Tag Archive - Meaning of Life

In Light Of A Bohemian Smile

July 10, 2012 in Defying Expectations, Occupy Karma with 2 Comments

God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well. 
- Voltaire
 
Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.
- Henry Miller

 

How easy is it for you to smile? Can you manage a fake one? Do you need someone’s help? Go on and give it a shot.

A few mornings ago, I looked in the mirror; it was my birthday. I’m 49 – a little older and a lot wiser with still lots to learn. Ok, maybe ‘learn’ is not the right sentiment; maybe ‘make sense of’ is. In any event, I think the older I get, the more I scratch my head over life, which no doubt might be the reason for my thinning hair! Still, compared with other male members of my family, past and present, I still have plenty of hair on my head, so I really shouldn’t complain.

Indeed, I have a lot to smile about and day by day I try really really hard to remind myself of that. If you blink though, you might miss it.

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Weed Whackers

March 30, 2012 in Dialogues with 3 Comments

PROLOGUE:

Herb: In the known universe there are beings that never quite question their existence. They wander wildly through the underbrush of society, slowly strangling the life out of all within their grasp, including themselves. It’s senseless. 

 

DIALOGUE:

Charlie: And so it begins, our journey … our wandering.

Ivy: I wonder … will we wander in vain? Is there a point to all this creeping about?

St. John: About our destiny,  yes. And, we must have faith in our function, our purpose, our very reason for being.

Charlie: Being that you know so much about life, the universe and everything, don’t you think it’s about time we questioned our existence and that which drives us?

Ivy: What drives us is life itself. Isn’t it? 

St. John: It is! Our very existence demands we kowtow and bow to the will of what we were born to do.

Charlie: Do tell! We are slaves to our wills then … or the wills of our nature … and after we do whatever it is we are supposed to do then what happens? What then?

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Slacker Talk: Loitering Thoughts On Life

January 27, 2012 in Defying Expectations with 2 Comments

I remember thinking this just can’t be right
Got to be a better way to live your life
Slow like a soft southern breeze
Nobody take time to breathe
Everybody always rush, rush, rush around
Rush, rush, rush around
Rush, rush, rush around
- Edie Brickell (Rush Around)

 

Some called him a Bohemian. Others said he was a slacker. In truth, it doesn’t matter what he was called; all that matters is what we learned from him.

Life is not about learning how to win or lose, as much as it’s about learning how to play and even enjoy the game. For many people, however, this and other life lessons are often lost in their rush to cling to their delusions about what life is really all about: the attainment of some ‘cracker jack prize’ or ‘hollow victory’, if you will. The morbid and honest truth is that rushing your way through life yields the same ‘trophy’ as those who take it slow: a tombstone.

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All Thumbs Going Forward

December 31, 2011 in Defying Expectations, Uncategorized with 2 Comments

“Whatever you get paid attention for is never what you think is most important about yourself.”
- David Foster Wallace
 

Last Thursday, in one of those ‘stupid clumsy me’ moments, I bashed my hand against a wall and screwed up my right thumb. As I’ve had my fair share of broken bones over the years, I didn’t think it was fractured and even managed to play guitar with it for a couple of hours with my buddy. Nevertheless, I had it x-rayed the next morning just to be safe; it was swollen and stiff, and the thumb, too! 

While waiting for the x-ray report to come in, I sat thinking back to when I had broken both elbows in a bike accident a couple of years ago, on April Fool’s Day no less. I thought about how crappy it would be to start the New Year incapacitated, trying to get by with my left hand, especially as I’m right-handed. I thought about toasting the New Year holding a champagne glass in my shaky left hand, as well as typing this post one letter at a time in true ‘hunt and peck’ fashion. I considered how 2011 might be giving me one last kick in the crotch before it winks out of existence. And then, a sobering thought struck me, “aww was 2011 really so bad to me?”

About 6 hours before my accident, I had been reading the last post of Joe Bodolai, a comedy writer with many notable television stints to his credit, including Saturday Night Live (SNL). Eulogizing himself, he listed his life’s achievements in length, as well as noted his regrets, personal peeves and even his sardonic predictions for the coming year. He then closed his extensive suicide note expressing thanks to the many who had been a part of his life, as well as suggesting “I need to feel the good that I did and whatever good I have ever done for you is enough for me.” … Well, apparently whatever good he did in his life wasn’t ‘good enough’ for him to rest his laurels on and so he offed himself by drinking a mixture of Gatorade and antifreeze.

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Artful Dodgers In The Blogosphere Mist

November 16, 2011 in Dialogues, Writing with 0 Comments

Spare us your wisdom
and send us your cash.
A twenty or a fifty …
… or something like that.
– Send Us Your Money (Judd Jugmonger)

Bloggers make for interesting sorts. Many start out as artists with their ‘craft’ in mind, and end up as marketers with ‘sales’ on their minds. The transmogrification of this species usually follows this pattern: I think therefore I am. I am therefore I create. I’m hungry. In fact, I’m starving. So, I create therefore I sell.

Today I read a post on another blog about writing. Well, actually it was about marketing under the guise of writing because no one with any flair for ‘the creative’ really wants to be a salesman. It’s true, isn’t it? If so, why do there seem to be so many blogging ‘artful dodgers’ in the blogosphere?

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A Mess of Ideas Defying Expectations

April 11, 2011 in Defying Expectations with 0 Comments

Hung velvet overtaken me
Dim chandelier awaken me
To a song dissolved in the dawn
The music hall a costly bow
The music all is lost for now
To a muted trumpeter swan
Columnated ruins domino
– Surf’s Up (Brian Wilson & Van Dyke Parks)

I have an idea, but it begs the following questions:

  • Why is it easier to make a mess of some things than to just sort them out in the first place?
  • Why is it harder to achieve greatness than mediocrity?
  • Why is it easier to say ‘no’ than ‘yes’?
  • Why is it easier to go nowhere and do nothing than to set out on an adventure?
  • Why do so many adventures we set out on come up short?
  • Why do things implode with less intensity than they explode?

These are the types of questions equally raised by the hopeful and the hopeless; the dreamers and the depressed. They are part and parcel of the same enigmatic shaded overtones of our existence, and fail to answer what we are supposed to do with it.

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My Morning Constitutional

February 8, 2011 in Uncategorized with 5 Comments

On more than many a morning, I wake to find the silence deafening. I sigh, acknowledging the cliche. All the while, the tension mounts just beyond my window, resonating off people, buildings, technology and wheeled transport – works in progress all. Yes, there are delights unseen awaiting, broiling us in microwaves of undulating currents, modulating the air we choke on.

I’ve yet to rise, but I’m already on my way. My eye stings, my nose runs, my breath already soured from stale sleep. A short while later, the comfort of breakfast soothes and then bloats.

I am hurried to venture nothing with nothing to gain but the unholy pursuit itself that drives me to distraction. It’s a sacred ritual for some; it’s death to me. The loss of precious moments, youth, exuberance and creativity.

I think that I am, but perhaps I’m not. Eager to purge this allergen, I scratch, but the irritation persists. There is no ointment for this inflammation. No creams. Not even a poultice or a vapor rub.

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In with the old, out with the new ….

December 31, 2010 in Uncategorized with 4 Comments


In a conversation with my mom last week, she mentioned that it was easier to talk to me about “wooly things” than “straight things”. I asked what she meant by “wooly”; she had no response. It was just one of those sort of non-sequiturs that come along in conversation from time to time. The truth is I knew what she was talking about, even though the conversation’s subject matter was anything but “wooly”. It was about life and death, the passage of time and friends … but not so much about the meaning of life. As usual, what you see is not what you get. Yes, such is life.

I hung up on her and put on a cozy wool sweater that was unravelling. Again, such is life. All that we tether to us, eventually tatters and falls away.

Maybe my life would be better spent picking up the pieces of life’s daily dander, rather than incessantly scratching the itches of whims that come and go. Maybe not, but then since it’s New Year’s Eve, it’s a good time for pensiveness. That’s why I started this blog today. This coming New Year threatens to be a pretty bleak one. Yet, onwards I plod, sparkling wine in hand, surging forward to face it, not unlike a deer caught in a pickup’s headlights.

Time for some resolutions:
– Lose weight
– Make money
– Practice guitar one hour a day
– Write a blog
– Figure out what it all means

Being fairly realistic here, don’tcha think? Then again, maybe I’m just pulling the wool over my own eyes again… as usual. At least it’s better than sticking my head in the ground. After all, ignorance is bliss, but denial is just plain stupid.

Happy New Year.

PS. Thanks for reading. Some days you get philosophy, some days you get cornbread stuffing recipes. That’s just the way it goes.

Suggested Reading:

Tropic of Cancer Living Loving and Learning Mark Twain's Helpful Hints for Good Living: A Handbook for the Damned Human Race The Cornbread Gospels

Suggested Listening:

Already Free  Eli And The Thirteenth Confession  Smile  Jugmongers: Live At The Hootenanny

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