I was going to title this post Random Thoughts, but that sounded too boring.
Random Thoughts (it can't be helped, it is what it is)
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E.B. White was one of the best American writers. I am amazed at the beauty in his words. Gentle, wise, funny. I read a short story of his a couple of days ago about visiting the Circus in the off-season in Sarasota Florida. He weaves some beautiful stories. This one is about a young circus girl riding a horse bareback around the ring, practicing her tricks. He uses the circular ring as a metaphor for the passage of time...saying she was young enough to believe that she could ride around the ring and not get any older. You have to read it to appreciate it. Here's a piece -
"As I watched with the others, our jaws adroop, our eyes slight, I became painfully conscious of the element of time. Everything in the hideous old building seemed to take the shape of a circle, conforming to the course of the horse. The rider's gaze, as she peered straight ahead, seemed to be circular, as though bent by force of circumstance, then time itself began running in circles and so the beginning was where the end was, and the two were the same, and one thing ran into the next and time went round and around and got nowhere. The girl wasn't so young that she did not know the delicious satisfaction of having a perfectly behaved body and the fun of using it to do a trick most people can't do, but she was too young to know that time does not really move in a circle at all. I thought: "She will never be as beautiful as this again" - a thought that made me acutely unhappy - and in a flash my mind (which is too much of a busybody to suit me) had projected her twenty-five years ahead, and she was at the center of ring, on foot, wearing a conical hat and high heeled shoes, the image of the older woman, holding the long rein, caught in the treadmill of an afternoon long in the future, "She is at that enviable moment in life (I thought) when she believes she can go once around the ring, make one complete circuit, and at the end be exactly the same age as at the start." Everything in her movements, her expression, told you that for her the ring of time was perfectly formed, changeless, predictable, without beginning or end, like the ring in which whe was travelling at this moment with the horse that wallowed under her. And then I slipped back into my trance, and time was circular again - time, pausing quietly with the rest of us, so as not to disturb the balance of a performer."
Source - "The Ring of Time" a short story by E.B. White contained in the book "The Points of My Compass - Letters From the East, the West, the North, The South" by E.B. White - Harper and Row, Copyright 1954.
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Sometimes I bore myself when I talk. This doesn't happen too often but it does on occasion. It's not the best thing especially if you happen to be talking to a group of people at the time. I don't know what free advice to give on the issue of self-boredom other than try to avoid talking about or doing things that you find dull. Lifelong learning is only possible if we remain curious and don't allow ourselves to become jaded.
On the other hand you gotta do what you gotta do. April 15th is coming up and filling out my tax forms, or talking to people about taxes, is never too exciting. Sometimes in school or work you are required to talk, or write, about something you aren't totally fascinated with. Best to get those things over with and go on to some things that you find energizing and engaging. Easier said than done sometimes. One of the best pieces of advice I ever heard was from my wife's uncle, a successful business man, West Point graduate. He said, "I never did anything I didn't want to do."
You can't take that statement literally out of context, but in context of what you chose to do with your life (who you marry, if you marry, what your job will be, what education you pursue, the important things) it's a great way to look at things.
Talking with people about the philsophy "I never do anything I don't want to do" I've been told it's delusional. At least it's a positive delusion.
jaded
1 a : to wear out by overwork or abuse b : to tire or dull through repetition or excess
2 obsolete : to make ridiculous
intransitive senses : to become weary or dull
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The preceding advice, like most of my nuggets of wisdom, is provided free.
You, as they say, get what you pay for.
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Speaking of being jaded we can't forget the immortal words from Aerosmith -
J-J-J-Jaded
Okay the lyrics aren't that meaningful but gotta like the beat.
Steven Tyler doesn't look bad for a guy that's in his mid 90's...he was actually born in 1948, which would make him 56 or 57. Good news for all of us folks feeling past our prime. I wonder how he stays so trim.
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"Why, once I wrote an editorial for High Brows and I found that a High Brow is a man who wouldn't read anything that was not written by himself." Will Rodgers
I wonder if that describes some of what is happening in blogging if not in general at least in my specific case. I'm terribly interested in what I have to say or write...but I'm too busy to do much but flit through any other blogs.
On the plus side at least a blog is a "pull" system, rather than a "push" system. Examples of a "push" system would be Email or your extremely talkative great Aunt who likes to call and provide a running detail of her every thought every chance she gets. A blog is a "pull" system because we don't have to read or look at or be bothered at all by what people write in their blogs.
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On the subject of what to write that will interest the most people, Will Roger's wrote -
"The great trouble is that you are apt to hit on some subject that does not appeal to certain people. For instance, if I write a learned article on chewing gum, I find that I lose my readers who are toothless. Then, when I write on politics, I find that the honest people are not interested. Then if I write on some presidential candidate, I find that there so many of them that few readers know the one I am writing about. When I write an article on bathing beaches, I find that I lose the interest of most of my readers who are not interested in bathing, either by tub or beach. Why, once I wrote an editorial for High Brows and I found that a High Brow is a man who wouldn't read anything that was not written by himself. So I am going to work along the same lines as a newspaper - I'm going to touch on every subject!"
Source: "The Best of Will Rogers" by Bryan Sterling - M. Evans and Company Copyright 1979
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Wishing you a wonder-filled Wednesday.
May "time pause quietly" for you a bit today.
Remember to take a nice deep breath, relax, focus, and in the words of Buckminster Fuller,
"Dare to be naive."
postscript -
I feel a certain empathy for people who are unable to admit they are not all-knowing. It implies a lack of self esteem. It actually takes a big ego to dare to be wrong, dare to admit you don't know...that you might learn something new, to be foolish or stupid.
Keep the eyes of a child.
Be awake unless you are in bed asleep.
