Knowledge

Without You I Wouldn’t Have Tried

/ James Browning / 4 Comments

“Thank You” Attributed to Jesse Owens

To those of you who laughed at me, thank you.
Without you I wouldn’t have cried.

To those of you who just couldn’t love me, thank you.
Without you I wouldn’t have known real love.

To those of you who hurt my feelings, thank you.
Without you I wouldn’t have felt them.

To those of you who left me lonely, thank you.
Without you I wouldn’t have discovered myself.

But it is to those of you who thought I couldn’t do it;
It is you I thank the most,
Because without you I wouldn’t have tried.

Paul Harvey wrote…

I hope you learn humility by being humiliated, and that you learn honesty by being cheated. I hope you learn to make your own bed and mow the lawn and wash the car.

And I really hope nobody gives you a brand new car when you are sixteen.

It will be good if at least one time you can see puppies born and your dog put to sleep. I hope you get a black eye fighting for something you believe in.

I hope you have to share a bedroom with your younger brother. And it’s all right if you have to draw a line down the middle of the room, but when he wants to crawl under the covers with you because he’s scared, I hope you let him.

When you want to see a movie and your little brother wants to tag along, I hope you’ll let him. I hope you have to walk uphill to school with your friends and that you live in a town where you can do it safely.

On rainy days when you have to catch a ride, I hope you don’t ask your driver to drop you two blocks away so you won’t be seen riding with someone as un-cool as your Mom.

If you want a slingshot, I hope your Dad teaches you how to make one instead of buying one. I hope you learn to dig in the dirt and read books. When you learn to use computers, I hope you also learn to add and subtract in your head.

I hope you get teased by your friends when you have your first crush on a girl, and when you talk back to your mother that you learn what ivory soap tastes like.

May you skin your knee climbing a mountain, burn your hand on a stove and stick your tongue on a frozen flagpole. I don’t care if you try a beer once, but I hope you don’t like it. And if a friend offers you dope, I hope you realize he is not your friend.

I sure hope you make time to sit on a porch with your Grandpa and go fishing with your Uncle. May you feel sorrow at a funeral and joy during the holidays.  I hope your mother punishes you when you throw a baseball through your neighbor’s window and that she hugs you and kisses you at Christmas time when you give her a plaster mold of your hand.

These things I wish for you – tough times and hard work, disappointment and happiness. To me, it’s the only way to appreciate life. 

All these lessons have not been mine to claim, but the majority has been contained in my life experience.  Only from the vantage point of over five decades can I realize how important and meaningful difficult lessons these lessons are.  My resilience, determination and ability to recover from anguish, heartache and grief are based largely in the simple life teachings above.  By knowing the darkest of dark days my soul was softened, my heart made gentle and my spirit made tender.  My gratitude overflows

 I am learning all the time. 
The tombstone will be my diploma. 
Eartha Kitt

Are You Limiting Yourself?

/ James Browning / 4 Comments

I don’t speak well enough.
I’m not attractive enough.
I don’t dress well enough.
I’m not confident enough.
I’m not educated enough.
I’m not talented enough.
I’m not creative enough.
I’m not smart enough.
I’m not good enough.
Sound familiar? 

All those pieces of crazy thinking have afflicted me at one time or another.  Some of them still dance in my head from time to time.  Experience has taught me I do not have to join in that dance.  Ignoring the tango of my limiting beliefs does not make them go away but the more I fight them the shorter duration the dance is and the slower the beat they thump my psyche with. 

From “Notes from the Universe” by Mike Dooley: 

Your invisible limiting beliefs are only invisible when you live within their limits – or when you keep on doing what you’ve always been doing.

Push yourself.  Dare yourself to think bigger, to reach, and to behave as if a dream or two of yours has already manifested. Then you’ll see ‘dem little buggers pop out of the woodwork, painted fluorescent orange, loaded to the teeth with logic, imploring you to turn around and go back to safety!

Do something, do it today, something you wouldn’t normally do. Like maybe… take off early from work and go to a matinée movie.

Aha!  Did you just see a couple of ‘em?

Be warned:  Sometimes, once exposed, they’ll try to snuggle up to you, looking sooo innocent and adorable.  And as if that wasn’t bad enough, they’ll start with their “baby talk”.  Sickening. 

The key to not giving in to limiting beliefs is learning to argue with myself over my inaccurate impressions. One battle is never enough and in some cases the fight may be something fought over a life time, although with practice the skirmishes become less and less severe.  All I had to do as try… then try again… then again.  With consistent practice and attention my beliefs that have limited my life have been greatly lessened.  

https://goodmorninggratitude.com/2011/08/23/being-a-superb-disputer/ On this previous blog entry a few months ago I wrote about learning to dispute my own BS.  Then I said “I learned a while ago that my world without is but a reflection of my world within.    My thoughts create the conditions my mind imagines.   “Superb Disputing “is an effective tool for inwardly sorting out my own thinking.  All I need to do is remind myself that I have a lot of control over what I think. From experience I know I can sort my thoughts into ones worthy of further attention and the ones that are garbage and proceed accordingly. I just have to not forget I know how to do this.” 

I am grateful to know four weapons effective in fighting my self-limiting thoughts:
FIND THEM
FACE THEM
ERASE THEM
REPLACE THEM

I just have to keep telling myself:
You are not as you think you are.
You are not as others think you are. 
You are so much more than either fully realize.
Your potential greatly exceeds what your mind can grasp.
You can do anything. 
No one can stop you but you! 

      Somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives, that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day. Do it! I say. Whatever you want to do, do it now!
There are only so many tomorrows. 
Pope Paul VI

Thankfulness and Gratitude

/ James Browning / 2 Comments

Greetings from the land of Imodium, Pepto-Bismol and a nasty stomach virus.  The last 36 hours have been no fun, but this morning I am awe-struck by the gratitude I have for feeling better.  The thought of good health returning fills me with humble appreciation for something I take for granted, no matter how much I try not to.  Illness is a reminder to appreciate what I have.

Today this blog is in majority filled with the words of others; two written pieces that are favorites that once in a while I refer to when I need to be reminded of what matters most.  Today is one of those days where sickness figuratively and literally brought me to my knees and re-centered me in thankfulness and gratitude.

Principle of Emptiness by Joseph Newton

Have you got the habit of hoarding useless objects, thinking that one day, who knows when, you may need them? 

Have you got the habit of accumulating money and not spending it because you think that in the future you may be in want of it? 

Have you got the habit of storing clothes, shoes, furniture, utensils and other home supplies that you haven’t used already for sometime? 

And inside you?

Have you got the habit to keep reproaches, resentment, sadness, fears and more?

Don’t do it!

You are going against your prosperity! 

It is necessary to make room, to leave an empty space in order to allow new things to arrive to your life. 

It is necessary that you get rid of all the useless things that are in you and in your life, in order for prosperity to arrive. 

The force of this emptiness is one that will absorb and attract all that you wish.

As long as you are, materially or emotionally, holding old and useless feelings, you won’t have room for new opportunities. 

Good must circulate… clean your drawers, the wardrobes, the workshop, the garage.

Give away what you don’t use any longer. 

The attitude of keeping a heap of useless stuff ties your life down. 

It is not the objects you keep that stagnate you life… but rather the attitude of keeping…. 

Yes, get rid of those you don’t want, don’t use, don’t need; materially and emotionally!

Mistakes by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
God sent us here to make mistakes,
To strive, to fail, to re-begin,
To taste the tempting fruit of sin,
And find what bitter food it makes,

To miss the path, to go astray,
To wander blindly in the night;
But, searching, praying for the light,
Until at last we find the way.

And looking back along the past,
We know we needed all the strain
Of fear and doubt and strife and pain
To make us value peace, at last.

Who fails, finds later triumph sweet;
Who stumbles once, walks then with care,
And knows the place to cry Beware
To other unaccustomed feet.

Through strife the slumbering soul awakes,
We learn on error’s troubled route
The truths we could not prize without
The sorrow of our sad mistakes.

You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments when you have truly lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love.
Henry Drummond

Don’t Worry, Be Happy (or “Blue Monday” is BS)

/ James Browning / 1 Comment

This week and next there’s a good chance you will be exposed to a fake hypothesis called “Blue Monday”, supposedly the most depressing day of the year.  Quite a few have accepted the theory as truth to the point there is disagreement about the actual date.  Some assert the gloomiest day falls on the third Monday of January.  Others declare the most dismal Monday of the year is the fourth one each January.

The theory behind “Blue Monday” is based on a bogus formula:  Weather plus debt minus salary multiplied by the time since Christmas to the time since failure to fulfill New Year’s resolutions. Then take that and divide by motivational level and the need to take action.  Sound fishy?  It is!

The origin of the idea of the most depressing day of the year is said to come from a psychologist named Dr Cliff Arnall.  He is usually described as a Cardiff University professor although it appears he may have only taught at UK’s Cardiff part-time.  There is actually no science what so ever behind the assertion of “Blue Monday”.  Since originating the idea to help a British travel agency sell vacations, Arnall has admitted that the formula is meaningless.  

Such nonsense actually distracts from a type of real depression that does occur with greater frequency this time of year.  Called SAD or Seasonal Affective Disorder, some people experience real symptoms of depression during the winter. The Canadian Mental health Association estimates 2% and 3% of the general population may have SAD. Another 15% have a less severe experience described as the “winter blues.”    

Cases of seasonal affective disorder, where the weather triggers depression, do tend to peak around this time of year, says psychiatrist Mark Berber of the University of Toronto.  “There is some truth to the fact that we do get low moods in mid-January, but the idea that there’s a particular day and a particular way of equating the severity of the low mood — I think that’s somewhat far-fetched,” he said.

So being depressed is a little more likely this time of year, but it is NOT the annual January epidemic that  the Cardiff psychologist suggests.  When one remembers Dr. Arnall created his formula for “Blue Monday” to sell travel packages the proper perspective is in place. 

In spite of knowing that the vast majority of people (north of 80%) are never affected by the winter blues of any sort, some will insist on being depressed just because they choose to.  For those people here are the lyrics to a Dave Bartholomew song that Fats Domino sings:

Blue Monday how I hate blue Monday!
Gotta work like a slave all day.
Here come Tuesday
Oh, hard Tuesday
I’m so tired, got no time to play
Here come Wednesday
I’m beat to my socks
My girl calls, gotta tell her that I’m out
Cause Thursday is a hard-working day,
And Friday I get my pay

Saturday morning
oh Saturday morning
All my tiredness is gone away
Got my money and my honey
And I’m out on the stand to play

Sunday morning my head is bad.
But it’s worth it for the time that I had
But I got to get my rest
because Monday is a mess.

Personally my discovery has been the level of happiness or depression in my life depends mostly on what I choose to think and feel.  I may not be able to control the world around me, but I do have a good bit of power over how deeply I let depression or happiness affect me.  My motto has long been “expand the good and diminish the bad”.  Guiding my thinking and paying attention to what I dwell on has a lot to do with my level of satisfaction with life.  It takes practice, but directing my mind in the direction I want it to go works most of the time.  I am grateful to know that!

By the way, research sponsored by an ice cream company has deemed June 17 to be the happiest day of the year. 

Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
Abraham Lincoln

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

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

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