What Changes

Should someone become who I want him or her to be, then to some extent there would be a changing of self, a diminishing or enhancement, but a change nonetheless and it may be presumptuous to think he or she is better just because I might be more at ease with this new edition.

Distinction

There is a need to distinguish between self-centered or self-focused, and selfish.

Who You Are

Who are you means who are you now, not then or not someday.  And it does not begin with illnesses or limitations.

Almost Parallel Lives

Lives run parallel to each other, sometimes nearing and for a time they may intersect, but they are not a single line -- nor could they be without undoing the uniqueness of each.

Making It Your Own

Having the same condition is not the same as having the same disease.  Each has it his way, incorporating and expressing it in his own personality.

Lessons Learned Growing Up

There is a book about learning life's essentials in kindergarten.  I have not read it but think it is true that much is learned early on, but more is learned later.  I think for us much was learned outside Schifani's store, in Inwood Park, and in the other sacred places of growing up.  Among the ideas I acquired in that two or three years we now call "adolescence" were:

1. When you have a job, you do it.  You do the whole thing, and if you don't like it you do it even better.
2. Whoever is with you, no matter that he be a jerk, is with you and so is your responsibility.  You take his back.
3. Each play of the game is the game.
4. Friends come first.  Family is important, but first come friends.
5. Trust is earned.
6. You do what is right and what is right may not always be what some might think.  It is instead what you know to be so.
7. If you only do what is expected, you get only what was predicted.
8. You don't ask.  People can offer, but you do not ask (and even when they offer, the initial inclination may be to say "no.")
9. If people cannot understand some things, explaining will make no difference since it is not a matter of reason or logic.
10. Being together is at least as significant as anything done together.
11. Integrity counts.
12. It is O.K. to be smart, especially if you can do other things too.  This applies to other skills as well (such as sports) so that one-sidedness, no matter how well developed, is more a limitation than an asset.
13. John Ford's movies (especially the westerns) embody a number of values.
14. Be contemptuous of emotional display, particularly of a public nature.  Feeling is O.K., but it is expressed in moderation at most.
15. If someone knocks you down, he does not win unless he can keep you down, so you keep getting up and you do it until that other person gives up.

Only later did I realize that some rules, no matter how long we have had them or with whom they are shared, might be good for only a time or a particular place, but not forever.  And so, some rules learned long ago have been incorporated or reaffirmed (most, in fact) and a couple have been allowed to end.

Settled But Unsettled

I have, I think, settled into the moment and can exclude from now what does not pertain, and yet I speak to the dead, sharing with them what is beyond their span of life.  It is a not-uncomfortable inconsistency.

First Change

First change.  If you still need an explanation, you can look for it later.

Believing in Belief

Believing in belief may suffice.  The concept of belief, even if it has no specific object, is enough.

Justifying the Doctor

Going to the doctor there is concern we will not be sick enough to justify the trip.  The time and expense involved make it important that there be "something" though we can hope it will not be terrible.  The worst we could hear is that nothing is wrong.

Forgetfulness

The workers early into the vineyard forgot they had not needed to endure the idleness and uncertainty of a day with nothing to do.

Being Ourselves

In their lives and relationships people accept roles or invent them and then become good at portrayal, so good in some instances that it seems to become them -- as Yul Brynner seemed to become the King of Siam.  A king like no one else could be, but it is limiting as well if there is no occasion to move beyond and well out of that role so that we instead be, rather than portraying, ourselves.

Conditions of Forgiveness

If forgiveness is a good idea, then the king should have forgiven his servant no matter how the servant treated his colleague.  Making it conditional diminishes the action.  Perhaps, in the same vein Jesus might have prayed that they be forgiven no matter what they had done, rather than making their ignorance the determinant.

Oversimplification

To say, "That's what it's all about" or "That's where it's at" or to offer similar simplifications is only slightly short of silly.

The Sad Gospel

He can find in any Gospel the saddest thing to preach on.  It is not a gift.

Relative Worries

Short-term anxiety -- worrying about meeting today's debts and handling the moment's needs -- is not all that great, but it is more reasonable than long-term distress -- worrying (and sometimes obsessing) about what is still far away.

How Little

I had forgotten how little they used to be.  Maybe when they actually were little I thought them bigger than they were.

Misinterpreting the Message

Facts and the form in which they are enacted may differ and so there will be conflict in relationships, though the argument is about the fact as interpreted from the manner in which it is expressed.  It is people saying they are not loved only because the form in which love is expressed by each may vary.

Memory Fades

Building monuments assumes they will have significance for people beyond those who raised them, that sometime in the future people will recognize the importance of the individuals or events that inspired the builder.  How readily memory fades and how even the most mundane of present moments can take precedence over the greatness of what was is more surprising than might have been realized.

Apology

Hopefully having made his point -- whatever it might have been -- Jesus apologized to the Caananite woman.

Tides

Because there are tides we can build new castles each day.

Only the Present

Nothing actually happens in the future.  Only as it becomes the present are choices available.

Foregoing Fame

He has decided to forego his fifteen minutes of celebrity.  If more of us would do the same, it would be an improvement for all.

Alternatives

You are not supposed to tolerate or encourage craziness, but rather point out options to it.

Mastering Solitaire

Mastering the game of solitaire is less an accomplishment the more you look at it.

Losing The Present

It is true that life is not as it should be, that no matter how good it might be there will also be the absence of what might have been.  Is that reason enough to let the present be lost?

Conditions of Addiction

It seems that intensity of life is the actual condition and addiction is instead a symptom of it.  At the other end are those whose lives are devoid of activity other than pursuit of their addiction, and so in those instances absence of intensity is the condition.

The Ultimate Meaning

I think sometimes there is a more ultimate meaning, but it must be so because it cannot be perceived.  Perhaps the more significant the ultimate meaning, the more obscure it will be.  And so maybe it really is better to focus in the moment.

Risks of Reason

Why must he have such dramatic, though determinedly inane, solutions to every problem or question?  Why will reason never suffice?  Perhaps reason would require a greater risk of self, an investment beyond what he thinks possible.  The drama about which he fantasizes might have all the impact of suicide.  It is also as destructive and leaves real response to someone else.

Doing Nothing

There is a difference between not doing anything and doing nothing.  We are not idle when doing nothing.

Mistaken for Guidance

It pretends to be guidance, but it is instead a failure of trust.