Audio Version
We read a thousand books to glean a thousand morsels with which to discern, devise, design, and, in practice, implement our own life philosophy.
If we choose to write, said philosophy emerges directly; laid bare, perhaps daringly, are the untested notions, unchallenged opinions, and innumerable past unwise decisions — though few they may be. A public forum will certainly intensify the game, but with time, our seasoning invariably defines the critic that defies the blathering and youthful stupidity, hubris, and exuberance.
Cleverness and imagination may fill in the blanks, but the clarity and presence of real lived experience requires no padding nor embellishment; we colorize when we are compensating, unnecessarily engendering a make-believe buffeting, or adventure, where there was only the mundane.
We forget that those who really listen can discern the miracle in the simplicity of the plain and authentic.
We model, teach, and mentor with our actions, outlined by letters and symbols, not driven by them.
This day is a limited, one-time-only contract, full of agreements, offerings, and the possibilities of expiry dates from that which came before. We bring forward too much of the used and previously owned.
It’s hard work to buy presence. But, perhaps, the words and phrases, poems and prose, distillations and syntheses of the capable creatives operating in parallel, or at temporal adjuncts, may gift us something important and useful.
Read, or write, or do both. Engage.
Solvitur ambulando