toward some elusive goal is to achieve the real goal, which is to spend our days happily.

 

Family and Friends

 "One of the harder things to do when you have committed to each other far beyond friendship is to occasionally just be friends."

"The only thing that ever really impresses your relatives is your ability to fool other people."

"There is a tendency in family life to become whomever you must become in order to avoid any further discussion of the subject."

"What every child needs is the security of a loving family and an alternative source of information."

"One difference between friends and relatives is that a relative presumes you're innocent because you didn't mean it; a friend presumes you're innocent because you didn't do it."

Just Saying

 What a treasure is a person of true self-esteem, who need not be humored or appeased, who does not see disagreement as a personal affront or agreement as a show of weakness, who does not feel threatened by the honest aspirations of others, who does not mistake pride for honor, or prejudice for principle, or privilege for merit. 

 With such a person, common civility is possible; conversation is possible, and, dare we hope, even compromise is possible. 

 

If Life Is A Party...

If "Life is a party" as has been said, then the questions I find myself asking at age 86 are these: "Who is the host?" and "Am I a guest or somehow the entertainment?" and "Why did so many fascinating people have to leave so early?" and "Why do I myself have to leave when so many interesting new people are just arriving?"

Come Again?

 Usually I know what I'm trying to say, but sometimes I just like to throw something out there for whatever someone might decide it means.

"If there be no God, then what is truth but the average of all lies."

"We are all the average person.  The challenge is to be the most exceptional average person we can be."

"I am told to just be myself, but as much as I have practiced the impression, I am still no good at it."

"I have always thought that the night sky is a marvelous example of what can be done with mirrors, assuming that's the way it was done."

"In my loneliest dream, I am alone at a railway depot, having missed the last train to eternity."

Thoughts, Wishes, Regrets

"I wish, at age 86, that I hadn't been so quick to complete my memoirs." 

As someone who got a 'D' in third grade arithmetic, perhaps I should stop saying, "By my calculus... ."

"I wish I had done more explaining to people who deserved an explanation and less to people sitting next to me in tourist class."

  

"No, I don't think my life would make a great biopic.  For one thing, insufficient drug problem."

I often wonder what my shadow would say if it could talk.  I mean, besides, "You're in my light."

DUH!

To challenge someone's faulty logic and be accused of "semantics" is equivalent to challenging someone's faulty arithmetic and being accused of "mathematics."

From The Archives

How often do we search to find

  in memories of old

Or in some fancied, wistful dream

 of days to yet unfold

Or in our fond imaginings of places

  far and wide

The happiness that all the while

  is sitting by our side.

 

Reality, You Say

 ""Yes, there's a physical reality, but only a tiny part of it, it turns out, is non-negotiable." 

"Which is to say, you can accept reality without believing every yarn it spins."

"Reality is not some fantasy world we imagine; it is a world of demonstrable fact we imagine."

"Which is to say, to accept reality is not only to acknowledge it but, in large part, to create it."

Beware!

You would think that enough fish have "got away" by now that they would have warned the rest of the fish population not to bite at dangling worms.  And yet, after millennia, the word seems not to have gotten around.  You wonder what might be the equivalent uncirculated warning among human beings.

A Distinction of Sorts

"God does not play dice with the world." ~~ Einstein

Yet, so much seems to hang on the chance

Of the dice rolling even or odd.

If God does not play dice with the world,

Are the dice, perchance, playing God?

Introspection, Anyone?

 "What makes you a likable person?  Hard to say, but probably something you don't know about yourself that everyone else does."

"Whatever the reason you were born, it was probably not to find out what someone else would do if they were you."

"You not only have to be several different people to successfully live one life, but they all have to be pretty good at passing a baton."

Ah, Weddedness!

 Asked what she had learned from 45 years of marriage, a close acquaintance of mine said:

"Never assume someone is dead just because they're unresponsive."

Which inspired me to a bit of would-be wit:

"Say what you want about marriage, it's still the best known cure for unnecessary conversation."

And then to a bit of actual wisdom:

"So often the person for whom you would climb any mountain and swim any sea would settle for a little conversation at dinner."

Well, Here I Am Again,

 I promised to be back in September, so here I am, although please do regard this as a warm-up.

"To know all the facts about anyone is to know more about the subject than they do."

"The most basic progressive belief is that if we can get the rich to pay their fair share, we won't have to pay ours."

"The most basic conservative belief is that if you weren't born to opportunity, you had your chance,"

"The chance that you can limit everyone's freedom but yours is about the same as the chance that you can pollute everyone's environment but yours.

Summer Thoughts

"I love to return to a summer place where nothing ever changes, except that the walk to the jetty used to be shorter and the shadows on the sand slimmer."

"The great thing about a positive attitude is that it creates its own ambience. It is its own scenic overlook, its own flowering meadow, its own walk on the beach."

"You cannot return to a time, but you can return to a place where you were once young and hopeful and recapture a frame of mind."

"The summer wind came blowin' in from across the sea

It lingered there to touch your hair and walk with me

All summer long, we sang a song

And then we strolled that golden sand…"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DopzOCeKJc

~~Johnny Mercer

Getting To Know You

"Things happen to enhance your understanding of people; for example, seeing a boastful person reduced to tears by a word of genuine appreciation."

Hint for Job Seekers

We learn from our mistakes, so be sure to include "Mistakes I Have Learned From" on your job resume.  Best case, you'll get the job.  Worst case, you'll learn from another mistake.

The Daily Battle

  "Remember this -- that you are exceptional, no matter how hard the requirements of everyday living try to make you average."

Four Thoughts

 "Winning is everything."  -- a phrase used to describe an activity, such as a football game, which has no other discernible purpose.

"You cannot humiliate a humble person. any more than you can make a boastful person proud."

  "If some remedy doesn't work, try less of it before you try more of it." 

"If drug research holds true to form, there will some day be a completely ineffective weight loss drug that, as a side effect, cures cancer."

A Friend In Need

"It is important to be your own friend, especially on days when you wouldn't care to make your own acquaintance."

Just A Thought

"It is easier to ask forgiveness of God than of the person one offends, so it is quite possible that the apology you never got was directed to God and has not yet been forwarded."

It's A Good Day...

"It's a good day when, having nothing to say, you kept it short."

"It's a good day when no one you encountered had to waste a single moment trying to appease you."

"It's a good day when you learned something from life rather than tried to teach it something."

"It's a good day when you didn't say something negative about yourself just to be the one to say it first." 

Humble Pie

 "I guess the reason I have never sought fame is the feedback I get from people who have already heard of me."

"Based on my proven ability to do several fool things at once, I consider it progress to do one fool thing after another."

"As part of my diet regimen, I have given up banquets in my honor, which, so far, I'm sticking to pretty well."

"I have been humbled by praise, and I have been humbled by whiffing on the first tee, and, I dunno, they're different somehow."

How To Ace Your Judgment Day Interview

 1. Be on time.

2. Tell the Lord you've heard a lot about heaven and like what He's doing with it.

3. Be neat, alert, make direct eye contact.

4. Dress as you would for a special occasion.

5. When the Lord speaks, lean forward, act interested.

6. Be familiar with the Lord's work. ("Your Ten Commandments are so cool.")

7. Be clear on where you want to be in five years.

8. Be honest about personal flaws. ("I tend to be too forgiving.")

9. Do not hesitate to underscore qualifications. ("I go to church every Easter.")

10. Make it clear that you'll accept the standard benefits package.

Myrtle Beach On A Summer Night

  The night wind boils off the ocean, bending the landscaped palmettos sideways along the hotel line.  A few steps inland, along Ocean Boulevard, a breeze stirs.  A quarter mile further in, on the King's Highway, a woman fans her brow and complains of the stillness of the air.

   Myrtle Beach on a summer night.  Go get a Kirk's Ice Cream. 

Making One Life Matter

We ask, "What does one life matter in the grand scheme of things?", as if there could be a scheme of things grander than making one life matter. 

The Unconsulted

"We do not ask to be born, but neither do we ask to be the middle-aged result of some thoughless youth's indiscretion or the elderly remains of some middle-ager's mid-life crisis.  We are born someone else's creation, and at each stage of life we are the spawn of someone we once briefly were, and in neither case are we consulted in the matter."

Worth Repeating

"My advice, if you don't believe in miracles, is to marry someone who does."

"One thing that has always put me off about atheism is that atheists don't seem to struggle with it enough."

"It is only reality until some innovative individual decides they've put up with it long enough."

"It strikes me that if Mother Nature wanted us to know everything, she would not, at the very peak of our intellectual curiosity, distract us with puberty."

 

"I pray to God that He never makes me choose between a semi-private heaven and a private hell."

"It is said that travel is broadening, and so I have found it -- never failing to broaden my appreciation of home."

"What is a scientific fact but that tiny part of human perception that defies illogical explanation."

"When you speak, always tell the truth.  But don't always speak."

"It is a perversity of human nature to think that in order to find happiness we must abandon those who most wish it for us."

Meet You Then

 In the words, "I'm looking forward to it," you define nearly all of happiness.  So much of the pleasure of anything is in the anticipation.  Planning breakfast out with a friend?  Don't schedule it for tomorrow.  Schedule it for next week.

From The Archive

 As I labor these days to say something fresh and new,  I occasionally remind myself of how easy it used to seem.  Here, for example, is a single day's output from June 2014.  

 

"Sometimes we don't know what we want, and we blame our unhappiness on someone who doesn't know, either."

"Everything happens for the purpose of whatever you decide to do about it."

"So often people who have the same definition of fun have the same definition of love."

"I have found that winning isn't everything, and, in fact, in the relationships I most care about, it isn't anything.'"

"To truly forgive is to allow the other person to forget."

Sometimes Fate arranges that you be somewhere by yourself, so that you might be asked, "Are you here by yourself?"

"For every childhood question there is a preposterous answer that you weren't actually supposed to believe forever."

"To really know someone is to know the silence that stands for the thing they never speak of."

"There are times in life when the only difference between day and night is whether you're alone or alone by yourself."

"We are all human beings, subject to human weakness, often mistaken for betrayal."

"No matter how you hurry about, you will notice at the end of the day that you traveled at the speed of time."

From The Miscellany Drawer

 "I don't question the idea that it's never too late to repent.  I do question the idea that you can lie to God all your life, and He will believe you on your deathbed." 

"It is possible, in the rearrangement of facts, to create many fictions -- and more than one true story."

"Nothing unites people more defiantly than denying the same indisputable evidence."

"There are no louder defenders of privilege than the distant descendants of those who earned it."

Friendly Persuasion

 "Nothing makes you a decent person like having someone in your life who stubbornly operates under that assumption."

From The Observation Tower

 

"There are reasons no one could love you -- until they become the reasons someone does."

"Sorrow is different from happiness in that it is recognizable while in progress,"

"Life is a vale of tears in which at times you just can't stop giggling."

"Nobody wants your opinion unless you maintain a suite of offices in order to give it."

"The problem with having just one body is that people keep mistaking you for the previous occupant."

"Another day like all days -- trivial things claiming importance by going wrong, important things seeming trivial by going right."

Memorial Day Thoughts

 You don't have to believe in an after life to believe that there are people gone from this earth you can still make proud of you.

There are memories that will always make me lonesome but will never make me sad.

The thing about people who understand you is that when they are gone, you can still visit them, and they still understand you.

The Process at Work

Overheard at a town meeting: "All I want is what I rightfully deserve and my fair share of the rest."

Sunday Sermonette

 It can be argued that civilized society is founded not on the principle of loving thy neighbor but on the "pretense" of loving thy neighbor, a less demanding practice we call "civility."

  Today, as we witness the decline of civility, and the erosive impact of that decline on society, we come to a realization -- that pretense is difficult to sustain, that truly loving thy neighbor, as the gospels preach, might always have been the easier path.

Getting Serious

 "In a society that so celebrates winners, evil need not appear to be good -- it need only appear to be winning."

"Evil will have won not when we see it all around us but when it is all around us, and we don't see it."

"It there's one thing evil has done more effectively than good, it to demonstrate what one small person can do."

This and That

Woman, about late husband:  "He was a man of few words, and by the time we got married, he had already said them."

Nothing reduces your need for someone's approval like getting to know them better. 

I don't suggest we give up the idea that there's a little good in everyone, but, by gosh, it would certainly explain a lot of things.

I'll just say this -- that nothing makes a good first impression on me like an obvious attempt to do so.

Not only do I believe in dressing for an occasion, I believe it's the way to make it an occasion.

I've come to realize this -- that "smart casual" is not some particular style of dress; it is anything a smart casual person shows up wearing. 

Sometimes it's got to be fate, as when two people meet and discover they not only share the same likes and dislikes but the same don't give a damns.

More Speaking For Myself

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

"I have never pleaded temporary insanity, doubting I could prove it was temporary."

"Actually, I long ago discovered the real me -- and realized it was not someone my parents would have wanted me playing with." 

 

"As reported in Genesis, the Creator surveyed His handiwork and saw that everything was good, not great, which confirms my own observations."

Perhaps I can't handle the truth, but it is a short list of people I would trust to make that decision for me."

"If God had wanted a better me, He would have created a better me, which leads to the daunting possibility that He did."

"I don't know a thing about heaven and hell, except that it's probably a mistake to judge them by the people who expect to go there."

Notes From The Grammar Police

"Home In" vs "Hone In"

If you're one who's given to, "Honing in"

 Then you might pause and think for a smidgen

To ask yourself why a messenger bird

  Is not called a "honing" pigeon. 

~~~

Between You and ?

How often is said, "Between you and I"

When meaning, "Between you and me."

One would almost think the objective case

Has lost its relevancy.

But whatever the case, the posh-sounding "I" 

Is the choice as most people view it,

Unless, of course, you note how it sounds

when you add the "fencepost" to it.

I Wonder If Life They Imitate

I wonder if life they imitate, 

Those games sitting on my shelf ,

 Each sacrificed pawn accepting its fate, 

 Each domino blaming itself.

Speaking for Myself

"I'm accused of favoring dogs over people when in fact I favor whoever comes running when I whistle."

"I never hear of anything being part of a larger plan without wishing there were a smaller plan."

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

"You can reach an age, I've discovered, when even your sub-conscious has no desires."

It never fails.  Ask me to name the Seven Wharfs, I always forget, "Dock."

Companions

There are mem'ries I choose to live with no more,

 Though often we walk the same lonely shore,

Or pause in the night 'neath the same pale moon, 

Or stop for a late one at the same saloon.

"Seaburn" Ken Devine at kendevineart.com

Some are sad for many reasons.

 Some are sad for none.

But saddest is the lonely heart

Who's sad for only one.