courage, kindness, softness, love and connection

Thinking back it seems to me that every time I have acted in violence, anger, fear, or coldness I have lost something of importance to me.
 It could be honor, integrity, or relationship.
 The last to time it has been relationships. The last time I lost a life
  No matter how much bullshit I shovel or good I do for the rest of my life there will be a hole in my sense of me...
  I advise all to reject fear and one-up-manship. Every time you vilify a whole group or even a person you tear a little hole in the fabric of society.
  Think clearly and with courage and honor and integrity before you say or do anything cruel or dismissive. You yours and all of us collectively lose when we do such things
 

Empathy

How do we empathize with the "other"
Those who we disagree with or fear?
 What happens when we misjudge and either attack a good person or mistake evil for a miscommunication?
 

nice

A long story on whether being nice pays off for men in the world on the BBC yesterday
 The most striking thing I noticed was the scientist saying that there is an assumption in many humans that we are all evil assholes so anyone who is nice is therefore weak.
This to me is to me is a sad and fearful belief which is actually false and through constant repetition soon becomes a social reality.
So my conclusion is that us good folks need to do is to battle against the evils of  those who worship bluster and violence and do the battle of good vs evil with strength and kindness
 

justice,equaility, morality

A very complex and difficult subject this thing of fairness and justice.
 I sense in many of my friends a judgment full of fear and resentment
My young children often feel resentment of the others enjoyment and their childish solution to this problem is often to take the joy or resource away from the other, the same method many adults have  For example . Some people get free college, others don't. The immature solution based on the a priori idea of not enough is to take free school (donated or paid by others or society) away from those who have it.
Interestingly this does not translate to inherited or stolen wealth....
 

Doing one's best the love of excellence is a rare and beautiful thing  I remember as a young man thinking that doing ones best was putting forth full effort in whatever one was doing.
What happens if one has never been challenged in their lives?
It seems that man do not know what their best is.. I am trying to figure how one hits a moving target
As one tries hard ones best becomes better and better as one believes that they are trying their best their best can be less and less

On being good

we here in America worship success
My friend frank and I have had many discussions upon this subject
We both have separately and differently come to the same conclusion that being a good human being a good human is more important than any earthly success
 The elect

The challenge

A simple bike ride to a public meeting
My favorite frenemies show up ( fear and his/her/it's twin anger)
They remember the good old days when we raced and battled for supremacy in the dark on scary runs alongside la lotto a in the arroyos of my native Agua Fria
Ttherapthey feel confident and want a rematch 432 years later as they feel I willam old and weak and will succumb easily to their blandishments and threats
As very few know about me I have a difficult time turning down a challenge even one with little chance of victory and very little upside
The rules are simple we pick a distance and I must put forth full effort for that period or lose and suffer a spiritual death
Today we agree to best out of three
I am fresh and strong 💪 and have a secret ingredient
Easy wins two to zero
Of course fear and the referee death are cheaters so they claim I have to win three out of three
Shit
But the refs have final say so now you am getting angry
The next challenge is a long hill
I bust my ass and run out of gas and give in with a just meters to go
Forgot the cardinal rule " don't get 😡...
So a long flat stretch calm and clear for many maters as the end nears I feel fear and weakness wending their way from belly to heart to brain
Hold on by the merest margins gasping for breath quads burning but victorious
They day is won!!!
Not so quick says fear, death agrees that maybe some cheating involved
No bleeping way but the rules are set so remembering the lesson of anger we find the next challenge, a long winding hill
Easy I think and start steady and slow speeding to the exact effort which will get me
To the top of course the top is farther than the eye used to jogging 🏃 reckons so a 100 meters more than expected head down grimacing as the pain and lactic acid build
Victory by a hair!! Exhausted !!!4 to 2 good to go
As life often does the finish line moves it is now best of 9 or on English first to 5
So spent and disheartening two hard steep tricky hills now four four
Death our ref sea a long deceptive hill for the final challenge so I can quit or try
With little hope I bend my will to the task halfway the tendrils of fear and acid begin their insidious work
Just go then that funny thing happens I embrace the pain and fear and work with them as tools of self knowledge and as the quads tighten and the vision begins to tunnel one last long effort and the finish passes by as thinkers wobbles and legs tremble
Death will have to wait at least one more day

The wandering heart

So we start in the middle as all good stories must 😊🙀
A fella travels to an ocean town to court a wondrous lady she is sweet and kind and generous
Helps him reunite with old friend
Instrumental in reconciliation between long lost brother and of course amazing sister in law
Wonder lady,or girl if one prefers,( though feminism card is then revoked)
Shows him many amazing things
Yet at the end against the advice of the obligatory old wise woman in the organic garden 😢😢😢
I will not leave my seaside home
I cannot love a man who leaves his children in his desert eyrie so you must fly home all alone and leave me and not think of me again
Poor fella drags his lonely self back to high sad dwelling only to realize he he something behind
A happy heart ❤️ who apparently only does as he wishes dances on the. Each in Santa Cruz a marshmallow stick held high
In spite of his non swimmer status he plays with shark and sea lion
Enjoys a meal of trilobite
When tired he wanders up to Rachel's home for company wine and song
When tracked down by sad and lonely he laughs and says you left too soon
Come home now young fool 😡
Happy wandering heart hollers and says heck no the lovely Marta is here and here I stay happy and delighted until I decide
What the am I supposed to
Wait old fool wait
How will you sustain
Love and of course the house of Rachel he hollers back

There is a time in many young lives where their fate lies in the balance
A small nudge here or a helping hand there can be the difference between a life and mere survival
For me as a young person with no adult supervision John cheek was one of those he and Jean and Kevin took me in and treated me as one of their own
A metaphor of a young man at risk of being washed out to sea by the slings and arrows of life
A life saver thrown to him.... A life is changed

The adventure

we all experience to some extent this thing that may be expressed in English as life
A crazy mixed bag of love joy kindness fear and anger
Somehow every one seems to have the same yet unique reaction to
To the kaleidoscope of different senses feelings and some ineffable aspect of what we may choose to calll existence
From Carl Sagan to Douglas Adams
Edward abbey and Loren eiseley the gamut of the universe and thoughts feelings and beliefs are so very similar each in its very unique way

Complete sentences

So the time comes when a fella puts down in words thoughts feeelings and philosophy and finds that very few understand shat he is saying
Many tell him
You must write in complete sentences . Or there is such a thing as craftsmanship
There is also some intimation that there is hedging or avoiding difficult positions as well as an issue oppositional defiance disorder
Of course there is also the idea that one should write for themselves and not for the audience
And of of that there is a great need for the defiant.....

AmErica and patriarchy?....

Long conversations with a fellow traveler
Led to thinking of how some of us are connected to... the mother archetype and most are not . Somehow it seems those of us who acknowledge the mother the feminine universe there seems to be a sense of completeness wholeness or connection with the rest of existence
Those who only sense or feel the father or male seem more prone to think that the universe is an awful place

On being

Rereading Loren Eiseley

And realizing that thinking and true thought are rare and difficult things

adventure continued

I was a few years single at the time and was happily and confidently waiting for someone to move from far away to be with me . she was being to my mind a little wishy washy about moving .
  Anyway prom date friended me on facebook and we started chatting. It turned out she was coming to Albuquerque the next month for another dressage judging clinic and didn't have a place to stay
   I, of course, offered my place....
 She came up on a Thursday and went with me on a day of hoofcare and chatting then dinner.
 There was a palpable tension.
  The next day she was off to judging school in ABQ, then back to my place.
   There was some doubt as to what was going to happen next, but there was a huge noisy thunderstorm and wet dogs jumped into the guest bed in the night...

I found this out as I was drinking scotch and watching football at my good friend Michael Rawn's house
 A phone call from Karen Nord She was keeping my horses for me so when the caller id came up I immediately feared the worst, colic!! It turned out she was in Albuquerque at a dressage judging clinic and had someone who needed to speak to me
  I heard that once familiar voice and was transported back to the glory days of high school"Do you remember me?"
 Of course I did. Sarah McCowan the "Swiss Miss" who was a genius and who had asked me to high school prom. I had not been going because I felt that it was another way to oppress women, but when a cute girl needed help... anyway had not seen each other since I had accompanied her to check out CSU in Denver after prom.  We chatted for a few moments and hung up. Me feeling unsettled but back to the mind numbing vices of drink and spectating modern day gladiators.
  the next day I got a friend request from Jacqueline Sarah Cowan, "Jacquie" if one wanted to annoy her.
  She had changed to her fathers last name after finding that her mom had changed from Jacqueline Sarah Cowan to Sarah Mccowan to hide from Sarah's father..