LOOK UNDER SELF FOR CONTROL
Monday Nov. 17, 2014
I’ve been pondering a letter I need/want to write. To my daughter. Not that one. The other one, the one who isn’t speaking to me, in hopes she’ll sit with me, talk with me, spend some time with me. And that I might sit with her, talk with her, spend time with her.
I feel hapless, hopeless and helpless – which is a self-pity recipe I’ll no longer allow myself to brew. I’ve wrestled this for some time and remain hard to convince – that doing something will be any more helpful than doing nothing at all.
And I wonder …
My eyes are open.
But is my mind?
My mouth is open.
But is my heart?
Open to what?
When we are open – say we are open, feel we are open, want to be open – what is it exactly that we are open to? What are we open for?
Change, difference, unsettlement – or do we mean we are open to new information, ideas and arguments which support our fundamental beliefs, perceptions and habits?
Minute incremental change, like a snail headed out to fetch groceries, or radical change to do something bigger, grander, more largified, is not change. It is same, just a matter of scale.
I don’t advocate change as much as I perceive I have an appetite for it.
Yet most things that have genuinely changed in my life by choice, rather than chance or just living long enough for things to happen – have been the impact of someone else’s choice(s), when a choice has been imposed upon me, when I can’t do anything about it. When I want to have a role, but the power was never vested in me …
There ought to be a book called CONTROL.
Each page would have a title naming a thing, circumstance, location of trait.
Under SELF there might be a notation that says: you can, but barely. Much work has little real impact because the choice so often rests in the hands of others. Only you can control you. Only they can control they. Everything else is a crapshoot.
Under every other title, every other page, such as: WEATHER, ECONOMY, FAMILY, FRIENDS, COMMUNITY, BIRD POOP ON THE PASSENGER WINDOW, DOGS, especially CATS, HEALTH, WOMEN, FAITH, BELIEF, POLITICS, PEACE and WAR there might be a notation which says: you control nothing
Under CHILDREN, there might be a notation which says: see SELF
Mark Kolke
column written/ published from the Maui Kamaole, Kihei, Maui, HI
morning walk: 21C/70F, clear, breeze-less, silence broken only by bird choruses – beach empty (weekend population bulge gone home, gone to work or just gone-away) left the palate of empty sky, perfect sand and steady surf to paint a perfect picture dotted be few foot falls and schizophrenic tracks left by shore birds (looks like a sewing machine-surger run amok)
True feelings are not hidden Mark. Possibly, we lie to each other more often than not. Yet, in a world where words are only 7% of communication, 38% pace & tone and 55% body language... true feelings do NOT get hidden. I firmly believe I am aware of the truth in a high percentage of interactions. Unless you cannot handle it and you are 'inclined' to ignore the truth that pace, tone & body language are telling. The truth hurts Mr. Kolke. Flawed as we are, each of us might have to employ personal psychologists if humans went around telling 'the real truth and nothing but the truth.' Me, bring it on! With the skin of an alligator and the heart of a mother, I enjoy authenticity and 'full-contact' living. It would make us better. It is the sand-on-the-pearl. Not too many could exist without faking it... Yes, TRUTH DISINCLINED has a purpose. Blessings, as you walk the beaches. Thank-you for sharing what the universe brings to you, JF, Calgary, AB
