It’s the same person, going through “change, change, change” through chronological phases: birth, life, death and burial. A lifetime of accumulation: knowledge, hatred, love, giving and filtering (de-friending to lighten the load and to ease inevitable and eventual goodbye).
A product of parental passing-down, we curate friendship, marriage (s), and parenting on. We cannot give what we don’t have or receive.
Yet giving has never been popular. The 80’s did us a lot of harm e.g. Grey Poupon, Beamers and suspenders. “Greed is good”.
He who dies with the most toys wins.
Material girl, Girls just wanna have fun, I’ve got two tickets to Paradise. Me, me, me.
Me with the Most. The more, the better. Supersizing. From serving size to the waist line. Voila, the rise of Super gym, super saving, super everything. From small pick-up we moved on to today’s Super Truck with Amazon’s owner Super Yacht. Arnold Body Builder fit right in with the spirit of the Age. Robot Cop, Terminator etc… We don’t like small size, or one size fits all. Must be Super Big (Overstock, warehousing, clubbing in garage, living in loft).
Then damn trend reverses. Blue Tooth, i-pod, pager and now Apple Watch.
The mobility of nomads. The romance of gypsies. Young man, go West. Cavemen, get out there and be someone. Anyone. Just don’t get stuck there and inject yourself with harmful substance. Timothy Leary is dead. Herman Marcuse is dead. Mao is dead. Ho Chi Minh is dead. Martin Luther King is dead.
The point is while alive, move around, look around, notice things, from treasure to trash, museum to coliseum. Life is waiting. Multiple variables and versions of life to choose from. We’re stardust.
Heading toward stardom. Beautiful You. Beautiful Me. Nobody is the same as the next person. Celebrate that. Know that, the world is called the world, was because of you and me (and the dog named Boo).
Why would we want to restrict and reduce ourselves into one version, travel in one-way street and never entertain the possibility that if allowed, our inner self will come out, accepted or not. Who is doing the acceptance and who is doing the rejecting? The Supreme Court? the Ayatollah in Iran? or the young North Korean who wrote “beautiful letters”….
Albert Schweitzer once lamented that the saddest thing in life is wasted “brain power’. If you don’t use it for something, someone else will mine it to their benefits, be it Social Media or the State (autocratic).
I have my top three of everything. In the Evil department, I list the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge and most recently, the Taliban. It has been a tough call (to create Evil ranking). Of course, there are millions of others who try to make the list, be it last night shooting in N Dakota ( 2 a day in the US this year – 2023) or Charles Manson. Must be warped parenting. Too much ammo, too few attempts at self-excellence.
Back to the Beautiful, away from the Bad. Top 3 would be a beautiful Sunset, wildflowers and of course, children who love you unconditionally. My Julie had been away for 2 months seeing her grandparents. She jumped onto our bed, snuggled in the middle and just wanted to be included in the land of adults. Who is doing the accepting or rejecting. It’s us, who deny ourselves the best of life.
Self-sabotage should rank next on Albert’s list, or perhaps, it contributes to the low penetration of brain use. The saddest thing in life is when You are not YOU. Should have re-titled my blog as YOU,YOU, YOU, I wish. Well, let’s get started. What’s has been neglected? Top 3? Tackle them.
Thang Nguyen 555 