This Human experience, I think about it all the time. Everybody starts the same way, like apples falling from a tree but that’s where the likeness ends. We all take the same leap but everybody gets a different ride. Biographers conduct interviews, draw from many sources, make the (cause & effect) connections and keep after it for as long it takes. It’s like reconstructing the recipe by sampling the pudding. For the reader the difference may be hard to see but telling one’s own story is different. An autobiography is vulnerable to a self serving conscience while biographers are not. Nobody wants to advertise their own worst self and it is not dishonest to put the best foot forward but the line between them is muddy at best. Stories that misrepresent either the good or the bad are soon exposed as whitewash or malice. Trying to get my own story right, no whitewash, no exposé, just follow the crumbs to wherever they go; I think about it all the time.
I began by drawing the line between others expectations (being raised) and the meanings I took from it along the way (growing up). Somewhere in that compromise I started questioning (quietly, to myself) “Why this and not that?” and “This is more than I can believe.” As a naive kid who never challenged authority or rebelled, I just soaked it up, very slowly, but it accumulated never the less. All of us in my generation were raised and grew up but we were different apples from different twigs, maybe even different trees. Nature loves diversity. We keep getting the message that we are unique and that was a good thing but being too unique is dangerous. So color inside the lines. I was good at that, with reservations of course but still, who notices the quiet kid who conforms? This is where, in all of my self searching, that the story is at risk of losing its way. There are dozens of story killing dead ends beckoning from the bush. So I need be careful, don’t give in to that urge, stay away from that trap.
I began by drawing the line between others expectations (being raised) and the meanings I took from it along the way (growing up). Somewhere in that compromise I started questioning (quietly, to myself) “Why this and not that?” and “This is more than I can believe.” As a naive kid who never challenged authority or rebelled, I just soaked it up, very slowly, but it accumulated never the less. All of us in my generation were raised and grew up but we were different apples from different twigs, maybe even different trees. Nature loves diversity. We keep getting the message that we are unique and that was a good thing but being too unique is dangerous. So color inside the lines. I was good at that, with reservations of course but still, who notices the quiet kid who conforms? This is where, in all of my self searching, that the story is at risk of losing its way. There are dozens of story killing dead ends beckoning from the bush. So I need be careful, don’t give in to that urge, stay away from that trap.
I came out of the military with a newly acquired sense of skepticism. Those years allowed for extra (growing up) time to accumulate experience, skills and making meaning. I resisted the patriotic, we take care of our own, reenlistment propaganda. At 25 years as a college freshman I experienced the joy of discovery and the power of critical thinking. That was supposed to happen as a preteen but in my case, arriving late has never been a deterrent. I am still discovering, still asking the big questions; Why? How does this work? And after that: Well then, how does that work? More and more, the older I get, the basic meaning I get from navigating my culture is that nobody is in control. Everything is reaction and people often react with no forethought or sense of accountability. I feel a lot like Rip Van Winkle who slept for decades and woke up and old man, almost out of time. Like Rip I feel like I’ve missed out on stuff I should have stayed awake for but now is now and it’s all I have. I don’t want to spend it reflecting on what I didn’t do, making slow circles like a leaf in an eddy while the river keeps moving on.
Robert Burns (18th century Scottish poet) put the human condition in context better than any clergy or political authority. “The best laid schemes of mice and men . . .” His poem, To A Mouse, rings with reason and candor making it unmistakably clear. In so many words he says, No matter how well you plan, whether a man or a mouse, there is no way to know how it will end. He tapped into the rule of unanticipated consequence (We don’t know what it is that we don’t know). So the best plan is just a plan. Unexpected things happen and if they work out for the better we take credit as if it were in fact, part of the plan. But in the human experience, the ability to redirect and place blame is more profitable than high performance. When shit happens we meed a place to hide and someone to blame. To that I would add, if there is a God or gods then they must be irrelevant spectators.
I spend way too much time and energy ruminating on religion and God. Like a dog chewing on a worn out bone, I keep going back to it even though I would much rather chew on something else. But again, me trying to analyze how I got this way is well intended speculation. I like to think I know my own story but the first requirement for one's own story is that the good part should be grand and the bad part must be forgivable. So when it reaches the editor’s final cut it may turn out to be more fiction than fact. When you know that about yourself it changes the way you see others, all of humanity. What it means to be human depends on what one believes, not on the reality. For as long as humans can reproduce and replace generations that are passing thru, reproductive success would seem to be the bottom line. The truth is whatever we can agree on, civilized trappings, nothing more, nothing less.
This whole piece is like mental gymnastics; should I do cartwheels or walk on my hands? Start somewhere, do something well and know when to give it a rest. Growing old is always better than dying young but then comes that caveat; what if I get bored? What if I learn that I’ve been wrong about everything? What if my followers figure out that I am just a foolish old man? What if nobody listens to me or misses me when I’m gone? Leon Trotsky (Russian revolutionary) is remembered as much for his (Old Age) quote as for his revolutionary zeal. He said, “Old age is the most unexpected of all things that can happen to a man.” Apparently he didn’t see it coming. I can see it coming and I try every day to be ready for it. But being ready requires I marvel at simple experiences like watching woodpeckers at my feeder. Every day is a good time to tell whoever you love that they are loved. Every day is perfect for listening to a favorite love song or steady, Delta Blues guitar licks. I think about it all the time.
Robert Burns (18th century Scottish poet) put the human condition in context better than any clergy or political authority. “The best laid schemes of mice and men . . .” His poem, To A Mouse, rings with reason and candor making it unmistakably clear. In so many words he says, No matter how well you plan, whether a man or a mouse, there is no way to know how it will end. He tapped into the rule of unanticipated consequence (We don’t know what it is that we don’t know). So the best plan is just a plan. Unexpected things happen and if they work out for the better we take credit as if it were in fact, part of the plan. But in the human experience, the ability to redirect and place blame is more profitable than high performance. When shit happens we meed a place to hide and someone to blame. To that I would add, if there is a God or gods then they must be irrelevant spectators.
I spend way too much time and energy ruminating on religion and God. Like a dog chewing on a worn out bone, I keep going back to it even though I would much rather chew on something else. But again, me trying to analyze how I got this way is well intended speculation. I like to think I know my own story but the first requirement for one's own story is that the good part should be grand and the bad part must be forgivable. So when it reaches the editor’s final cut it may turn out to be more fiction than fact. When you know that about yourself it changes the way you see others, all of humanity. What it means to be human depends on what one believes, not on the reality. For as long as humans can reproduce and replace generations that are passing thru, reproductive success would seem to be the bottom line. The truth is whatever we can agree on, civilized trappings, nothing more, nothing less.
This whole piece is like mental gymnastics; should I do cartwheels or walk on my hands? Start somewhere, do something well and know when to give it a rest. Growing old is always better than dying young but then comes that caveat; what if I get bored? What if I learn that I’ve been wrong about everything? What if my followers figure out that I am just a foolish old man? What if nobody listens to me or misses me when I’m gone? Leon Trotsky (Russian revolutionary) is remembered as much for his (Old Age) quote as for his revolutionary zeal. He said, “Old age is the most unexpected of all things that can happen to a man.” Apparently he didn’t see it coming. I can see it coming and I try every day to be ready for it. But being ready requires I marvel at simple experiences like watching woodpeckers at my feeder. Every day is a good time to tell whoever you love that they are loved. Every day is perfect for listening to a favorite love song or steady, Delta Blues guitar licks. I think about it all the time.
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