MORE REMEMBERING
Sunday Nov. 10, 2013
I owe huge debts, have unmet goals and unaccounted for obligations to others, I have self-inflicted obligations of my own – to say nothing of what this world of so many others expect of me. There is little point stressing about what others expect – because 9 times out of 10 I’ll be wrong in my assessment, which means I’ll be wrong in my approach 9 times out of 10. Which, based on how I do math, 81% chance of failure most of the time . . .
Should I trust luck, or random probability – with outcomes matching wishes about 1 chance in 14 million, like winning the lottery.
Or should I bet on me?
Should you bet on you?
This requires basic things to be clear in our heads, does it not? Like:
- I’m in charge
- I’m responsible only to me
- I’m the best judge of what I want to do and how best to do it
- I’m creative and intuitive in my choices and I trust myself with myself to make better choices for myself than if I let other make them for me
- others won’t make them for me
- life is a selfish game with everyone out for themselves
Is it not?
We don’t have a picture, the puzzle piece have no pictures on them – trial and error are our guides, there are no smooth edged or clear corners. What then, should guide us? Is this a Braille-method exercise of wandering on hands and knees in the dark or are we flying in the dark with other senses, skills and vibrations to guide us? Principles? Goals and objectives? Tasks? Obligations? To whom are we owing this enormous responsibility, to whom do we owe these gargantuan debts, to whom are we so publicly accountable?
Yet, on this weekend – we have so many causes to remember all those who were not out for themselves, they were out there, sacrificing their lives, risking their limbs – for all of us. Sure, most of them were too young to know how high the risk or how great the sacrifice. Sure, they had no sense of how great the value of a long life well lived. They never got that chance to know. They, in the case of Canadians or Americans, didn’t fear their country being over-run – but they stepped up, signed up and went to fight a war on foreign soil because someone else’s country was being over-run by tyrannical forces.
When we construct jigsaw puzzles (when we don’t have a picture to go by), working first on edges – figuring out boundaries and corners seems so important. Then comes building the middle, sorting out what that picture looks like – that is how we piece together a picture of the unknown . . .
When we construct lives isn’t it the other way around? Sure, when we are young – or doing long range theoretical planning, it seems like we are setting clear boundaries, paths and criteria to achieve a goal or destination, but . . . what is known, what is unknown?
When we are in the real game of life - creating form and shape of ourselves – characters and scenery, plot and acting – our life is more like a stage play without a director, without caring whether the drama spills out to envelop the audience. In fact, that seems more like success – engagement, suspensions of disbelief. Are the boundaries holding it all in – setting the bounds of what we can do, or are we writing our story on a bigger stage attached to winds of change across and undulating landscape of torsos and limbs, flailing in the wind in search of our own self-direction?
Walls, paths, connections can lead to disaster, or to magic, or wandering in the dark?
Mark Kolke
291,364
column written/ published from Calgary
morning walk: -11C / 13F, overcast, light snow overnight – bracing light breeze produces ruddy cheeks and brings smells to inspire Gusta’s nose, so off we went on a trot uphill and back, but most of all it was an off leash dog’s scent that determined our chaotic route of adventure and mishap avoidance . . .
Comments Received:
Maybe we could call it the "wonder age"? We are still young enough to wonder at the wondrousness of it all and old enough to wonder about all the experiences that led us to this stage of our lives. GW, Brady, Tx.
Thanks for the musings. I am off to town to run errands and strut my stuff :). JS, Enderby, BC
Knowing who we are is important. Knowing others’ opinions about who we are, sometimes makes us less of a stranger to ourselves, IMF, Jakarta, Indonesia
