Requests Anyone?

Blogging is an interesting pastime.

For many of us, it’s a way to hone our skills as writers and explore a whole range of topics.  It can even be a testing ground for materials we wish to write about, like a future book, or for just good old-fashioned storytelling.

For some, it’s even a way to make a living.

Well, yesterday, one of my blogging friends asked me to address a particular topic.  Marriage.  And to do so from the perspective of a father giving advice to a son that is of marriage age or is considering marriage.  He wants to hear the “truth.”

And I can certainly do this, but I fear it may be a bit controversial.

Cross Over – Into the FIRE

Now that I’m retired, I’ve been sharing time, and stories, with my fellow retirees.  I can tell you one thing in common between us.  We are all much happier than we were during the days of our productive employment, even if we were working on one of those lofty, feel-good, society-serving, professional pathways.  Things are much better now.

Simply put, we have a lot less crap to deal with.

And the people we used to work with often stymied our ability to live up to our maximum potential, or to serve our target population to that full potential.

We fought the good-fight, but we didn’t often win.

And now that I’m retired, I keep seeing a billion articles about retirement and what resources you need to retire plastered all over the Internet.  I’m seeing these as a result of targeted ads, I’m sure, but if you stop and read any of these posts the common wisdom you can derive is that neither I, nor any of my retired friends, could possibly afford being out of the workforce.

We all must be starving to death.

To Think, or Not To Think . . .

My social media friend Carol Hopkins posted a quote from Rumi on FB today that reads:

“Raise your words, not your voice.  It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.”

Now Rumi was a 13th-century Persian poet, and apparently a pretty smart guy.  I imagine if they had televisions back then he would have cautioned us to turn them off.

Time Fell Back

For being a totally artificial construct, time certainly can beguile us.

Lead us into a false sense of security when there seems to be plenty of “time-to-spare.” Yet place us in a state of sheer panic if time has “escaped us.”  Particularly for workplace deadlines.  Or when we’re dashing across the airport terminal trying to catch that connecting flight.  Or maybe when we’re counting the seconds between the contractions a mother endures during childbirth.

A new life blooms that will soon be “ticking away” the hours.

Life Review

I recently finished reading, “Backwards: Returning to Our Source for Answers,” by Nanci Danison.  It’s a fascinating read as the author describes what people have come to recognize as a near-death experience, but she refers to her adventure into the unknown as a “beyond-death experience.”  Or that she experienced “temporary death,” which implies a longer time out of the corporal self and an ultimate return – with vivid memories of what happened.

Orange Sky

I took part of the day yesterday to be a music day.  I don’t always take time out to listen to music, but I believe it’s one of the most magical creations that flows through people.

And it always takes me away to a place where I’m happy.

It’s similar to writing, in a way, because there are a limited number of musical notes, but an unlimited number of combinations of those notes to produce, well, to produce something magnificent.

Only so many words, but we writers craft them in so many ways.

And from my various pics you know that I’m rather fond of sunsets and sunrises too.  And sometimes, you just happen to be at the right place at the right time to catch a glorious one.

So here’s a combination of a sunset with a song.  Hope you enjoy it.  And while it’s playing, I’ll go back to that creative corner in my mind and ponder the next writing . . .

In Metta

 

 

Photo:  Somewhere in the Southwest that I’m missing today 🙂

Success?

I’ve been having fun kicking out the blog posts the past few days and digging into other blogs searching for those words that make my brain light up with joy.  And one of the themes that keeps swirling around that I’ve noticed on some of the other blogs has to do with whether you’re a success.

How on Earth are you going to gauge that one?

Success in whose terms?  Or in what way?  Or is it all a numbers game?

“Dooced” Anyone?

I had grown a bit weary of my current job in the legal profession, so I thought I’d back track and check out the market in nursing.  After all, all of my colleagues had remarked, at one time or another, that I always had my first career to fall back on.

And, I was excited because I found a job where I thought I could put both my nursing and legal expertise to work as the director of nursing for a long-term care facility.  The hiring manager was even more so excited when he reviewed my resume.  It was the fastest phone call I ever received in response to an online job application.

My interview was set for just a few days away, but by the time I arrived at the facility, something drastic had changed in the way I was treated and by the demeanor of everyone I encountered in the building.  I was shuffled off to a dark conference room and told to wait.

Relationships – What’s Binding? Heart, Soul, or Contract?

My blogging friend, LA, recently wrote a couple of posts about one of the traditions surrounding the marriage contract.   And yes, while the piece of paper a couple signs says “marriage license” it’s actually a contract with a lot of implied terms and conditions.

The tradition LA had focused on was that of the men asking parental permission to marry their daughter.  This question provoked some good discussion on the possible drawbacks of maintaining such a tradition in modern times.

At the same time this discussion was transpiring, I came across an article suggesting that married couples needed an additional contract, a “relationship contract,” especially if they were a dual-career couple.

The Big Chill

Hashtags #Life #Love #Spirit #Soul #Awakening #Adventure #Hikingadventures #Nature #AllMyRelations

Back from the dead.  Well not quite dead, but placed in suspended animation – by Twitter.

One Foot in Front of the Other

If you’ve read many of the posts on my blog, you know that I talk about hiking in Nature a lot.  This is part of my spiritual practice, to get out in the Natural World.  But a friend asked a reasonable question not long ago, so I decided to think about it and write something on it.  They asked:

“What’s the difference between hiking and walking?”

It turns out that is a bit more profound than it seems, because we, as humans, like to define and differentiate things.  To the extreme. 😊

Love Light – Let it Shine!

I don’t know about you, but when I venture out to run my errands and conduct my routine business I run into a lot of other people.  Unhappy people.  You can see it in their faces.

The tension, the anger, the urgency.

That urgency can be about any number of things.  It could be them wondering how they are going to pay the bills, or keep their old car running, or thinking about how unhappy they are in their current relationships.  After all, most of the unhappy people I see are in pairs.  They are griping at each other, seething with hostility, loathing their very existence, or perhaps their partner’s existence.

It strikes me as odd.  Why aren’t there more happy people around?

And then you see someone who is absolutely radiant.  Nothing but happiness, smiles, contentment, joy.  Peace.  Full of life.

What’s going on?  What’s the difference?

They’re in love.

The Smart Pony

Back around the turn of the century, there was a famous Orloy Trotter Horse in Germany who was acclaimed for being able to perform arithmetic and other intellectual feats.   The horse’s name was Clever Hans.

After a formal investigation into his skills, a psychologist claimed the horse was smart, but only in the sense that it paid attention to the reactions and body language of his trainer.  The trainer, it was said, had no idea the horse was eyeing him for the cues on how to respond to the ongoing tests. 

Well, this story is not about Clever Hans.

Warning:  I have a bit of a sarcastic, sardonic, and cynical sense of humor.  I think a lot of people do, but some don’t, and they may not get my attempts to poke fun at things.  That’s ok, but I just wanted to warn the reader that’s where we’re headed today, down sarcastic, cynical lane. 😊

Disclaimer:  And while I’m poking fun at a business conference below, understand that I’m not really trying to belittle the people who made their presentations.  They were all very nice people and some were incredibly smart folks.  That doesn’t mean we can’t have a sense of humor about the topics being presented and the terminology they used.

***

Ok, so yesterday I was having a little fun with some new words and phrases coming out of the business sector.  And I ended that post by mentioning something else I did once at a work conference.  Something I thought was rather amusing, and you can do this too the next time you’re at one of those oh-so-boring meetings.