Showing posts with label aging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aging. Show all posts

Everybody Lives Alone

(March 28th, 2012)


A wise friend of mine once shared this quote by Hunter S. Thompson online, and I have spent a lot of time puzzling over it, off and on, over the years, and it ultimately ended up reinforcing and further shaping many of the thoughts that I’d been developing for a long time already:

“We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and—in spite of True Romance magazines—we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely—at least, not all the time—but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don’t see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.”

And it also stirred up some new thoughts. Because what is anything worth, no matter how well you know yourself, if nobody else can truly understand the depths of your own mind? This troubles me, to some degree, but it also gives me hope, because I think that this idea is such a profound realization. You can never, ever truly know another person’s deepest mindset, but the most genuine among your acquaintances should have a character powerful enough so that their truest thoughts and feelings manifest themselves somehow into your relationship with them. Even if you can’t truly know, you can get a very powerful understanding, to the point where you can often accurately predict something they’ll say or do, and connect with them at a profound level. You’ll get something of a sense of how this person really thinks and feels, and you will feel that much closer to them for this, even if you cannot ever fully understand the depths.

Surely you’ve noticed this, that you can sometimes predict (with striking accuracy, even) how a friend or loved one will react to some bit of news, or a shared thought of your own, or even just a joke? It could be coincidence, of course, some of the times. Many people may react in very similar ways to the same stimulus. But if it happens often, especially to a wide assortment of stimuli, then you are probably on to something. You have probably come to understand this person to a level deep enough to be considered a more powerful relationship among relationships. And this connection should be realized, and treasured, because it is a rarity worth every bit of consideration. Any person that you can relate to on a deep enough level to not only get along with (vastly important on its own) but predict their reactions to events is a beautiful thing among beautiful things.

People are so complex! Even the seemingly simplest person must possess a mind and character complicated enough to stump even the most analytical person. It’s not easy to connect so deeply with a person, but the resulting treasures are absolutely invaluable. And yet even among the most familiar of friends, two people who have shared themselves with one another to the deepest of their abilities, there must be an unimaginable amount of inner thoughts and feelings that can never be truly expressed, and even more so that can never be truly understood. Imagine your own mind—how many thoughts are constantly stirring, how many feelings are welling up inside you at any moment of any day, and consider how few of those thoughts and feelings you have actually shared in their rawest, deepest form with another person. When you assume that any other person your gaze falls upon has just as many thoughts yet to be shared, then surely you will be awed by the enormity of even a single other mind and the bountiful treasures there to be known and shared. And what better measure is there of a life’s fullness than how many people really connect with it, and to what depths they truly understand it? Of how many lives are touched positively by the influence of another? Of how many hopes and dreams are reinforced by the connections with similar peoples’ pursuits and the sharing of mindsets that can mutually assist each other?

But in the end, as much of a difference as it may make upon the cherished people in your life, no amount of understanding and familiarity can truly bring them into your head, into the deepest depths of your mind’s wanderings. They will never know how you truly feel about any single thought you’ve ever shared with them, despite any number of years of faithful friendship, kinship and/or love. They simply can’t, as you simply can’t truly experience theirs. Just as every person lives their life alone, utterly and completely, locked within their own mind’s interpretations of the perpetually unfolding events that made up their existence, at the bitter end of it all every person will die alone with the sum of their experiences. But this is where the beauty lies… it lies in the trust and comfort of your friends and loved ones, because even though you will never experience even a split second of their true mind, you can feel as though you’ve shared many years’ worth of experiences with its unfiltered acceptance. And the difference between the actual mindset and the feeling of having shared the mindset is, although impossible to gauge, all but invisible when you truly love and trust a person. The trust is of utmost importance here, of course, because your trust is what separates the doubts of whether or not you truly know this person as well as can be known about another separate human being and the euphoric feeling of believing that you actually do. And the demonstrable evidence, such as sharing many interests and beliefs, witnessing their reactions to events which support your understanding of them, enjoying similar jokes and stories, connecting with each other’s thoughts, and even just simply enjoying the comfort of each other’s company and lifestyle, go such a long way in developing such a relationship. You can get as close as is reasonably possible.

You are still living your life utterly alone, however, despite any number of the grandest relationships with your fellow humans as can be imagined. Even if every single one of the dozens of close friends you may have knows you so well that they can give you the most perfect gifts, suggest the best movies and music and books, share with you the most enjoyable memories, and finish your sentences for you, they still don’t know your true mind; they will never know the true thoughts in your head. They will never know the true pain you are feeling at any moment, or the true depths of any joy. Nobody will ever know your true feelings about something, whether it’s a restaurant or a song or a movie or another person or even them. It could be that you have actually shared your thoughts as they truly are, but a person just cannot know this to be true, to no fault of theirs. They have to believe that what you have expressed toward them is the accurate portrayal of the true feelings. Right or not, at its core, this is the foundation for all relationships, and rawer sharing brings more opportunities for this connection to achieve the highest possible connection.

It comes down to so much trust, in the end, and so this trust is, of course, pretty much the single most valuable aspect of any sort of relationship. Because it is an unavoidable fact that one will never know for sure, the next best thing is to feel as if it is for sure, and this can only be achieved if one trusts that you really are sharing with them the closest thing to the actual reality of the situation as possible. Have you ever shared an inner thought with someone who refused to believe that it was real? Or maybe you have shared a false thought with someone who did not even hesitate to take it as truth? The more clever and devious people can make quite a living from this extreme of trust and many, if not all, of the people might not ever even suspect any sort of dishonesty. And on the other hand a person might be unfailingly honest in all of their sharing and yet face the constant skepticism of their closest friends. No matter how trustworthy you are, a person has no inherent obligation to trust you and it must come from the complex workings of your relationship with them. This trust should work itself out, given enough time and enough honesty and enough demonstrable experience.

But trust is a wildly complicated thing. In the end, the best that you can really do is be as honest and trustworthy as possible while reaching out to find those people who you’ve realized, to the best of your abilities, are trustworthy themselves, and have the capacity to trust in return. You’ll never know for sure, but you will get an ever-deeper and more intricate understanding of them as a friendship grows, and an effective grasp of the depth of this relationship will hopefully only ever increase. The people in your life whom you hold most dear will understand you, down to your core, ever more accurately and deeply as this trust builds. And the same should be reciprocated. As your lives carry on and your shared experiences grow, so should your relationships and the resulting connections that bind them.

And yet you will still be living utterly alone despite any number of the most perfectly formed relationships. They will help immensely, for sure, but they can never truly fill that void that perpetually separates the depths of your mind with the rest of the world around you. Nothing can bridge that gap that divides the entirety of the physical world, including the trees and the chairs and the streets and the computers and all of the other people within it and all of the other thoughts and feelings and hopes and dreams that they hold dear, from the abstract interpretations that your mind utilizes to make sense of it all.

And so you need to be comfortable on your own terms. You need to be able to occupy yourself, and enjoy your own company when you find yourself alone for any length of time. You need to understand yourself. Not in the “normal” sense—because of course you’re you, and of course you spend every single moment of your life within… well, you. And that’s exactly the point, really. You need to understand yourself so fully, so completely and fundamentally that you are entirely familiar with your deepest thought processes, your most intricate decision-making. You should have access to all of the activities which will fulfill your personal desires in all of the times when you are alone with your own self. Whether this constitutes reading books, or playing video games, or listening to music, or taking walks, or surfing the internet, or watching a movie, or writing, or calling/texting friends, or housework, or simply exploring the wanderings of your own mind, or whatever else might the case, it is so fundamentally important to be able to live your life, in the random periods where you, yourself, are your only company, just as fully as if it were being spent with a crowd of fun-loving friends. The specific experiences will differ, of course, because you can’t really enjoy the festivities of a burgeoning social gathering when only you are around, but at the same time, you can’t really enjoy the comfort and satisfaction of a good read while dozens of drunken friends are stumbling around and over you. Knowing and understanding yourself, in all foreseeable (and ideally even the unforeseeable) circumstances, is crucial to always holding within your own grasp the ability to satisfy the demands of your ever-hungry desires.

The same friend who shared the opening quote once told me that confidence is “realizing yourself.” And I’ve also puzzled over this throughout the couple years since it was shared my way. In the end, I don’t think I (or perhaps anyone) could have said it better, or more simply. And how beautiful that is, that such a simple explanation turns out to be the truest and most meaningful of all. To realize yourself, I believe, is to be so utterly comfortable with who you are, with what and whom you enjoy and appreciate in this world, and with what you enjoy thinking about, and with what you enjoy sharing with other people, every one of whom is in the exact same boat as you—cruising along, trying to grasp the meaning to it all while of course experiencing as many shared joys as possible.

The inner workings of life and relationships are so complex because the interests and expectations of people can vary by such a wildly vast degree. This makes truer connections that much more difficult, but that much more rewarding. Because despite all of the possible combinations of beliefs and interests a person can have, to connect with another and intertwine these ideas so finely is perhaps one of the most rewarding endeavors that can possibly be achieved. But a line should be drawn between sharing and conforming—nobody should ever have substantial control over your personal actions. You should do what you want, pursue what you want, see who you want, talk to who you want, hang out with who you want, think what you want, believe what you want, drink what you want, say what you want, play what you want, read what you want, travel where you want, buy what you want, stay up when you want, wake up when you want, watch what you want, dream what you want, and so on (all within reason of course), and any person who has any say in any of these matters should work with you for a respectful, cooperative understanding (because they should respect your history and your fundamental traits!). Anything less screams of mistrust, and therefore eternal conflict, and what else, if not trust, is the general idea in the first place? You can spread your wings together and fly off to whatever heights your mutual efforts can bring.

People tend to reflect on past decisions and say “I don’t know why I did that.” And this suggests a deep problem, because that is precisely the sort of thing that you should want to avoid. You should understand situations, and your own internal struggles, more than well enough to make the properly thought-out decision right then and there, without having to back-track in a confused daze at some point in the future once you realize some overlooked implication. And in those (hopefully) rare occasions when you genuinely didn’t have the resources (time, for example) to really properly analyze, then you should have next to no trouble in realizing, once you DO have the proper time to consider, precisely why you acted in some way. You should be able to reflect on some unfortunate outcome, and on its causes, and think to yourself, well I did that because (insert informed realization here). You should never ultimately not know why, if you truly understand yourself. And if you find that you really don’t, then you have a fresh goal to improve upon. Reflect on what this insight can do to assist your well-being in the future so that you can make the right decisions at the time of reckoning.

I’ve always been intrigued by that oft-repeated phrase, “everybody dies alone.” Many curious thoughts have been exercised in wondering about this, about the many various contexts in which it is used, and what it really means for us. Other peoples’ mindsets will always remain second-hand knowledge to you, at best, and yet at absolutely every last single moment you WILL know what you yourself is thinking and feeling. And that makes the concepts of deep friendships and true loves so overwhelmingly incredible, that you might understand another human being so well as to connect with them at a level deep enough to get along and understand each other beyond the interactions of the vast majority of the people you will ever meet in this world.

And yet every single last one of us, despite any number of everlasting friendships and true loves we’ve made along the way, will die utterly alone. Completely, entirely within our own consciousness, alone with the sum of our vast collections of experiences and thoughts and beliefs and feelings, joys and sorrows, successes and failures—every single last bit. And yet there will probably be many people at your bedside in the final days, at the bitter end of a life long lived, trying their best to enjoy their final moments with you, trying to provide comfort to you, and to themselves, trying to glean the best of the final moments that your physical existence has left in this world.

And still you will die alone.

But not necessarily lonely, which is the essential key. You could have spent the most fantastic, fairy-tale-incarnate life imaginable with a significant other, and raised a houseful of healthy, successful children now living at least as much of a wonderful life, and have a host of diehard friends there to be with you for every last breath that they have the opportunity to witness, and all of them may hold you in the highest possible regard right up to those final moments, and still you will die alone. Alone, but yet in the most wonderful company a person could reasonably hope for. And the incredible thing here, what makes this entire idea so resonant in its beauty, is that you can live an entire life locked within the confines of your own head, forever aware only of what your own senses convey to your mind, understanding only of what your own mind is able to puzzle out of experience, appreciative only of what in your own experience is able to be understood. And yet all of these people want to be by your side, in the end. They will want nothing more than to show you, at the very end of it all, that they truly cared in some way. That they appreciate the life you have shared with them, even if the closest thing they ever experienced to your truest self was the briefest occasional glimpse into the true heart of your consciousness through a deep, honest, compatible relationship over the span of years that you were entitled to enjoy together.

And so, even if you really are entirely alone inside your own mind as the very last vestiges of your life flicker away, you will be able to relish in the joy that you shared such a full, joyous life with so many people who are there with you in the end to provide care, and love and comfort, and to let you know that you are not alone in the physical sense; you have made impacts, you have shared memories, you have divulged thoughts and feelings from deep within yourself and have been the recipient of so many similar thoughts and feelings that others have been more than happy to share with you in return. And I can only imagine that these precious connections, as intangible as they are, are perhaps the most valuable things that can be achieved in this life. As utterly alone as any of us are as we experience this miracle of life, the only real thing that we can ever be sure that we have truly experienced to its fullest, we will bask in the warming light of companionship at the end of it all, and know that we had been basking in its light the whole way all along even if it felt at so many points as if nobody in the world really cared or understood what we were going through at any moment

We are all alone, alone on this perpetual current of life on our individual little rafts, tossed and turned over so many waves and random turbulences, but we have the capacity and the will to meet up with as many other rafts as we can make time and effort for, and share in the incredible experiences that it will never stop sending past us. Being alone does not have to be so lonely if you are willing to cast out your rope and link up with as many other similarly lonely people as you can stand, and enjoy your loneliness together.

Posted by Unknown | at 10:15 PM | 0 comments

An Unfortunate, But Fortunate, Passing

(September 29, 2011)





My mom requested that I write something to be shared for my beloved great-aunt Laverne's funeral this weekend... she passed away just several days ago, after a very long and loving and fulfilling life of eighty-seven years. And, well, this short little essay will say the rest, as I hope it will touch others as it touched me to write it.
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My earliest memories of my Aunt Laverne must be of the time that I spent, as a child, staying with her and my Uncle Wayne. I was very young, and I don’t remember much very clearly, but a few situations definitely stand out—perhaps the most striking of which is going garage sale exploring, and usually returning to their home with a new jigsaw puzzle to spend the next couple days putting together. Sometimes she would come and help me, but always she would praise and encourage my efforts.

I remember eating ice cream with her and my Uncle Wayne in the living room, and watching some old TV show, and I remember going shopping with them, and one time being allowed to pick out a can of Pringles for myself. I also remember one particular time visiting my Uncle Wayne at the Captain D’s where he was working, and him yelling at me because I tried to come behind the counter to talk to him. I think I cried, but I didn’t know any better and I always had (and still have) a tendency to cry. In fact I am crying right now. I hope it didn’t make them feel bad.

I never knew my Aunt Laverne very well, as far as “knowing” a person relates to how much one knows of another person’s deepest thoughts and feelings and opinions and interests and beliefs. But I can confidently say that I have always had a profound respect for her, because she always struck me as a genuinely kindhearted and caring person. I don’t think I ever heard anything from her other than soft and kindly-spoken words. Granted, I only knew her during her elderly years, and even so very sparingly, but still, it is very much worth noting. Because such is the imprint that she has left upon me, and for this she will always hold a favorable spot in my heart and in my memories. And, similarly, but inconceivably to me, for these same incredible traits and more, I can only imagine how lucky a man my Uncle Wayne is—because he undoubtedly knew her better than anybody and was the happy recipient of her love and influence and everything that made her her for fifty-plus blissful years.

I would have liked to probe her mind for insights into her thoughts of this crazy world we all live in—what her most cherished memories were, her thoughts on how much the world had changed in her lifetime, what sorts of advice she might want to pass on to a “youngin’” like me, what sorts of aspirations she felt had, so much later in life, proven to be the most worthwhile of all. I feel like so much wisdom might be gleaned from such a person who has lived such a long, full, glorious life. I may have missed such a chance, but she has left a legacy for herself, buried deep within all of the people she ever touched… most deeply of all, I imagine, with the person who was there with her for practically every step of the way, her lifelong husband, my uncle Wayne.

In a way they are powerful role models for me, because I hope that the love that is in my future can be as true and as long-lasting as theirs has been. Fifty years seems like almost an eternity to me, sitting here with the vast majority of my life ahead of me, but I imagine that at this moment, from my uncle’s vantage point, the very same amount of time must seem almost like a fleeting glimpse.

And so I hope that he still believes, after all this time, as I do, after almost no such time, that the best is yet to come. Not only in this life, with our loved ones, but also after this life, also with our loved ones, once again. My heart goes out to him and I wish him all of the hope and goodwill I possibly can. Because I wish for him to still experience all of the joys and glories that this worldly life has to offer him, in his friends and his family and in his passions, before at last ascending into the heavens where his true glory awaits him, and offers him her arms once more.

Posted by Unknown | at 1:23 AM | 0 comments

The Pillars of a Life

(Originally written on May 3rd, 2011)


Have you ever wondered what it must be like to be on your deathbed? I mean really being on the verge of passing any day now--especially after living a long, full life. I would love to get to know someone who is nearing this end, and who knows this and has come to terms with this. Completely accepted it. Someone who has known long enough to have had time to reflect on things, formulate their thoughts and feelings. I want to pick this person's brain. I want to know their thoughts, feelings, emotions, joys, regrets, passions…

Something sort of like an emotion-driven autobiography as delivered on the verge of death. And that is not meant to sound morbid at all. Of course there would probably be tears and pain and sorrow, but only in a constructive way and amidst all of the glory and joy that should also be in abundance. It would all have its place--every single bit, every laugh and tear, no matter how tragic--because it happened.

What goes through the mind of someone on their deathbed? What do they consider to be the "pillars" of their life? For the purposes of this goal I have, someone I would like to "interview" should still be relatively healthy and good-spirited…just really really old. (I realize that expecting them to pass "any day now" is probably a bit overdramatic if the person is "relatively healthy and good-spirited." But you get the idea.)

Also worth noting is that this person shouldn't be a family member. I'm afraid they would have some sort of bias and would try to "protect" me from darker truths both for my sake and their own. Maybe not, but I could never be sure… and of course anybody else could be doing the same thing, with the best intentions even, I'm sure, but I think a relative would be much more likely to do this. Not to say that I wouldn't want to talk to a passing relative, but only to stress that for the specific purposes of the thoughts in this writing this should be avoided.

That being said (and I hope I've said it well enough to not offend or confuse or annoy or… whatever else people might be flipping their sanity over at this point--or at any later point) I would like to elaborate on the sorts of curiosities I long to satisfy with such a discussion with such a person in such a predicament.

I want to know, as absolutely completely as I possibly can, how this person looks back on the life they have lived, and in what combinations of thoughts and feelings they reflect on their experiences. What are their most cherished memories? I want to watch their expressions as they recall both pleasant and tragic memories. I am curious which there would be more of, which would be most vivid, and from what timeframes of their life most come from. Which memories, even after all this time, never faded at all? Which of them have become vague and distorted? What are their thoughts on why this is so for these particular cases? What made certain ones more "special" than others?

Probing deeper, what are this person's deepest regrets, and how did they cope with this over the years? What are their fondest joys, and what did they make of these over the years?

What, after all this time, have they come to realize mattered most of all? And at what point did they come to this realization? How often, if at all, did this realization change? I think these are some of the most important questions. I'd be on the edge of my seat as they think this through. Because here is a person that has simply lived through so much and, naturally, they have experienced so much and reflected on so much and compared so many things to so many other things. All in the due course of a life, even if they were not a particularly thoughtful and journalistic person.

They will have something interesting to say. More than likely many interesting somethings.

At what points did they get lost along the way, caught up in emotions or hectic lifestyles, or both, or something else? Which aspirations ended up being silly and/or childish efforts that only hindered their progress? Which aspirations propelled them through intellectual, emotional, and spiritual growth most of all? Did they know each of these at the time, or only at some point later in life? These questions would reflect on the way they lived their life, and how they consider these lifestyles to have had major impacts in the grand scheme of it all. I expect that there would be an abundance of both proud, effective, successful lifestyles that they learned to capitalize on, and regretful, sloppy, problem-causing lifestyles that they never could quite abolish. I'm curious to know why they believe this was the case.

A large part of the motives for doing something like this would be to draw whatever parallels I might be able to see with my own life, while I'm still young enough to follow major new paths and lifestyles. In all likelihood I still have the vast majority of my life ahead of me, shrouded in mystery, overflowing with infinite potentials, and I am interested in any influence that could provide a significant benefit to my outlook and my understanding of the truer pursuits. I really really hope that I don't end up sounding like I'd be hoping to take away some sort of blueprint for how I expect to be able to live my own life, by capitalizing on whatever this person did right and avoiding whatever this person did wrong. That is entirely not the idea. My goal would be to develop an in-depth understanding of this person's life and their entire range of feelings about it, and then with any luck I'd be able to relate something of it to my own (as-yet limited) outlook and understanding. The idea would be to shed some extra light on aspects that I might have otherwise overlooked. And, of course, that's not to mention the simply profoundly interesting things I would hear from a person who has lived an utterly different life than I have so far. If I took nothing else away from such an experience, I would at least deeply appreciate the communication as a simple storytelling session.

Also, a third powerful benefit of such an experience would be, ideally, for the interviewee. This person would hopefully gain a better understanding of their own life, as well. Very possibly even more so than I. And that is a very encouraging thought.

I am, of course, assuming that some sort of filtering process has already occurred so that I have found someone who is genuinely interested in and more than happy to be speaking the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth throughout.

Anyway.

What was the most beautiful thing this person ever saw? What was the most profound thought they ever thought? What were the most joyful and painful emotions they ever felt? What set each of these so far apart from the rest of the mish-mash? I would hope to get as detailed a background story on each of these as possible and, again, to see their expressions as they recall the most powerful of all their memories.

What were their most prized possessions, and what did each mean to them? What made them so precious? Where are they now?

What sorts of thoughts still occupy their mind? When they let their mind wander, or when it does so anyway, where does it go? How does this relate to their younger self? How recognizable do they think they are to the person they were 20, 30, 50+ years ago, and vice versa?

If they could live another 20 reasonably healthy years, would they? What feelings does this possibility stir? Or would they rather have died 10 or 20 years sooner, and if so, why? I want to know what they think of the idea that life should last as long as possible. If I could promise them another 50 reasonably healthy years, what then, and why? If their answer is no, then I would have a lot of brain-picking to do at this point.

How much has the world changed? Physically and socially? How much has their view of the world changed? How much influence do each of these changes have on each other? What are their opinions on the state of the world, and where things are headed?

Who were their best friends of all? What qualities made this so? Was it mutual? Did they remain friends all this time? What are the most cherished memories with each of them? Where are they now?

What do they think of love? How many times did they fall in love? How many times did they merely think they fell in love? If any of these ever ended, why do they believe this happened? What went wrong? Was it inevitable? Did they stay friends afterward? If any of these never ended, why do they believe this was? How does it feel after all this time? What sorts of emotions are still stirred up when they look at this person, or talk with them? At this point, after so much time has passed, how well do they think they really know this person? And how well do they think this person really knows them? What are the most precious memories with this person?

What advice do they have to give? Nothing generic, please!

Would this person do it all again, life in its entirety, start to finish, glory and tragedy, rather than end it for good? Why?



There are certain qualities that I believe any thoughtful person will have come to decide are the "most important." Not that every person is going to come to the same conclusions… no, no. But I can only imagine that each person has developed some of these more than others, or at least realized some as being more crucial and/or desirable in themselves and/or in others.

I regret to say, as of this writing, that I do not have these clearly defined for myself. I have my own thoughts, still in development, but I am definitely still working on it. (My regret is not that I am working on them, of course, but just that they are not yet fully developed). Again, I can only imagine that this is the same for my peers. But I can certainly point out a few things that I've come to respect, admire, and strive for above all else:

Perseverance is vitally important so that you can keep shooting for that which you desire. Difficulties and failures, while sometimes good evidence of a wrong pursuit, should be constructive learning experiences (even if they are good evidence of a wrong pursuit).

Honesty is crucial so that people will trust what you say and do, and they can rest assured that what you tell them is actually how you feel. This includes, to me, not only simply being honest in its literal sense but also telling people how you feel about something because they need to know. Honesty should not only come as a response to a question, but also as a response to a feeling that otherwise would not ever make itself known to anyone else. People cannot read each others' minds. Let's talk to each other. And be reasonable.

Integrity is sorely needed in more people, I find myself believing much of the time. Or maybe the problem isn't so much a lack of integrity, but a lack of the morals themselves that integrity -should- be upholding. People should do what they say they will do. It's just better like this, in every conceivable way. And it's not even difficult, if you're a good judge of your own character.

And, last but certainly not least, optimism is that all-powerful mindset that can do so much with so little. Sometimes believing that something good will come of something is the little nudge that was necessary to make something good come of something. There is a quote that I adore, and it goes something like this: "The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears this to be true." (By, I believe, James Branch Cabell). What gets me is… we live in the world we live in. It is what it is. It is meaningless to "fear" that it is not "the best of all possible worlds." Sure, there is always something that can be improved upon, there are always people doing stupid and foolish things, there are always people dying unnecessarily and senseless violence destroying homes and countries, and countless other things that could be pointed out. But it doesn't matter how you twist it, from which direction you look at it all--it is still what it is. An optimist should not believe that things are beautiful and perfect and that any sort of improvement is unnecessary, but rather that the sorts of changes that are necessary are worth pursuing. The world is a beautiful place, and it can be made an ever-more beautiful place.

Especially if everybody adopted these pillars (and others I do not have the time or skill to address). Everyone has a foundation that their life is built upon… this is fundamental. And not easily expressed in words. But each person's life is there, it exists and it is utterly unique. It is built upon a foundation, perhaps not unlike a temple. And rising from this sturdy foundation are the primary pillars, the values with which the most important and all-encompassing actions, ideas and beliefs of each life are constructed. These values guide each person's actions in the most profound ways of all. People are going to have differing numbers of these pillars, of differing thicknesses and of differing materials. And upon these pillars, and supported by these pillars, the rest of the temple is built. And the continued success of this temple, its ability to weather the storms and overcome the tests of age, will be determined most of all by the craftsmanship and maintenance of these pillars.

If the pillars of a life ever come crashing down around you, do not turn and walk away. Even among the most complete wreckage there are still remnants, pieces of a whole that can be made better this time around. Take your time and, even if it is not your own, help to piece it back together.

Gahhhh. This is just the tip of an iceberg. I'd keep on going if I wasn't starting to bore even myself at this point. HA.

XD

Posted by Unknown | at 5:31 PM | 0 comments

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