Life

As well it should…

~ Tim ~ Leave a comment

It’s been a while…should I smile or frown without my crown?

What crown you ask? I’m glad you asked, or if you didn’t, well that’s ok, because today is really a very new day, to pen my thoughts, long since absent. Why is that, did I hear you ask? No matter, this is my task.

You see, Life as we know it, is actually not quite that, not at all a thing we can hang our hat. It is, rather, something else — more “Top-shelf” as my friend would say, and yet I sigh with a bit dismay. Not at life, I cannot do that.

I dismay because, well a dear friend died today.

There you have it! While it’s been a while, I can’t deny how difficult it is for me to still here write. I’m not sure why…old age perhaps? Well, I know many for whom that’s not something to slow them down! They become more prolific! Or is it…because they fear their death grows near? Most likely, I think. Not that that’s a bad thing — their increased action as that time gets close, before they become just another ghost, to have one last fling, to share their best, I think that’s good! As well it should.

As well it should.

Tumultuous Times…

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As I sit overlooking my patio into the stark white wall of the apartment building across from me, sun on it, blinding me. Hold on, I need to draw the drapes…

Ok, much better, but now I need to go find my computer glasses to continue….

Computer glasses on. Ok. Ready to go. Now I have to take a moment due to all the distractions to remember why I wanted to sit down to write this.

Ok…got it. Well, it’s 6:30 pm here in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. I should emphasize “beautiful” because there is no smoke in the sky and the temperature is a relatively comfortable 26 degrees Celsius, or 79 degrees Fahrenheit…quite warm but NOT warm compared to so many other temperatures across the world right now! Right now a LOT of the world is in extreme heat…breaking all time records. Thousands of people are dying of heat stroke and exhaustion. This is climate warming just warming up they say. The worst is yet to come.

As for me this evening, I’m ever so grateful to not have to turn on my air conditioning. My fans are all I need. What a blessing.

I was going to turn on the TV to watch the latest news. I think it’s good to keep up on current events, but tonight I couldn’t do it. I thought, what if I was living 100 years ago…I might have a radio, if I was rich. Or 150 years ago — no radio then. In the evenings they had NO entertainment options, other than walking down to the town centre perhaps to see if there was something going on, but that was it! No movie theatres or TV or radio news, no phones or computers. All they had to do was whatever was pressing…get firewood or coal for the stove so they could cook tomorrow. Entertain the children or grandchildren. If the weather was good, sit outside and chat with FAMILY, gaze up to the sky — a sky that had, oh my, thousands of stars to see. Then off to bed, sleeping peacefully — not to be awakened by sirens or cars or garbage or delivery trucks clanging and banging, and….and……!

Sounds like another world doesn’t it? Well, it was OUR world not that long ago. How far we’ve strayed in the name of progress. Not that progress and technology isn’t good! It is, but we’re in a transition stage of history now that is pretty messy, rough and tumultuous.

We are living in very uncertain and difficult times. World war 3 could be just around the corner with the conflict happening between Russia and Ukraine right now! We could even see nuclear weapons being used! Even this medium, the Internet, could go down if we go into a World War, which is partly why I’m writing this here tonight, with hopes for the best, but fearful of the worst!

What can we do in the meantime? Get political perhaps. Write to the editors of whatever papers are still left. Have a voice on social media. Post on blogs like this. Look out for ways that we can make a difference while we can? Something, anything.

God help us all.

Tim

One DNA strand away…

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We all like to think, we’re rather distinct, but in fact we’re not, at least not as much as we like to think.

You see, DNA is a thing that distinguishes this from that. One stand, or even less in fact, makes you as different from this or that.

It’s not that we’re not unique. That’s it, in fact, that makes it such a feat, that little strand.

And so we stand, all proudly so! But this much we all should know — that a little strand of a thing so small, can make the difference between us all.

In the meantime, perhaps, look around you now – see, we’re each unique, and in that wisdom I beg you seek…

If we see all that we’ll have no fear, you see, or future tear, because we’ll see the good within us all and live our lives, I pray, with peace, or dare I say – love? For all.

Dross…

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This day is dross, it grows like moss and yet it goes a pitter-patter.

Why should I care, why should I dare, since it really doesn’t matter.

And yet, some say, I should care before I cast it all into the air, for the wind to take it where it will, this way or that without being still, for a moments grasp in desperation until it lands upon the station, of life lived, lost and left behind. Too much thought for this frail mind.

I am what I am, or I is what I is, as Popeye said, before he died upon his bed.

There really isn’t this or that or whatever else we think is this or that.

There is only what is, accept or not, not a damn thing upon which to hang our hat

Other than who we are and know down deep. And with that fact, I’ll rest in sleep.

My personal Covid-19 statement…March 22nd, 2020.

~ Tim ~ 1 Comment

covid-19

I’m having a really rough time with this whole Covid-19 thing. Health officials are now saying that France, Spain, then the US, then here in Canada — that we’re all on the same illness trajectory. Meaning, the horror we’re seeing in Italy, is heading our way, inexorably.

Of course things will vary — Italy has a very high percentage of older people compared to other countries, and we have had more time to prepare, but the experts are saying that while that may slow down the speed at which it’s spreading, it may have little ultimate effect on its inevitable, inexorable march through our homes. We now know the virus is hitting a lot of younger people too, so it’s not just targeting one cohort, it’s targeting us all. Targeting us, making us sick, but also in a big way now victimizing us with “social distancing”, which is dramatically changing the way we have all lived in ways more than revolutionary.

Today, not being able to go about my normal routine, the gym, the grocery store, the pub, etc was extremely hard for me. Instead, I had to stay home, try to read or watch TV, most of which is all about Covid-19. I couldn’t go for a walk, or a run because there are now so many people out on the streets and out on the local trails that it’s impossible to keep the safe distance! So, the main message now is to STAY HOME.

This is not the “new normal” as some psychologists are suggesting we will all need to “adapt to”! This is the new “ab-normal” that none of us are at all prepared for. We are social beings — it can and never will become a “new normal”, because it’s completely unnatural for our species.

While I’m feeling terribly sorry for myself today, as much or more I’ve been crying off and on today thinking about everybody else, here around me and around the world who CANNOT and may never get used to this new, “normal”. Those who fear not just the loss of their own lives, but of their loved ones, their friends, their neighbours. We’re living in a moment by moment time of huge uncertainty.

We hear everyone now saying, “We are all in this together”, but we’re all also in a place so very unnatural and hard for us, a place that bores down to the very root of our soul, to a place of fear, with the potential to rip apart the very social fabric of our being. This is not a, “United We Stand” situation. This is a “United We Fear” catastrophe — fearing, even, one another. I predict many broken hearts – emotionally and literally, many inconsolable friends, many impossible demands upon us all.

These are not just “tough times”, friends, these are virtually impossible times for too, too many…

Dear God, may we all somehow see this through.

#covid19

 

 

Memories…vestiges of time.

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We cling to memories as if they define us…but they really don’t….what we do is what defines us….memories are ghost images of what’s scarcely behind us in time, according to the clock. What we do in the present is the only true indicator of the person, of who we are, because it is us here right now.

What if…

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What if there just absolutely isn’t any definitive answer to our angst-ridden, age-old, search for Truth!? What if we just were not meant to know, or that there simply just isn’t any answer to that immortal question? THAT, I think is the closest we will ever get to an answer, IMHO (in my humble opinion). An answer to the true meaning of life, I mean, of course. Knowing the uncertainty of it sort of makes it certain, doesn’t it?

What is…

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I think that we all share a reticence, a fundamental dislike towards “what is”, that which is, the very facts of our existence. I think many spend their entire lives in rebellion to this, what I see as, a basic truth, a basic fact–in fact THE basic fact of life.

“What is”, as I see it, is life as, or as we choose not, to see it. It is what is regardless of our upbringing or education or opinion. It simply is that which is–apart from what we think it might, could, or should be. When we rebel against this, or choose to simply ignore it, we end up miserable and unhappy. Could–dare it be–that most or perhaps all of our unhappiness in life stems from our refusal to SEE, to accept life just as it is?

 

God…etc.

~ Tim ~ Leave a comment

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Some people have difficulty conceiving of God, of believing in God. I know. Here is my conception of God, borrowed from Jung. He said, “God is the name by which I designate all things which cross my willful path violently and recklessly, all things which upset my subjective views, plans, and intentions and change the course of my life for better or worse”.

To which I will add, God is the magic in the moment, the spirit in the spritzer. Goosebumps when we know something extraordinarily unusual and unique is happening. The inner knowing in a situation that would otherwise behoove us. The bird that lands close to us during our most desperate moments. A sudden coincidence that we cannot explain. The colour of the blossoms that catch our eye, the scent of the flowers that suddenly overpower us. The fresh breath of a child as they grasp and hold us without expecting. The pictures just sent from my daughter of her son playing languidly in the beach sand. The lingering moment between sunset and darkness that stirs something within our souls. That is God, and then some. Perhaps those reading could add to this in the comments? That would be nice, and another gift from God.

Is that sort of God difficult to believe in? I don’t think so. To me, that’s just the type of God I need! The one I have been longing for.

And in the end, if you still have difficulty believing, ask God — as a pure act of faith, which just means having great hope really — to reveal himself/herself/itself to you in some special way… he will, if you are open to it and looking for it. The little bird in my description above was just one of many ways he did for me. I feed the birds from my patio. Each spring the Junco’s leave for cooler weather in the deep forests. Each fall they return. One morning, in particular desperation I asked God for a sign, anything, to know that he cared, that he was there. I walked into my living room and there flew down onto my patio the first Junco, returning from the summer. I gasped with unbelief, but soon grasped the belief, the sign. That is beyond coincidence. That’s GOD. If he did it for me, many times, he can for you. Just ask! What have you got to lose? Nothing.

P.S. When Jung was asked one day if he “believes” in God, he answered, “I don’t ‘believe’, I KNOW! (that God exists), because of his life-long experiences. At this stage of my life, I can say the same.