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?

The Daily Grind

 "There are days when you feel that if you walked down the street in a clown costume, no one would recall seeing anyone in a clown costume."

 

"There is no actual law that says you can't get locked into a daily routine that makes you happy."

"Whatever you're trying to prove, it's good occasionally to spend a day not trying to prove it."

"Never let anything ruin your day that is not on the list of things you will let ruin your day."

~~ from Reflections 

A Few Personal Observations

We learn from our mistakes, which explains the education level of those who claim they have never made one.

Life is an exercise in the pursuit of happiness, the actual experience of happiness confined to brief pauses in the pursuit..

If you are to succeed in life, you must ignore the advice of those who dearest desire is to keep you from being disappointed.

No one ever entered their teen years with a well-thought-out exit strategy.

The most basic requirement of a job interviewer is to distinguish the skills needed to do the job from the skills needed to pass the job interview.

Some Old, Some New.

It is a mistake to subscribe to reality unless you also subscribe to the annual updates.

While I like a politician who claims to know what I deserve, I would hope he/she is better informed on other subjects.

The obstacle to having a better-informed electorate is that the people elected to office rarely see it as a problem. 

I have heard many descriptions of hell that sound like hell, but I have never heard a description of heaven that sounds like heaven.  Eternal hellfire is easy to imagine.  It is harder to imagine an eternity of anything being heavenly. 

All I know about wisdom is that it lies somewhere beyond ignorance and short of certainty.

The Happiness Chase

I have never envied another's material possessions, although I have envied the happiness they get from them.

There are days when I am unaccountably happy, and, in fact, that is usually the reason for it.

There are reasons for happiness and reasons for unhappiness, although unhappiness seems to be the more ingenious in coming up with them.

I compare the pursuit of happiness to a day of fishing -- it helps if you stock the pond.

Random Thoughts

Never say to someone, "I see what you're trying to say."  Few people want to hear a clarification of what they're trying to say.

It is sad to think how many domestic disagreements are wordless, conducted in mutual silence..  

In a just world you would get what you rightly deserve and everyone else would get what's coming to them.

In the end it's probably less important that you believe in God than that there's a God who believes in you.

It is rare that a woman who does the same thing every Tuesday all her married life has a husband who can tell you what she does on Tuesdays.

Ignorance is the state of knowing only what you've learned from people you want to hear it from.

There is a tendency to blame people of faith for the intolerance of people who know for sure.

Hard Lesson Learned #24:  "Never say anything in public that you are hearing for the first time." 

What Passes For Wisdom Around Here

 People incapable of faith more often find refuge in certainty than doubt.

Sometimes the faith to believe in a miracle comes easier than the gullibility to believe in the rational explanation.

Everyday life for a mortal being is mostly about doing things today that won't matter tomorrow, therein accounting for their urgency.

Generally speaking, the more you learn of how the world works, the less you blame yourself.

Most happiness, like most worry, depends pretty much on how small a thing you can make important.

Me, Myself and You

 The most life-changing "what if" we ever ask is, "What if it isn't all about me?"

The trouble with caring only about yourself is that it's always the first step to not caring about anyone. 

What you discover about self-love is that it doesn't last, and it's the devil to go your separate ways.

Today's Deep Thought:  "A miracle is something without which whatever happened would have taken a miracle."

In Every Moment That You Share

We shared a vow to love forever.

Now life's a fading afternoon,

And bent with age I fear "forever"

Was always just some whistled tune.

But then I feel your glance upon me,

And in your eyes that light sublime,

And, lo, I realize, "forever"

Had never anything to do with time.

For when a love's a boundless loving,

And when with heart and soul you've cared

Then truly have you loved "'forever"

In every moment that you've shared.   

Tender Subjects

 I asked, "How can anyone who really knows me ever love me?" only to discover that it was the only way anyone ever would.

"It's not easy -- loving someone through the chinks in their armor -- especially when the love they return is so often trapped inside."

"To truly know someone is to know the thing they never speak of -- and to recognize the silences that speak of it."

It Seems Backwards

 It seems backwards.  In the callowness of our youth, we are asked to decide on education, career, marriage and parenthood.  In the experience of our old age, we are asked to decide on what to have for lunch.

Fate vs Free Will

How do I reconcile Fate and Free Will?  Well, here's an attempt.

At birth we are given a jigsaw puzzle with a picture on the box.  We are not required to construct that picture.  We are just required to use the pieces in the box.

~~~

Six Thoughts In Addition To The Previous Ten

Genius is the ability to do what no one thought possible, and to do it in a way that can clearly be improved upon.

One thing you can learn from your dog is when to go lie under the dining room table and await developments. 

You'll know that AI has completely replicated human intelligence when it forms a Flat Earth Society. 

If Time were to pause, say for ten minutes, how exactly would it know when to start up again?

Never act for "a whole list of reasons."  Rarely does a compelling reason occur as part of a list.

It is perhaps fortunate that the intelligence it takes to be a human being is not a requirement for admittance into the species.

Ten More

 I wish that politicians who can't add 2 + 2 would stop saying, "By my calculus... ."

We all have a life story, and the clue to the ending is not necessarily in a chapter already written.

It's curious how so many people who are old and cynical believe exactly what they were taught when they were young and gullible.

There is this sense you get in old age of having outlived your completed memoirs.

One of the easier questions to answer in life is why you have so little when you ask so little.

The strongest person is vulnerable in some way, and the weakest person strong in some way. In exactly what way neither knows until they are tested, and in fact, until they are tested, neither knows which person they are.

Maybe the world is made such a perilous place so that no one would ever think they were meant to face such peril alone.

You get to an age when fewer things pique your curiosity than pique your don't-give-a-damn.

In explaining one's self to others, one should make especially clear the part where the explanation is over.

 

After a lifetime of receiving consolation prizes, I finally finished first and discovered that it is not only more gratifying but more consoling.

Happy Michaelmas!

September 29, Michaelmas Day, is almost upon us. There's still time, however to send a greeting to a friend or relative.  Why would you?  Well, here are a few reasons you might.

To a Friend:

Here's wishing you a Michaelmas
That's cheerful, warm and homy
And filled, dear pal, with mem'ries of
The fifty bucks you owe me.


To a Neighbor:

Dear neighbor, just a word to say,
Wish you well this Michael's Day,
Wish you joy in everything,
Wish return of following:

-- one lawn rake

-- one weed trimmer
-- one pair garden shears
....


To a Sister:

A cheery card to darling Sis
To wish you Happy Michaelmas,
And just to mention, by the way --
I've had Mom since Labor Day!

Just Sayin'

I've just been to a seance.  Everyone sat around trying to conjure up ghosts from the past.  No, wait, that was my class reunion.

The devil on God:  "If you ask me, He does have a tendency to demonize His opponents."

I am not your dog, but if every time you saw me, you gave me a backrub, I would run to greet you, too.

How to decline an invitation:  "I'd love to come.  Sounds great.  I'll really look forward to it.  Wait, Friday?"

Don't know about you, but I have never seen a high school diploma on a doctor's wall.  I mean, if you had a high school diploma, would you hide it? 

Maunderings, Old and New

 Test your self-esteem:  "If you were the last person on earth, would you be ugly, beautiful or of average good looks?"

Two things I don't have to worry about -- being liked just for my money and being liked just for my likability.

You wonder if there are people comfortable in their own skin who would still like to be somebody else, only keeping their own skin. 

If you had drop-dead good looks, and everyone you met actually dropped dead, would you ever get tired of it?

Do you suppose there are people in the world actually starving to death because they don't know how to work self check-out?

There are couples who will always be first to arrive at a party no matter how many times they drive around the block.

I'm not saying that history is not interesting, although I don't understand this obsession with its chronological order.

Thoughts From Our Resident Cynic

 There is no more fruitless exercise than trying to impress your relatives.  The only thing that impresses your relatives is your ability to fool other people.

I have never heard the words, "It's all part of God's larger plan" without wishing God had a smaller plan.

It is hard to respond to ignorance, since it rarely has any questions.

Nobody ever said, "That's a very good question" and answered it.

In Genesis, we have the story of Adam and Eve, a then-average couple living in Paradise, a then-average neighborhood.  It is the story of the insatiable human desire to rise above the average.

Thoughts for the Thoughtful

An Elderly Skeptic Looks Back

Often in thought did I question and doubt,

    But always, when stricken by grief,  

Did I find on my tongue a questing prayer

    To the God of my disbelief.

***

We all have conversations with God, the churchgoer weekly and in public, the skeptic daily and in private.

Life is an ongoing battle, the ultimate triumph finding someone to surrender to.

"You can accept a falling out that changes your plans, but it's hard to accept a betrayal that changes your memories."

As much a part of friendship as offering help when needed is accepting help when offered.

A Lone Wolf Laments

Those times I pridefully said, "No, thanks." 

Oh, how I've come to regret them.

Oh, why, when people offered to help

Did I not just smile and let them.