Insight

A Letter To My Son on Father’s Day

/ James Browning

ORIGINALLY Posted on June 19, 2011

nick

Dear Nick,

Vivid in memory are the emotions I experienced just after you were born. The day after you arrived I wrote in a journal about the joy I felt, the gratefulness within for you being ‘normal” with the proper number of fingers and toes, the awe that filled me for life and the hopes I had for you. I described your birth as “the most incredible thing I’ve ever witnessed” and also wrote “No child could be more wanted or more loved.” Those thoughts have aged sweeter as time has clicked by.

Frequent have been musings of how I could have been a better Father. Had I not chased with such vigor the emptiness of dysfunctional illusion, success and money I could have been there for you more. There were too many of your games I missed,weekend outings that never were and small events at school that were big happenings for you when my presence was missing. I never did build the treehouse I promised you.

Your Mother and I went our separate ways when you were sixteen which took you hundreds of miles away. One of my deepest regrets is your high school years when seeing you only every couple of months I became a sideline spectator of your life. Yet, as I mature and learn I have come to know regrets past making sure you’re aware of them, have no good purpose.

There are so many wonderful memories I have of your growing up. No child has ever been more curious about the world than you. You never crawled and began to recklessly walk at 7 months old. Such determination you have always had!

In school you did well and had the respect of most of your teachers. You made good friends and some of those relationships are healthy and thriving today. The only time you ever really got in trouble at school was through protecting a friend from a bully. How the game of hockey worked when you started to play at seven was unknown to me, but no father was ever prouder than I was to watch you. The lessons that came at you in college were hard ones, but you learned from your mistakes. I can not begin to express my admiration for your determination and stick-to-it-ness to get the education you wanted.

On this father’s day I hope these borrowed words express clearly to you the feelings of my heart and the wishes of my soul.

Until you have a son of your own… You will never know the joy beyond joy, the love beyond feeling that resonates in the heart of a father as he looks upon his son. You will never know the sense of honor that makes a man want to be more than he is and to pass on something good and useful into the hands of his son. And you will never know the heartbreak of the fathers who are haunted by the personal demons that keep them from being the men they want their sons to see.

We live in a time when it is hard to speak from the heart. Our lives are smothered by a thousand trivialities, and the poetry of our spirits is silenced by the thoughts and cares of daily affairs.

And so, I want to speak to you honestly. I do not have answers. But I do understand the questions. I see you struggling and discovering and striving upward, and I see myself reflected in your eyes and in your days. In some deep and fundamental way, I have been there and I want to share.

I, too, have learned to walk, to run, to fall. I have had a first love. I have known fear and anger and sadness. My heart has been broken and I have known moments when the hand of God seemed to be on my shoulder. I have wept tears of sorrow and tears of joy.

There have been times of darkness when I thought I would never see light again, and there have been times when I wanted to dance and sing and hug every person I met.

I have felt myself emptied into the mystery of the universe, and I have had moments when the smallest slight threw me into rage.

I have carried others when I barely had the strength to walk myself, and I have left others standing by the road with their hands out stretched for help.

Sometimes I feel I have done more than anyone can ask; other times I feel I am a charlatan and a failure. I carry within me the spark of greatness and the darkness of heartless crimes.

In short, I am a man, as are you.

Although you will walk your own earth and move through your own time, the same sun will rise on you that rose on me, and the same reasons will course across your life as moved across mine. We will always be different, but we will always be the same.

This is my attempt to give you the lesson of my life, so that you can use them in yours. They are not meant to make you into me. It is my greatest joy to watch you turn into yourself.

To be your father is the greatest honor I have ever received. It allowed me to touch mystery and to see my love made flesh. If I could but have one wish, it would be for you to pass that love along.

I love you,

Pops

You are my son-shine.
Author Unknown

Slivers of Insight

/ James Browning

“Eyes in the back of the head” always seemed like a nonsensical statement that grownup’s sometimes claimed to have when I was young. Outside of being a figure of speech the phrase never had any particular meaning to me, at least not until the last decade. Now I think of those backward viewing “eyes” as being real as long as I forget they are there.

At the moment my life is happening it is frequently unclear exactly what is going on. Activity of all sorts mix together to figuratively “stir up the dust” so no one spot can be perceived plainly. If it comes at all, gaining insight about the past comes in similar fashion to glancing into the distance at straight railroad and noticing the rails converging on a point. Understanding, when it comes, takes time, comes as an unexpected glimpse and only when looked back upon from a far-off view.

Also in my past there is the pointless, absurd, irrational, meaningless, nonsensical, useless and ridiculous of which no logical perception is possible. To try find real meaning where there is none to be found is “barking at the moon” and expending energy for no possible gain. It is a sickness of sorts to repeatedly attempt to find an answer to the unanswerable.

When some measure of clarity comes to me about the past, it is almost never because I have “made myself” think about it until a conclusion arrived. Quite the contrary. What comprehension and insight I get arrives when I am long done beating the subject up and have let it go sometime ago. Only when I let my grasp go is discernment and comprehension of any of my past possible.

There is irony in the fact that the more I let go of my past, the better I understand bits and pieces of it. I am grateful for that insight and for those slivers of insight that make them selves known once I tire of digging for them.

I’ve never tried to block out the memories of the past,
even though some are painful.
I don’t understand people who hide from their past.
Everything you live through helps to make you the person you are now.
Sophia Loren

First posted July 29, 2012

Few Minds More Brilliant

/ James Browning

quotes-platoIn history, there have been few minds more brilliant than that of the Greek philosopher, Plato. I mean, consider a man who was the student of Socrates and the teacher to Aristotle. Plato is one of the founding fathers of what we know to be Western Philosophy. The contributions that Plato has made on the minds of anyone who has studied him are truly timeless in nature. Here is a collection of 30 of his greatest quotes:

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.”

“Courage is knowing what not to fear.”

“Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.”

“Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.”

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”

“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”

“The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”

“Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.”

“The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.”

“According to Greek mythology, humans were originally created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves.”

“Love is a serious mental disease.”

“Never discourage anyone…who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.”

“One of the penalties of refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”

“Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws”

“I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.”

“There is truth in wine and children”

“Ignorance, the root and stem of every evil.”

“I’m trying to think, don’t confuse me with facts.”

“If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.”

“…and when one of them meets the other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy and one will not be out of the other’s sight, as I may say, even for a moment…”

“The measure of a man is what he does with power.”

“Those who tell the stories rule society.”

“The madness of love is the greatest of heaven’s blessings”

“Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge. ”

“There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.”

“Education is teaching our children to desire the right things.”

“When men speak ill of thee, live so as nobody may believe them.”

“There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they cannot.”

“In politics we presume that everyone who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a city or a state. When we are ill… we do not ask for the handsomest physician, or the most eloquent one.”

“How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state?”

http://iheartintelligence.com/2015/12/28/quotes-plato/

Beatus Rememberence (Happy Remembrance)

/ James Browning

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Feeling grateful brings a grace like little other. Through the power of gratefulness my life became more contented and centered. For three years I wrote almost every day about the light and dark times that shaped and molded my life. Those were contented times.

Nothing bad has happened. My level of gratefulness remains above average I think. However, when I PRACTICED gratitude in a near daily meditation and wrote about it, EVERYTHING was better. Human nature is to take for granted anything held in abundance. And so, richly filled with the joy of being grateful, over time I slowed in my notice of things to be thankful for.

By paying only spotted attention to this blog for well over a year, I have misplaced some of what was once gained. Realizing this brings a tingle of optimism; a happy remembrance. I know every full benefit of gratitude  can be restored.  I need only practice gratefulness regularly:  look up, be present, and live what comes to me as well as I can.

More very soon….

When a new day begins, dare to smile gratefully.
When there is darkness, dare to be the first to shine a light.
When there is injustice, dare to be the first to condemn it.
When something seems difficult, dare to do it anyway.
When life seems to beat you down, dare to fight back.
When there seems to be no hope, dare to find some.
When you’re feeling tired, dare to keep going.
When times are tough, dare to be tougher.
When love hurts you, dare to love again.
When someone is hurting, dare to help them heal.
When another is lost, dare to help them find the way.
When a friend falls, dare to be the first to extend a hand.
When you cross paths with another, dare to make them smile.
When you feel great, dare to help someone else feel great too.
When the day has ended, dare to feel as you’ve done your best.
Dare to be the best you can…
Steve Maraboli

A Letter To My Son on Father’s Day

/ James Browning

ORIGINALLY Posted on June 19, 2011

nick

Dear Nick,

Vivid in memory are the emotions I experienced just after you were born. The day after you arrived I wrote in a journal about the joy I felt, the gratefulness within for you being ‘normal” with the proper number of fingers and toes, the awe that filled me for life and the hopes I had for you. I described your birth as “the most incredible thing I’ve ever witnessed” and also wrote “No child could be more wanted or more loved.” Those thoughts have aged sweeter as time has clicked by.

Frequent have been musings of how I could have been a better Father. Had I not chased with such vigor the emptiness of dysfunctional illusion, success and money I could have been there for you more. There were too many of your games I missed,weekend outings that never were and small events at school that were big happenings for you when my presence was missing. I never did build the treehouse I promised you.

Your Mother and I went our separate ways when you were sixteen which took you hundreds of miles away. One of my deepest regrets is your high school years when seeing you only every couple of months I became a sideline spectator of your life. Yet, as I mature and learn I have come to know regrets past making sure you’re aware of them, have no good purpose.

There are so many wonderful memories I have of your growing up. No child has ever been more curious about the world than you. You never crawled and began to recklessly walk at 7 months old. Such determination you have always had!

In school you did well and had the respect of most of your teachers. You made good friends and some of those relationships are healthy and thriving today. The only time you ever really got in trouble at school was through protecting a friend from a bully. How the game of hockey worked when you started to play at seven was unknown to me, but no father was ever prouder than I was to watch you. The lessons that came at you in college were hard ones, but you learned from your mistakes. I can not begin to express my admiration for your determination and stick-to-it-ness to get the education you wanted.

On this father’s day I hope these borrowed words express clearly to you the feelings of my heart and the wishes of my soul.

Until you have a son of your own… You will never know the joy beyond joy, the love beyond feeling that resonates in the heart of a father as he looks upon his son. You will never know the sense of honor that makes a man want to be more than he is and to pass on something good and useful into the hands of his son. And you will never know the heartbreak of the fathers who are haunted by the personal demons that keep them from being the men they want their sons to see.

We live in a time when it is hard to speak from the heart. Our lives are smothered by a thousand trivialities, and the poetry of our spirits is silenced by the thoughts and cares of daily affairs.

And so, I want to speak to you honestly. I do not have answers. But I do understand the questions. I see you struggling and discovering and striving upward, and I see myself reflected in your eyes and in your days. In some deep and fundamental way, I have been there and I want to share.

I, too, have learned to walk, to run, to fall. I have had a first love. I have known fear and anger and sadness. My heart has been broken and I have known moments when the hand of God seemed to be on my shoulder. I have wept tears of sorrow and tears of joy.

There have been times of darkness when I thought I would never see light again, and there have been times when I wanted to dance and sing and hug every person I met.

I have felt myself emptied into the mystery of the universe, and I have had moments when the smallest slight threw me into rage.

I have carried others when I barely had the strength to walk myself, and I have left others standing by the road with their hands out stretched for help.

Sometimes I feel I have done more than anyone can ask; other times I feel I am a charlatan and a failure. I carry within me the spark of greatness and the darkness of heartless crimes.

In short, I am a man, as are you.

Although you will walk your own earth and move through your own time, the same sun will rise on you that rose on me, and the same reasons will course across your life as moved across mine. We will always be different, but we will always be the same.

This is my attempt to give you the lesson of my life, so that you can use them in yours. They are not meant to make you into me. It is my greatest joy to watch you turn into yourself.

To be your father is the greatest honor I have ever received. It allowed me to touch mystery and to see my love made flesh. If I could but have one wish, it would be for you to pass that love along.

I love you,

Pops

You are my son-shine.
Author Unknown