Author: James Browning

Don’t Be Bad

/ James Browning

Never have I been arrested.  Even being pulled over by a traffic cop makes me nervous.  Telling a story over lunch to someone recently caused a connection to be made to why I am over the top respectful of police and laws.

I was five or six years old.  It was Sunday when my Father, Mother, Brother and I went to visit my Mom’s first cousin, Dan, in an Alabama prison.  He was serving time for being caught repeatedly making and selling moonshine on a fairly ambitious scale.  On the Sabbath family members were allowed to visit and we had brought “dinner” as the meal is called down south (I grew up hearing lunch called “dinner” and dinner being called “supper”). 

As we walked from the parking lot up to the prison, the first striking memory is of a tall round tower on the perimeter of the facility.  From about three stories up through a window the guard there lowered a bucket on a rope into which visitors had to leave their keys to be kept during the visit.  For many years I thought the reason was so an inmate could not get loose and escape in a car he had keys to.  The realization came later the keys were temporarily confiscated to keep them from falling into the hands of a convict who might use the metal to made a pointed or sharp weapon.  

Once inside the prison the sound I recall most vividly is the slam the sliding jail gates made.  These moved like glass sliding doors from left to right.  The noise of them being banged shut was even louder and echoed with greater resonance than in any movie I have seen.  The deep closing clatter made the shutting feel so permanent and left a deep impression on me. 

The area I recall most clearly was fenced in outside with picnic tables. Here is where we spent our time visiting the inmate cousin.  “Dan” was glad to see familar faces from the outside and get something good to eat other than the prison food.  The adults talked for the two hours or so, catching the cousin up on family news.  My little brother fell asleep and was put on a quilt in the shade under the picnic table.  I sat mesmerized watching everyone in the prison yard and to this day can close my eyes and see a “movie in my head” of that experience.

From time to time an inmate would come by our table showing off leather goods he had made.  Wallets, a comb and case, key chains and even purses that were hand-made by the inmates was a way to make a little cash.

The yard containing the picnic area had a very high chain link fence topped off by several strands of barbed wire on inwardly angled posts.  The fence seemed impossible to climb and get over.  Clearly I remember feeling caught and shut up knowing the only way out was to be let out.  

The inmates did not wear orange prison clothing or white tops and bottoms with prisoner numbers on the back like in the movies.  Maybe they did on other days, but on that Sunday it was blue jeans and white t-shirts.  Recalling now that all the prisoners were dressed that way I assume that was the “Sunday best” that was provided to them.

There is also the story of when my Mother’s cousin, Dan, was arrested for the offenses that sent him to prison.  He lived in the country only a few hundred yards from my grandparents place where we were visiting at the time.  I witnessed for several hours all the police cars, flashing lights and law enforcement with guns while he held up inside with his wife and kids.  Clearly I remember overhearing someone comment that Dan said he was not going to be taken alive.    

After a few hours my Father who was a friend was allowed to get close to the house to talk Dan into giving himself up.  Then Dad followed the police car the dozen miles or so to the county jail because Dan was afraid of the police I overheard the adults say later.  Apparently, the fear was well founded for when my Father returned from getting cigarettes for him, he found Dan bruised and bloodied in his jail cell.  

What is written about here happened sometime just before I started first grade.  Nothing I witnessed was ever explained to me by an adult in any way.  The observations and conclusions that made such an impressions on me were all those from a child’s interpretation.  The message was simple:  Don’t be ‘bad’ or you’ll end up like Dan.  

There is gratitude for “the fear of God” that what I encountered at such a young age put into me.  Overall the effect has been positive as I have stayed on the straight and narrow my entire life.  My worst offenses have been traffic tickets.  I am grateful for this classroom called my life that has always taught meaningful lessons if only I paid attention.  For this one, I got at A+!.

One of irony’s greatest accomplishments is that one cannot punish the wrongdoing of another without committing a wrongdoing himself.  Anonymous

A Man Who Tried to Live Well

/ James Browning

Today is not just another day, it is the third Monday of January, 2012 and a holiday when the birth of an American iconic figure is celebrated.  If Martin Luther King, Jr. were still living he would have been eight-three yesterday.  

Growing up in the deep-south in Alabama I remember the adults around me had a mixed bag of feelings regarding Dr. King.  Most of all I saw fear behind what was said.  I was too young to fully grasp what was going on, but Dr. King impressed me in his ability to express himself and inspire people.  As a child I did not have to comprehend everything he talked about to be moved by his speeches. Such passion and good intention was easy to comprehend even for a youngster.

When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat I was not two years old yet.  By the march on Washington I was ten.  In 1967 when Martin Luther King came out against the war in Vietnam I was two years into my teens.  It was then Dr. King’s position on an issue matched exactly something very personal to me:  opposition to the war.  Never was I against the soldiers and have always maintained great respect for those who served.  Rather it was the politicians’ attitude of conducting a “police action” that even a fourteen year-old could figure out was wrong. 

Today I still lament the great amount of death, injury and harm that was caused by the Vietnam War that served not one single positive purpose that I know of.  It was Martin Luther King, Jr. who taught me it is OK to stand for something, even when that stance is not popular with a lot of people.  I will always be grateful for what I learned from him about trying to do good and make a difference in this world.  

Many will write today about the life, politics, beliefs and principles of Dr. Martin Luther King.  I choose instead to offer a simple homage to him as a man who tried to live well.  I am confident Dr. King would have enjoyed these two poems and the thought by a close associate of his that ends this blog today.   

“A Daily Inventory” by Mildred Bettag
Did I stop to smell the flowers,
And appreciate the small things along the way
Did I look for the good in people,
That I met along the way?
Did I see the beauty in God’s creation,
As in the thing created by man,
Did I count each day the blessings,
In my life since it began?
Did I listen with caring and compassion,
And walk in another’s shoes,
Did I offer a shoulder to lean on,
Did I practice the Golden Rule?
Did I kill my anger in its early stages
Before it had time to sprout,
And grow to its full maturity,
Where love is crowded out?
Did I blindfold my eyes from Life’s sunshine,
To avoid the pain that comes from Life’s nights,
To only live in the ugliness of darkness,
Never to see the beauty of morning’s light?
Did I let my heart seek vision and purpose,
When I was lonely and filled with fear,
Did I stop and ask God for directions,
Did I give hurt time-out for tears?
Did I practice the words “I’m Sorry”,
And try to correct wrongs to make them right,
Did I forgive the ones who’ve hurt me,
Before I fall asleep at night? 

“Clock of Life” by Wilfred Grindle Conary
The clock of life is wound but once
And no man has the power
To tell just when the hands will stop,
At late or early hour.
Now is the only time that you own.
You must live, love, and work with a will.
Place no faith in tomorrow;
For the clock may then be still.

It must be borne in mind that the tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. It lies in having no goal to reach. It is not a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream. It is not a disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace not to have any stars to reach. Not failure, but low aim, is the real sin. Benjamin Elijah Mays

Martin Luther King, Jr.
January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968
“Rest in Peace”

Wishing for What Might Have Been

/ James Browning

There is no possibility of accurately counting the hours of life I squandered mourning ‘what might have been’.  If I had only done that or if she had only done this… if he had made a different decision or if the one I made had been different… or if I knew today what I knew then I would have… The sea of possibility used to nearly drown me at times.

What a barrier to living well collecting what might have been’s is.  Very little life in the present happens while wandering about in one’s history.  The future was obscured on the horizon when clouds of what went before filled my thinking. 

Looking for solutions to problems that have no answers is a waste of time. Making sense of what never made sense is as futile as flapping ones arms attempting to get airborne.  Lots of energy expended with absolutely nothing achieved except a loss of time and energy and frequently utter exhaustion.  (Oh, my surfing the past looked pretty ridiculous to everyone around me!)

The contrast is striking to now when I know to live as much of my life as possible in the present.  Certainly I am not free of the ghosts of the past, but their haunting is briefer, comes less often and rarely for more than a brief time do they emote me from living in the present.  

How did I learn do become more present?  By teaching and helping the child in me grow up with self-guidance like a good parent consistently gives directions.  When I drifted into playing in the past, with love I repeatedly told myself: “stop doing that”, “you’re doing to hurt yourself with that” or something stronger like “stop it”. The process is little different from how as a child I was taught to say “please and thank you”:  repetition and consistency of the message.

“What Might Have Been” by Judith Anness
Looking back, now looking again,
Wishing for what might have been.
I guess that could be my worst sin,
Wishing for what might have been.
When you’re least satisfied
Then it creeps in,
Wishing for what might have been.
When things seem bad,
There it is again,
Wishing for what might have been.
Now age as a way of letting it in,
Wishing for what might have been.
It never helps,
Only hurts in the end
Wishing for what might have been.

Nuggets of wisdom living has taught me about the past are:
– What I remember is not what happened, it only my version of what happened.
– Memory gets twisted over time to an almost delusional view of the past.  
– Past hurt gets amplified beyond the actual pain by the amount of thought I give it.
– In the past there is no living to be done, only unnecessary self-torture.    

Repeated in other words:  Often what I remember is not the way something actually happened.  What I recall is mostly what I have made up instead of what went on.  Recollections don’t contain the actual intensity of what occurred and has been replaced by a self-manufactured level of pain and discomfort.  Life happens “now” and at no other time. 

The first and most important step I made toward the happiness in my life today was to fight the past.  Until that was accomplished it was like I was caught inside a clear bottle looking out at life, but not engaged in it. The lesson was a painful one to learn and live through, but another example of what does not kill you can make you stronger.  I am grateful to be at this point in my life knowing the best is still ahead.   

There is no relationship between what is real
and what you think is real.  
From “A Course in Miracles”

Imperfect Masterpiece

/ James Browning / 1 Comment

From the syndicated column “Free Will Astrology” by Rob Brezsny:  A writer – and, I believe, generally all persons – must think what whatever happens to him or her is a resource,” said author Jorge Luis Gorges.  “All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.”  I agree that this advice isn’t just for writers, but for everyone.  And it so happens that you are now in a phase when adopting such an approach would bring you abundant wisdom and provide maximum healing.  So get started, Leo:  Wander through your memories, reinterpreting the difficult experiences as rich raw material that you can use to beautify your soul and intensity your lust for life.

The paragraph above appeared in the local alternative newspaper last week.  If I focus enough to query my thoughts on astrology and why weekly I read my ‘sign’ in the column, nothing definitive comes up. What I read under “Leo” is usually interesting to consider but rarely memorable.  My opinion about astrology is one of a ‘fence straddler’ who is almost completely across the fence on the side of astrology being only good entertainment.  But that little bit of straddled fence left to clear leaves a tiny amount of room just in case the rhythmic cycles of the universe might actually have a direct effect on my destiny.   The forecast above for my “sign” felt true.  Why?  Because I wanted it to.  What I read seemed to point to this blog and me writing openly about my life experience.  Coincidence? 

From the website, “The Straight Dope” Here’s a portion of what Cecil Adams had to say in response to the question “Is astrology for real?”   The usual objections to astrology boil down to: how the hell could it possibly work? After all, the stars are unthinkably distant, and the planets, an essential part of astrology, revolve around the sun, not the earth. Besides, what’s so magical about the time of your birth–wouldn’t it make more sense if your personality were determined by the time of your conception?

Studies have shown that (1) astrologers trying to deduce someone’s personality from his chart do no better than chance; (2) astrologers studying the same chart come to opposite conclusions as often as not; (3) the birth dates of people with occupations linked to certain signs (e.g., politicians, scientists, soldiers) are in fact randomly distributed throughout the zodiac; and (4) couples with “incompatible” signs get married and divorced at the same rate as compatible couples.

The fact is people who want to believe in astrology will convince themselves it works no matter what. In one study of 22 astrology buffs, half were presented with their real horoscopes and half were presented with fake charts saying the exact opposite. Both groups said their horoscopes were 96 to 97 percent accurate.

About six months ago on “viewshound.com” John Ostrowick wrote “I must conclude that astrology is nonsense. But why should I spoil people’s fun? For a number of reasons. Firstly, there’s the self-fulfilling prophecy problem. It is possible that people consulting an astrological reading might subconsciously act it out. Someone might read, for example, that they’re going to get very bad news that day, and go about the whole day unconsciously doing stupid things because they’re so stressed about what the ‘bad thing’ might turn out to be.  

So here I am, believing just a little in what Freewill Astrology this week said about Leos.  At the same time I am almost completely convinced astrology is no more predictive than the contents of a fortune cookie.  Even a little belief in astrology makes no rational sense.  Quite likely I perceive as I do simply because of wishing it were possible to see into destiny.  

I am grateful to have stumbled across the quote from Gorges near the start of today’s blog.  It is true regardless of the context in which I found it:  All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.”  My biggest art project is “my life”.  Everything that has ever happened and yet will happen is contained in one of the shapes or colors in my imperfect masterpiece.  I am thankful for the days of my life that have been and yet will be that make it so.  

There’s much to be said for challenging fate
instead of ducking behind it. 
Diana Trilling

Links to the articles referenced above:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/665/is-astrology-for-real
http://www.viewshound.com/astrology/2011/8/is-astrology-real-what-do-the-stars-hold-for-you

Song in Your Heart

/ James Browning / 2 Comments

From “Give Me Roses” by Marvin L. Cartee

If I am due but one little rose
While living upon this earth,
Let it be given while I’m still alive,
As a token of what I’m worth.

Give me my roses while I’m still alive,
Don’t sit there and hold them and wait,
Don’t wait until the day I am gone
Because then it’s a little too late.

If you love someone don’t hesitate
To tell them you love them today.
Don’t put it all off for tomorrow
‘Cause tomorrow may have passed away.

So if I am due one little rose,
While traveling along life’s highway,
Don’t hold onto that flower too long,
Please give me my roses today.

Dear ________,

I have been unsuccessful in fully expressing how much of a difference you make in my life. The scope of what is inside is difficult to form into words, but I will try anyway. In written form I have put down here at least a little of what I want you to know.

Thank you for being kind to me and noticing when I just need someone to listen. When I have no wish for approval of my feelings, but just need to be heard you always pay close attention to what I had to say. You honor me with that kindness and often help me often bear what you or even I do not understand.

All too aware I am of my shortcomings and faults. Certainly you must see them too, yet you rarely acknowledge them and chose instead to see the good in me. You have always seen more than I have ever believed about myself and tell me so. Never will I see me as you do, but my view of self is far better than it ever could have been without you.

Together with you over time I have learned the joy of doing nothing. Just being together gave hours great value and there was nothing we had to do to make it so. I learned with you that wasting time with a friend is one of the most meaningful ways to cash in minutes of my life.

You have always given me good advice although I have not always followed it. At all times you have my best interest in mind and no other intention. I thank you for your counsel and for never trying to push it on me.

Never was I able to openly express my love of someone as a friend until our friendship. I learned how to hug each time I see you and again when we part. Never was that something I could do before, but through you such expression of affection has become natural and easy with all that I care about.

You have been kind to me when I was not being so to you.
You have been patient with me when my patience was gone.
You have helped me without questioning or without even being asked.
You have been there for me when I needed you to, but could not ask.
You have been my friend even when you did not like what I was doing or saying.
You have never made a practice of saying “I told you so’ although there have been many times you could have.
I have deep admiration your honesty and directness.
I have great respect for your power to think beyond what others see.
I marvel at your ability to express your feelings to others.
I think a lot of your multiple talents and how you put them to good use.
I marvel at how you are kind and never rude, even to those who are to you.
I have high regard for your beliefs and practice of them.
I am often astonished at how much you love and am loved by your family and friends and how those feelings are openly expressed.
I appreciate you just as you are: once single measure of flaws and imperfection and a hundred measures of quality and character.

I am privileged to have you as my friend. I am fortunate to be yours. Without hesitation or reservation, I love you clearly and freely as only a true friend can love another. Thank you for being in my life.

A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.
Bernard Meltzer

Thirteen Wishes for Friday the 13th

/ James Browning / 3 Comments

Many shun the number thirteen but I am not one of them.  Likely rooted in my desire to be unique and different, thirteen has been one of my ‘lucky numbers’ back further than I can remember.   With tomorrow being Friday the 13th, it seems an appropriate time to cast some wishes upon the wind in similar fashion as Tibetans cast hopes with prayer flags. 

1 – “To see more of the world around me”
Within this wish I hope to notice more sunrises and sunsets and marvel at the flowers of spring, the snows of winter and the people and places around me.  Beauty shows itself more when attention is focused toward it.

2 – “To hear more”
This wishing thought is to pay more attention to the sounds of the world, especially the words spoken to me and those who speak them.  I have two ears and only one mouth for a reason.

3 – “To be less self-absorbed”
With this wish granted, I can be about myself to a lesser degree and more about everyone and everything else.  Greater happiness is not to be found by going deeper in myself, but in the opposite direction.  I want to be more ‘out there’ and less ‘in here’.

4 – “Let go of things”
With this wishing is the hope to be freer of the grasp that “things” have on me. One day everything owned will belong to someone else.   Letting go more of my need for stuff will mean a ‘lack’ from childhood can dissipate further.

5 – “Be more humble”
I wish to practice to a greater degree the knowledge that anything I accomplish fades and is only a thread of life.  Each action has little specific long-term meaning, except when combined into the fabric of life with what others contribute.  I want more “us” and less “me”

6 – “Be happier”
Writing that wish brought the thought that being happy is not something a person causes to happen, but instead a state that allows happiness to grow.  Joy of living comes from creation of an environment and state of being that is fertile soil for happiness to thrive in.

7 – “Be more kind”
My wish is to continue to become softer and more pliable in my approach to others.  Everyone is carrying a heavy burden and the more I simply keep that in mind the more kindness naturally emanated to others.

8 – “Spend less”
This wish is first about keeping gratitude forefront for the richness of my life in having much more than needed.  If I spend less, I have more to share and there is less stuff to take care of.  Having things is OK as long as the things don’t have me. 

9 – “Become more spiritual”
With past experience I know the deeper my spirituality and more regular my meditation, the better my life is.  Within my wish is the knowing that attention to my spirit has the same effect spiritually as a multi-vitamin does for the health of my body.   

10 – “To love with less reservation”
This wishing is to be less concerned about my scars of my past that have often been a barrier to keeping open heart.  There is only one best way to love: with all of one’s self without reservation.  Pain will come when it does.  Reluctance to love fully will not change that fact.

11 – “To read more”
This wish contains a simple principle:  the more I read, the more I learn.  The more I learn, the better life is.  Less TV can be nothing but good.  Reading is sustenance  to my mind just as food is to my physical self.

12 – “To have greater appreciation of me”
This wishing is to have less of an ego that needs to be fed and more of a realistic and honest view of my talents, abilities and positive attributes.  Never will I completely lack fault-finding in myself.  Seeing better the good that I am is a balancing weight for the ‘negative judge’ within. 

13 – “Follow my dreams with enthusiasm”
In words made from my keyboard today this wish has some fulfillment.  Writing has been a life long, but mostly unfulfilled dream.  I am honored, pleased… no, THRILLED with amazement that people actually care to read I write down.  Like nothing I have ever known is the reward of writing here.    

By the simple act of writing these wishes and sharing them I take a leap forward.  Too long my hopes, wishes and dreams were echoed thoughts within that did little except bounce around inside me.  With going before the world and stating some of them today my growth into the person I have committed to be is brought more into reality.  I am thankful for your help in my journey simply by reading these words.  I am grateful to you.

 If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of potential — for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints; possibility never.  
Soren Kierkegaard

A Shuttered Heart Flung Open

/ James Browning / 1 Comment

Dear Heart,

You were an undeveloped child when the inaccurate realization came that love cripples.  That false knowing left you emotionally lame and wounded. Life was a mistaken tutor when it taught that, but you were too immature to do anything except accept the teaching as truth. That was the very reason you began a life-long search for the very thing which brought such anguish for so long.  Like a flame seeking fire to join with your pursuit of affection has been relentless.  Dear heart, don’t stop trying.

When the strength of childhood should have been yours you were already fatigued and exhausted by love.  It is not your fault that you became a near beggar for the warmth of the love of others.  You needed only to be needed.  You wanted only to be wanted.  Dear heart, don’t ever give up.

Shattered first by this one and then by another; family, lover and friend.  This has been your path.  Like one lost in a blinding snow storm your steps have been slow and labored, but you still have found your way toward what you yearned for.  Dear heart, don’t stop moving onward.

Flawed by your own faults and damaged by the defects of others, the imperfection of love grew within you.  In childhood dreams of love were found in fairy tales and movies.  Those were the only dependable reference point you had, but the fantasy of one and make-believe of the other taught little about how one loves.  Dear heart, don’t lose that knowing.

What one does not have is impossible to give another.  As your parents were and extended family was, you became.  No matter how much you allowed yourself to travel in the direction of love, it was a destination you never arrived at because you did not even know it when it was nearby.  Like a train that missed its stop, you ran by love when it was before you only realizing the mistake too late.  Dear heart, don’t cease using what has been learned.

In your untamed need and flailing pursuit, you have hurt many people.  So self-absorbed and singled-minded with your sense of purpose, the pain caused was barely noticed by you usually.  Only later with mind turned backward could your past deeds be seen for what they were.  It was not your fault.  You did not know better then.  You do now.  Dear heart, don’t forget to forgive yourself.

Others were to blame for you being orphaned of healthy love and emotion when you were a child.  It was not your fault.  You simply knew no better.  That was a good explanation for your behavior when you knew nothing more.  Now the ‘university of life’  has given you a degree in knowledge and experience.  Dear heart, don’t forget to use that education.    

Today: you are like the heart of a young man who feels love openly and expresses it freely; a child formed into an adult.  Expressing your love to others will never be a mistake.  Dear heart, tell of your self truly

Today:  One who has known true pain and heartache knows best what joy and love feel like.  Each is but the mirror reflection of the other amplified by familiarity and practice.  It is in facing fear and continuing in spite of it that the heart triumphs.  Dear heart, be brave and give all of yourself without expectation.

Today:  Living long without being fed the emotional sustenance you needed means you have more to give than most.  Those who have suffered long at the hand of life, of others and of their own doing can understand you.  The best chance of being loved as you need to be is with those whose days adrift from love are a close parallels to yours.  People with common life experience will best “get you” and you them.  Dear heart, open yourself to those who love you.

So dear heart, do you understand that this is a love letter to you? 

I feel you pumping in my chest every minute of every day.  What feelings you bring forth for this body to know get expanded and felt in every cell of your/my/our being.  A therapist said to ‘us’ a few years ago, “I am surprised you made it”.  But dear heart, ‘we’ did make it!  ‘We’ are alive, well and able to love like few can.  The peril and hazard of the past have today become ‘our’ reward:  the ability to love deeply, fully and completely. ‘Our’ gratefulness overflows and falls in tears down the face to settle above a long shuttered heart that is flung willingly open.

The hunger for love is much more difficult
to remove than the hunger for bread.
  Mother Teresa

Where Smiles Have Been

/ James Browning / 3 Comments

Back around Christmas I read about Cheetah, the chimpanzee thought by many to be Tarzan’s movie sidekick, had died.  He was 80 years old!  The story goes that this particular chimp was Johnny Weissmuller’s comic relief in a bunch of old Tarzan movies.  Some say this specific chimpanzee while owned by Weissmuller was never actually in any of his movies.  Others say the recently deceased was the “real Cheetah”. 

All those old Tarzan movies were rerun often on TV during my growing up years and I loved them. The films were decades “old” before I saw any of them for the first time and were in constant reruns on the tube  As an adult realizing how hokey those old B&W Tarzan movies were is clear, but as a kid they were spellbinding and heart pounding adventures. 

The famous Tarzan yell everyone knows actually was done by Johnny Weissmuller, the most famous of those to play the Lord of the Apes.  No one was ever able to duplicate Weissmuller’s call to the wild which is why it was used for other actors in many Tarzan movies.

In reading about the demise of Cheetah, it led me to some material about the life of Johnny Weissmuller.  As a champion swimmer, he won five Olympic gold medals and a Bronze.  He was victorious at fifty-two US National Championships and set sixty-seven world records.  Then he became a movie star with a face recognized around the world.  You’d think all that would have set him up for life.    

Weissmuller was married five times and seemed to have a penchant for making bad choices.  He repeatedly put his money into endeavors that never panned out.  Things were bad enough that as an old man in the 1970’s he worked as a “greeter” at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas.  How sad to learn that a famous childhood hero of mine had to do something like that to provide for himself.   But a man does what he has to do.

No matter how much a person schemes and plans there is no certainty that he or she won’t someday lose nearly everything long before death takes it all.  Stories of one year rich, the next year a beggar are commonplace.  Rooted in growing up poor, I have a higher than average fear of “losing it all” to the point my apprehension defies logic. 

While my family had little when I was growing up, a lot of people had less.  Destitute old people were not uncommon sights then.  If not for family taking them in and providing care I don’t know what would have happened to those elders.   There is a distinct thread of dread in me about ending up old like that or on the street with nothing.  While the strength I sense the discomfort with is illogical, the feeling remains real to me just the same.  

Life has taught always playing it safe does not work.  It does nothing to insulate me from my mild phobia of having nothing.  There have been a lot of acceptable risks taken in my life and a good number have paid off.  So logic tells me I can lose it all and rebuild again enough to support and take care of myself assuming I still have good health. Fear does not easily submit to reason.  Need be, you will find me as a “greeter” like the man who was Tarzan to me.

Damn! That is thinking like an “old person” and I am not one of those… yet!  I have always been and will always be a risk taker.  Few times was a chance ever taken when being somewhat afraid was not present.  I was able to move forward in spite of fear then and will do so now as well.

My late middle years have arrived and old age is less faintly visible on the not so distant horizon.  In spite of my anxiety about not having enough money or losing good health at too young of an age, I am highly hopeful for the full and long ride of life.  There is a lot of optimism that I will live to experience the greatest mystery of all: old age. 

My gratitude is large to be alive today.  Outliving my father was a milestone accomplished last year.  There is deep thankfulness to have the amount of love present in my life:  of family, of friends, of loved ones and of a special woman.  All research points to loving and being loved as one of the necessary ingredients for a long life.  In that regard I am in great shape!

There is so much in my hopes to yet accomplish.  For example:  Peace Corps someday?  Probably.  Living in a foreign country again?  Likely.  Hiking the Inca trail?  Not sure about that one.  Publish a book?  You can bet on that one.  Visit the two states I have yet to set foot in?  Yes!   Growing gracefully old?  Absolutely and with immense gratitude.

My thankfulness is wide, deep and sincere for the richness bestowed on me.  As long as I am alive, life is filled with possibility. 

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.  Mark Twain

The Art of Imperfection

/ James Browning

In art and architecture, what looks like a mistake is often a deliberate signal meant to attract the attention of insiders to a particular aspect of the work.

  • In the Zen tradition, “wabi-sabi” objects, carefully crafted to be intentionally imperfect, impermanent, or incomplete, are considered most beautiful – their humble elegance transcending fads and fashion.
  • In music, notes that deviate from an established pattern are often used to create emotional tension.  Beethoven was fond of this technique.  In the Third Symphony’s “Funeral March”, for example, he replaced sounds with silences to express the mounting sense of sorrow in the piece.

I imagine a different world, one in which people do not spend an inordinate amount of energy fuming against their fate each time they made a mistake.  A world in which one takes for granted that if things go wrong, they probably will.

It would be so civilized.  Folks would bump into furniture, miss deadlines, get lost on the way to the airport, forget to return phone calls, and show up at parties a day early, without getting unduly annoyed with themselves.

You and I would not be personally insulted when we dropped the sugar bowl on the floor, back the car into the mailbox, burned the dinner while on the phone or failed to meet our quarterly projections. 

We are convinced that getting it right is a matter of survival. Surrounded as we are by machines, we feel that we must perform flawlessly to stay ahead of the game.  An industrial-age mentality keeps us all on the steep and narrow path of productivity. 

Unfortunately, thinking that being right will save us from being wrong is a misapprehension.  While, in the last decade, we have labored to be as accurate as our machines, these same machines have been redesigned to be as impulsive as we are.  Today, some of the most advanced electronic devices, from satellites to pacemakers, are engineered to be partly inconsistent, in accordance with the dramatic finds of “chaos scientists.”

Today, in various fiends, from space exploration to stock market predictions, computers are programmed to be quirky on purpose… A case in point is an energy-efficient Japanese dishwasher, designed to be “chaotic.” That gets china, glass, and silverware cleaner by using two rotating arms that spin erratically.

In our day and age, the irrational is on the cutting edge. More and more, you are likely to run into people who will explain to you that… progress is knowing less and less about more and more. 

What a bummer?  Not at all.  Letting of basic assumptions is as exciting as looking at earth from space.  You feel something like a delicious vertigo, a sense of weightlessness.

Next time you break a plate or lose your keys, or jump to false conclusions, why not take it in stride?  Consider the possibility that there is a hidden pattern behind your random acts of blunderism.

Until this paragraph, words here today are those of another sharedbecause the thoughts are better than any original ones I have this morning.  It is rare to open up a book that grabs my attention so quickly and completely as “The Art of Imperfection” did.  It is even rarer for me to include so much of another writer’s material as I have today.  The borrowed words that fill this blog come directly from the first chapter of the book because I was moved to share what touched me so deeply.   With these thoughts once again I am reminded imperfections are perfect as they are.  They make me who I am; no less; no more.  I am grateful for my “perfectly imperfect” self.  

Kudos go to Veronique Vienne for her meaningful words
and Erica Lennard for her remarkable photography that fill their little,
but very meaningful book titled “The Art of Imperfection”.  

It is as hard to see one’s self
as to look backward without turning around. 
Henry David Thoreau

Not Everyone is Meant to Stay

/ James Browning / 4 Comments

Sometimes you have to give up on people. Everyone that is in your journey is meant to be in your journey, but not everyone is meant to stay there. 
Anonymous

Deep down inside me is a strong wish to have grasped the meaning of that statement long before understanding came.  Previously my long-term theory of living was simply if I love someone, somehow, someway it was going to work out.  Otherwise, why would love have found me if not for an intention of becoming something lasting?  

Such a view was one of a child carried into adult hood; a child not loved enough hidden inside an adult who grabbed at any scrap of affection that came his way.  The need to be adored was irresistible.  It did not matter that what I perceived was not genuine or what another expressed to me was feigned, disposable or temporary.  So eager for love, my heart openly accepted what it identified as affection from whatever source it came.  So hungry to be noticed and appreciated, I became involved with almost any woman who showed interest in me.  

With time I came to know that frequently people love what is not good for them.  An alcoholic loves a drink.  A drug addict loves a fix.  A gambler loves risking every dime.  An adrenaline junky loves the rush of risking life.  And so on it goes when there is emptiness on the inside that one tries to fill from outside the self.  With women I either loved ones too much who were not good for me or else did not love enough those who were.    

In more youthful years I claimed to date ‘crazy bitches’ because they were more fascinating and exciting.  In more mature years now, the realization is clear that ‘like attracts like’.  It was only because I was ‘just as crazy’ that my attraction was so strong to such women.  More thrills and spills than a roller coaster ride , but like any amusement, such extreme relationships eventually got old.  They exhausted me.  

There is this notion within those similar to me who have spent much of their lives feeling “less than” that if we can save another person they will in turn save us. Rarely does it work because such a scenario is an attempt to get esteem from outside one’s self instead of nurturing it internally.  A person then becomes a sort of emotional vampire, always on the hurt to ‘feed” on another’s feelings but sated each time only for a while.  One can only save them self from the inside out and no one else can do the work.  No amount of basking in another’s emotions made me better.  No amount of trying to be a ‘savior of women’ actually saved anyone.  In reality the attempts usually caused me (and those I was involved with) to be worse off emotionally than before we knew each other. 

Once upon a time nothing pleased me for long.  Whatever I achieved seemed hollow quickly.  Whoever I was involved with in time felt too imperfect.  Never was there contentment for long with what was in front of me.  I always either wanted more or continually asked myself if there was more.  More money, more sleep, more success, more sex, more time, more attention, more love.  Enough was never enough. 

My insecurities caused me to attempt to collect love by alway trying to hold on in some way to every woman I was ever involved with.  Whether maintaining some occasional contact, keeping mementos and photos stashed away in a box or keeping thoughts of them alive, I held on.  There was no questioning if this was healthy.  Constantly my ego yelled “you’re not good enough” through a screaming bullhorn in my brain.  The only way to quiet the noise even temporarily was to allow myself to be filled with the thrills of someone new.  

To actually see my own life clearly and become grateful for all that led me to this here and now took aligning myself with some measure of peace and truth. To learn to look at my present circumstances through gentle, kind and loving eyes required years to learn.  Even longer was needed to realize I was living a wonderful destiny that was uniquely mine.  

Peace is loving what is…what exists now in this moment here.  In her book “Loving What Is” Byron Katie wrote the only time we suffer is when we believe a thought that argues with what is. When the mind is perfectly clear, what is, is what we want. If you want reality to be different than it is, you might as well try to teach a cat to bark. You can try and try, and in the end the cat will look up at you and say, “Meow.” Wanting reality to be different than it is, is hopeless. 

So here I am in late middle age with all my flaws, scars, and blemishes but wiser and happier than I have ever been. Getting here took establishing good boundaries for myself and others.  I had to let go of a lot of things and people:  my Mother, two ex-wives, several friends, a handful of ex-lovers and girlfriends, a comfy long-term job, the big house, over half my savings and more.  Only through the letting go was therespace in my life for what I truly needed.  My gratefulness to be in this here and now is beyond my command of written language to express fully.  So I will just say “thank you” with sincere thankfulness. 

No one can give you freedom but you.
Byron Katie