Writing for Sanity's Sake

My Daddy once told me that unless a man had something useful to say, he should keep his mouth shut. As most of you realize if you know me, or have read my writing it’s obvious that I should keep my mouth shut most of the time. I just can’t help it though, useful or not I have to say what I think.

What I am opening my mouth (or keyboard literally) to talk about today is hope. That’s right, hope. I have to have it. It has to be there, like a piece of driftwood in the vast ocean when you are drowning. Something to grab hold of and stay afloat. My hope is for the future. The future in which I will be missing, but my children and grandchildren and whatever descendants that I may be blessed with (who will never know I existed,) will know.

Right now, it kind of looks bleak, and that is why I have to have hope. I don’t think there is any way that the members of my generation, the baby boomers, can fix the mess that we are in now. It’s not just one mess, but MANY different messes going on simultaneously which make things so complex.

There are the changing demographics of the entire world. People of different races and cultures are traveling far and wide in this day and age and settling in places their ancestors would never have imagined. As they do this, they become familiar with each other and one thing leads to another and you have relationships being built between these members of different races and cultures. Some still try to stick with their own cultures, but inevitably I believe will fail. The children of the future will probably look like all the beautiful little biracial and multiracial children we see running around. I think at some point there won’t be any black, yellow, red and white anymore. There will be one color and one international culture at some point. I don’t know how far in the future that this may occur, and I don’t know if mankind can keep from destroying each other first with nuclear weapons but if they can then that’s one thing I think will happen. It will be a huge challenge for our descendants who are at the “transitional” stage. (Or maybe that’s where we ARE now?) It could well be that the future inhabitants of this planet will “ease” into this situation so gradually that no one will ever know it’s happening until it’s upon them. I don’t think it will be a bad thing either. One of things that continually breeds discontent, distrust and war is the difference between people’s race and culture. If there IS not difference then they will have to find something else to fight about. Maybe they won’t be able to.

There is the quickly changing face of technology. I would have NEVER in my wildest dreams as a child imagined the world as it is today. There have been so many advances in the last 50 years that it makes the 1950’s seem like the Stone Ages. What we take for granted every day now, would have seemed like a trick of magic back then. Computers will continue to advance and now that robotics IS actually taking off like Isaac Asimov thought it would, our descendants can look forward to a world where the physical part of living will become easier and easier.

There will be issues that come up, ethical issues, which will challenge the very core of the morals of our society. What about a computer program that can store the “essence” of a person on a program, and come up with a “virtual” person who is exactly like the person who is dying. Anyone ever seen the movie “Freejack” with old Mick Jagger? That’s science fiction still, BUT so was Jules Verne back in the late 19th century. It may not be that a person’s “essence” can be stored on a computer and then put back into another person’s body. I am not sure it will ever get to that point. BUT to create a “virtual” person with the knowledge and character of a real live person is but a few steps away from becoming a reality. You can “store” Grandma or Grandpa on the handy dandy virtual person program, and pull them up to talk to any time you want. How would you like that? Kind of a spooky thought isn’t it? Yet, right now people who play the high tech computer games that generate “characters” to play through (the avatar type games) are already interacting in a very close knit way with these “quasi-people.” You can give them character traits, physical characteristics, and other things which make them “almost” seem human. It’s only a few steps away until you can do the same thing with your dear Uncle Bob, believe me. Soulless, yes. Interaction there will be. There could also be a use for this type of program to reduce overpopulation, in that people who are not allowed, or don’t want to have a “real” live child, can have a virtual child which they can “raise” from a baby all the way up through adulthood. The cost would be quite a bit cheaper to raise this type of “child” too.

Medically speaking, the people who can make it 20 or 30 more years are likely to be able to live practically as long as they want. With the research and discoveries in genetics that are now taking place, it won’t be long until the genes that cause “aging” as we know it, will be discovered and neutralized. People who are well off enough financially will be able to benefit from this expensive technology and beat “the system” Dick Cheney may actually still be here in the year 2100! Arrrr…?

I think that many diseases which afflict people such as cancer, heart disease, and all the big killers will be beaten. People will have to be run over by a Fire Truck in order to die. That’s about the only thing which will do it. However, I am sure there will be a lot of volunteers to be “uploaded” into the computer program which I mentioned in the previous paragraph. After all, who REALLY wants to live forever? And you probably will still have the old aches and pains that won’t go away. (Maybe not, they may have something for that too) Besides, you might be able to do things on that computer program you could NEVER do in real life, like fight dragons, or fly.

That would be a hoot, right?

Hmmmmm…..

This was the last night I prayed. It’s been some time.

Jesus said when he returns he will come “as a thief in the night”.

Remember Christ says, “When I come, it will surprise you like a thief! But God will bless you, if you are awake and ready. Then you won’t have to walk around naked and be ashamed.”

Suppose he does just that, and returns in the dead of night, in secret, but… only comes into the hearts and minds of those people who really, truly are his followers. Those who are really, truly ready to receive him, his knowledge and power. He would know which ones, because it’s easy for him to read our hearts. He knows what’s really there, regardless of what we present to the world as being our true selves. Many are presenting selves that are not true.

Suppose they, or we are “caught up” spiritually, and don’t physically disappear, but instead are “raptured” while in our sleep? Changed and transformed to wake as new beings.
Suppose then, believers wake up as totally different beings. Spiritual, supernatural beings capable of changing anything and everything about the world around them, including people, animals, plants, the oceans, the mountains and the air.
Suppose that we or they, really are the inheritors of the Earth, as Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount: “The meek shall inherit the earth.” An inheritance… as in something which is left behind by a person who is no longer there, for their heirs to take as their own property, and do with it as they will.

A new earth.

A new heaven and a new earth. Brand new, unspoiled, teeming with life and beauty. Imagine the most beautiful sunrise you have ever seen and then multiply it by a thousand times. That’s the kind of newness and beauty I am talking about. That’s the kind of newness and beauty which I saw.

This was a dream that I dreamt last night and I woke up startled! I was not yet changed into that spiritual being which I wanted to be, but I wanted to be ready to be changed.
I thought about it for a long while. I said a prayer that I might be ready if that wonderful dream ever becomes a reality.
Then, I turned back over and went back to sleep and had another dream.

I woke up again this morning early and got up to exercise for an hour and thought about that dream again. It’s totally antithetical to the type of dreams I usually have. It’s unusual for it to have stayed so long in my brain.

I wondered where in the world the impetus came from for that dream. It’s the last time I have prayed. I won’t say how long that’s been.

We have one of those Amazon “Alexas” and from time to time I’ll holler “Alexa play songs from: ” and then just choose an artist I want to hear and she’ll start playing the songs. I asked for songs by the group “Chicago” today while we were in the kitchen messing around. I’ve always loved them. In my list of favorite groups they would have to be #2 behind the Beatles. I’ve always loved their songs…especially with the brass in the background. It always makes me a little sad at the same time too, though. Hearing that “band sound” always reminds me of a lost opportunity to do something I really wanted to do.
I always loved music when I was a kid. I sang, and played guitar and I could “pick up” tunes and play the chords for them and sing just “by ear” I never learned to read music though….still haven’t.

In the seventh grade in school, in the spring time was the time for band tryouts for the next year. I always wanted to be in the band. I’d looked forward to it for several years leading up to that time when I might be able to join. I did all the sign up stuff and tryouts on the instruments and was told that my instrument would be…..a clarinet. A clarinet? That was a surprise, as I’d always supposed I’d be a trumpet guy, and I liked the fact that there were only three buttons on top of a trumpet. The damn clarinet looked like something from outer space with all of those buttons and places to press down.

I gave it a try though, and I finally got some sound out of it. So, we then went on to have some practices. They put a sheet of simple music in front of me, and after going over what it meant a couple of times, we had to try and play. I couldn’t discern heads or tails out of that sheet of music with all of it’s notes and squiggles and dots. Other people didn’t seem to be having as much trouble as I was having, so I figured it was me. I was such a dummy I couldn’t learn to read music. I was deficient.

I followed along for a couple of weeks by ear. If I heard it once or twice through I could replicate the melody pretty closely. I wanted to ask about the music though. I wanted to get somebody to teach me how to understand it…how to “read” the music. I was too embarrassed to ask the band director though. I got increasingly frustrated as we got new music. Finally, a few days before school was out, I went to the office and dropped out of the band.

In hindsight, I wish I had asked for help, and if not I wish I had stuck with it even without asking. I think I could have “faked it” good enough to stay in the band, because once I learn a tune…I don’t forget it. Maybe if I had stayed until band camp the next year, they would have stuck me on the bass drum…cause I was a big guy. Maybe if the band director had just a little more perception about what was going on with me. I supposed it wasn’t meant to be though. At least I got to try. My poor Paula wanted to play in the band at her school in Maryland, but didn’t know what to do to sign up. They had nobody there to even ask them if they wanted to play…no adviser or teacher to guide them in how to sign up for band. She was too shy to ask around and find out.

So as I listen to the brass play in the background on “Saturday in the Park” I wonder what might have been if I’d been a little more assertive, and if someone had been there to tell my wife, “this is how you sign up for band” Maybe we’d have ended up in an orchestra or something!

We lived band careers vicariously through all of our children and our grandchildren, I suppose…..but it would have been nice to have been a “part” of something during my High School years. I never was….

I guess there are advantages to being a “lone wolf” too……. I’m not sure exactly what they are yet though.

I read an article yesterday about aliens, and the possibility of alien life. It included information about a theory called the “Fermi Paradox” named after Italian physicist Enrico Fermi. It basically states that if the Universe is full of life…then where are the aliens?

I thought it was a pretty good question. Our planet and solar system are fairly new in terms of the age of the universe. Fermi figured it would take a dedicated Imperial civilization “only” about 10 million years, given decent rocket technology, to conquer an entire galaxy. Why then, aren’t there joints like the interstellar bar in Star Wars all over the place. There are a lot of explanations, one of which is: we are the only ones home. We’re the whole ball of wax, the ball game. Wouldn’t that be something?

If we were the only advanced civilization in the known Universe, wouldn’t it be incumbent on us, wouldn’t it be our sole imperative, to reach out to the stars and populate this empty Universe?

Is it the purpose for which we will can even were created, if we were created? And even if we weren’t, shouldn’t we be obsessed with doing it?

Isn’t it a shame that we Earthlings are trapped by our own biases and prejudices here on our own planet. Isn’t it shameful, with so many Earth like planets having been discovered out there in the last few years, that we’ve barely even explored our own moon, and just scratched the surface of our other planets?

Hopefully in the coming decades as AI becomes more prevalent we will find someway to “boldly go where no man has gone before”.

I’ve had dreams. No, perhaps it would be better to call them ambitions. I’ve had ambitions. A lot of them were selfish, self centered and wrong. I had ambitions to be a rich and famous songwriter. I had ambitions to be a plant manager, with many people reporting to me. Self importance ruled my productive years. Self absorption ruined them.

You know what I really should have done? I should have tried to make people happy. That’s it. I should have helped more people.

If I’m honest, I guess it’s incorrect of me to say I was totally selfish. That first paragraph is a harsher judgment on myself than the judgment of people I have worked with, and who worked for me. I’m pretty sure I was actually better thought of than I realized. One incident stands out in my mind.

I had a pretty big group of ladies who worked for me back in the eighties. Whenever I would demo a new song I had written I would let them listen to the results. Of course they said they liked them, heck I was their boss, after all. Right before one of the ladies retired I made her a cassette tape of all my music. She said she really wanted one. Years later I got a call from another of the ladies who was related to her. It seems she had a stroke and was bed bound. She had worn out her tape and wanted another one. I made another one, found out where she lived, and went to her house.

Her husband met me at the door and warned me her condition wasn’t good. Her stroke had been severe, and she couldn’t move and could barely speak. I spent some time with her. It wasn’t good. She was agitated and depressed, discouraged with her life. She had been that way for several years. She was ready to die, she said. She was happy to have a new tape though. It perked her up a little.

I got a call from her husband a few weeks later telling me she had passed away. The last thing she listened to before she slipped into a coma was that tape of me singing. I didn’t know what to say.

I think back on that now and consider my ambition a success. Not for the reason which I had wanted, but for that one person who needed it, all the time and effort was worth it.

I’ve changed a lot in the years since then. I still wish I had made a better effort at helping people, at making them happy. Maybe I actually did more than I knew, but was just too busy being busy to notice. Damn, I wish I had taken the time to notice. All you kids out there take an old man’s advice and pay attention. Gratitude is a hell of a lot better than money sometimes.

One raindrop falls, and then another….then many, many more. All separate individual entities, until they hit the ground and unite into a stream, run into the creeks…into the rivers, and finally to the ocean.

So are we…like raindrops. Living our lives from cloud to ground. Uniting in the end, and flowing into the Universe.

….and wherever we end up together, and make no mistake it will be together, but wherever it is, there will be great joy. There will be music, and there will be dancing.

There will be forgiveness, and there will be reconciliation.

Couldn’t we begin with a little of it now while we are on our way from the heavens to the earth, and beyond?

It would make life easier.

I went into heart surgery on December 21, 2010 with the attitude that if I didn’t ever wake up…..it was ok. But, I got a reprieve. I had good surgeons, a wonderful caregiver in my sweet wife, and in about a years time I felt better….both physically and mentally. I continued to have some rhythm problems right up until this day, but I was better.

As I worked on my vast inventory of photos this weekend, I grouped them together by year. 2011…Eli and Rue came to our families. 2012, possibly the year I felt best since my youth. We took trips…our trip of a lifetime to Gettysburg, Washington, Mt. Vernon, Jamestown…and on to Tybee. I still remember my awe at finally getting to go to our nation’s heart.

Trips to the beach with the family….especially when we all went together. How very tender and special that was to me. A cruise…I’d never been on one, and it was lovely!

All the years were special. I went on all the way through 2015. I used Shutterfly’s app, and it’s wonderful.

There were many firsts. First birthdays for Eli, Rue, and then a bit later EVK. (And 2nd, and thirds, and so forth) Christmases celebrated. Thanksgivings thanked. Halloweens tricked and treated with so much fun! Fireworks at the Browns homestead.

Proms and graduations…Auttie’s and Chelsea’s. Wonderful days of walks around town, with the sunrises and sunsets, and the everyday goings on. The demise of the old Park Ave apartments, the changing nature and demographics of the city itself.

So, so many special moments flashed past my eyes in that pictorial history of my life. Wonderful moments. Precious memories. Six and a half years of grace and time borrowed from medical science. I wish I could share with you the feeling in my heart, because if I could there would be peace. There would be love and compassion for all.

There are still memories I want to make, but my body reminds me that for the good times there is payback. When feeling unwell stretches from days into weeks…and months, it takes a toll on the spirit and will of even the hardiest, of which I never claimed to be. Again, I’m depending on good old medical science, luck and grace to lift me back to an even keel again. Looks like next month, with tests and such coming up, maybe a solution will be found. I hope so.

Til then, I’ll keep on plodding forward and hope Paula can put up with cranky, bad feeling me. I haven’t done a whole lot on FB for the past few weeks….at least not much “new” so now you know the reason why. I’m not going into detail about me…because in the end it’ll probably just be something minor.

Have a great Sunday everyone.

I realize more and more every day that when I leave this existence that there will be nothing which goes with me.

The only thing, or things I will have to my “credit” will be those memories I leave behind. I always wonder why I didn’t try to make more of them when I could, when I was younger.

We worry, worry, worry about the workaday world, and it’s understandable. There are bills to pay, kids to raise and everyday crises that keep us awake at night. But we all know by now that “life is what happens while we’re making other plans”

I find solace in the fact that nowadays I can capture a memory as quick as a wink with my camera. I am keeping careful track of these photographic memories, and I hope that in the future my children and grandchildren will be able to look at them, and maybe have it trigger a pleasant memory.

I wish I had more photos of my parents and grandparents from my childhood, because my memory is often like a soupy fog. The ones I do have are more precious than gold to me, although I guess sometimes you wouldn’t know it from the way I store them. What we have now is certainly one boon of technology.

“In all things be grateful.”
I find that is a very sensible philosophy, don’t you?

Be grateful for this life, be grateful for each moment because as soon as one ticks, the next one is upon you…and soon our allotted moments here have ended.

I certainly realize I’ve been a little more sensitive to those ticks of the clock lately. Who wouldn’t be!?

After all, when I think back really far….

I can remember a time without even a television. Without air conditioners. I remember a time when walking from my house on eighth street to the triangle shopping center was an everyday thing. I remember Coke in bottles, with the city where it was bottled on the bottom.

I remember using cloth diapers on my kids, and then rewashing them and using them again. I remember the train coming into town at midnight, bringing a load of coal to fire the boilers at the mill, every night…

I remember writing all my school work with a pencil and lined paper from a wire back notebook. I remember when almost everything we ate came from our garden, even in the winter…with canned soup mix, and frozen veggies.

I remember having only three pairs of jeans for school, and five shirts…and one pair of dress pants and a white shirt for Sunday. I remember spending all afternoon on some weekends listening to vinyl records on a little flip top record player.

I remember fishing in the river with a big old ball of earth worms for bait. I remember when the creek running into that river was a rainbow color of dyes…

I remember so much more. It’s funny how these memories always seem good, and happy…but that wasn’t always the case. When we old people long for those “good old days” our memory tends to be very selective.

Now, our good days are tomorrow…and the day after.

Be grateful for what you have. Be grateful for your life and the good day ahead of you.

Most days it is more than enough to see us through.

There is that voice which is there all time in my head. He has been there ever since I can remember. He was the one who told me back in the fall of 1953 when I was almost 4 years old to ride my tricycle down the front steps on my house. A busted forehead and several stitches later the voice told me we would never, ever do that again.
He sings constantly to me, in any style. I can have a country song by Johnny Cash followed by Imagine Dragons singing “Demons” At times he scares me with my personal demons, but at other times he soothes me with sweet poetry. He will be with me until my last breath.
I have read a lot about this… “Inner voice” our internal narrator, our personal monologue which I think….at least from conversations which I have had with others… I think we all have going on constantly in our head. I know all about my guy. I know what to expect from him most of the time. He comes up with some weird things, some good things, and some thoughts which are verbalized which I would never consciously say to another human being. He says some very rude and vulgar things. He also comes up with some tender and moving soliloquies. I hear him just as if he were another person speaking to me. It is never like an invisible or hidden voice, but always speaking directly to me just as another person would. I don’t know how other people hear their inner selves, I really do not know if everyone even has an internal voice.
I’ve heard some people say that our internal voice comes from the way our parents and those around us speak to us as babies and early toddlers. I’m not so sure I accept that theory. I just cannot hear my parents or any other relatives I knew as a baby or child in my monologue. I also can’t accept that people like John Wayne Gacy , or Jeffrey Dahmer had normal inner voices which came from their early associations. I would have really, truly have hated to be inside their head, listening to what was being said. I think their voice must have been riddled with hallucinations, or nightmares.
On the opposite end of the spectrum I would have loved to have heard some of what Leonardo da Vinci, or Albert Einstein had to say to themselves…maybe. I can imagine their inner voices having a sort of discourse, bouncing ideas off of their own walls in order to make discoveries of new things. One cannot imagine what might be going on in the mind of the genius.
Jiminy Cricket would have called our inner voice our “conscience” In Zen, they would think of it as “Nen nen ju shin ki” which means something like “Thought following thought.” I personally think of it as my heart.
Whenever my inner voice speaks to me of any deep emotions it always comes from the heart. I have never had a headache from something bad happening, but always have the feeling come welling up from the center of my chest. My tears start in my heart.
When my voice tells me to be happy, I have never had my head spin. My joy starts in my heart, and radiates out into the rest of my body.
My inner voice comes from my heart and tells me the things no one else would or could tell me. I’d sure hate to lose him because he’s my oldest and closest companion.