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SOME OTHER PLACE
Saturday Nov. 15, 2014
Tales of war, woe, disease and disaster dominate news.
Problems all exist, someplace else.
News of snow, ice, harsh winds and cold fronts. None of that here.
Someplace else.
Geography aside, it is all mindset.
If world problems are always someplace else, it isn’t because we are in some other place, hunkered down, avoiding, but rather because we are in some other place mentally.
Out of sight – out of mind, is too simple a cliché.
We are all in this together.
We are all on the same amusement park ride through space, through time.
Climate, food quality, peace, prosperity, health and disease … everybody’s problem.
Everyone’s address is: EARTH
I know, because I can see it from here. Feel it from here.
Our fellow man (woman) might not matter, unless they might shoot us or invade us or infect us. Then we are absolutely all in it, together.
I walk my beach each morning.
I know it isn’t my beach.
It is a public beach. Belongs to the public.
Air I breathe, water I drink, freedoms I enjoy – all public, public, public.
Yet every day on this planet it becomes clearer, we are insulated in silos of nationality, political ideology and self-interest that make it difficult to understand if/why/how we are making progress.
Too much they. Not enough we.
Everybody blaming someone else, someplace else.
Walking around in paradise is beautiful.
Love it.
But, feeling separate from things that matter is short-lived idle pleasure.
OK for vacation, but no way to live with any sense of purpose.
Feeling off-treadmill, observing my treadmill as missing something.
Missing a better,higher, more worthy purpose.
Mark Kolke
column written/ published from the Maui Kamaole, Kihei, Maui, HI
morning walk: 23C/73F, partly cloudy, half a moon, some stars; add a few minutes and a well lit beach draws walkers and runners like sticky stuff draws insects; another perfect day in paradise begun, alone with reality in a sea of escape, there is peace and quiet among the peace and quiet that isn’t so quiet. Solitude exists in the centre, like the calm at the centre of the hurricane – and in the place it is hard to think thoughts which are not peaceful. This morning, everything wet everywhere I went but no clouds overhead. Such little things are no trouble at all in paradise. Last night, strange noise, steady somewhat familiar sound. I thought – sprinkler, timed-start. Stepping onto lanai, expecting to confirm sprinklers had come on. But no. Sudden rain shower, over as quickly as it started. Warm, of course, because that is the kind they have here. Warm, gentle, and short.
Reader feedback / comments always welcome:
Aloha Mark - I hope you have a great vaca! For the last 3 days and tomorrow we will be sharing the same ocean - you in Hawaii and me in Mexico! I think we both dodged a weather bullet in Calgary. Enjoy your well deserved break. MK, Calgary, AB
Watching waves – beyond the mere visual act is completely resetting your ebb and flow to that of the waves. Best accomplished by completely ridding the mind of all things reality. I highly recommend totally immersing your brain waves with those of the ocean and virtually feeling the waves rock your body as they flow over it. Much less expensive than therapy. Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy! GW, Bon Wier, Tx.
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