A Life Examined

Good Evening folks.

As with many people in my age group, I seem to spend a lot of time in retrospective thought about my life, such as it has been , and I seem of late to be spending a lot of time in finding fault in the manner in which I have lived my life.

From Mark Twains Notebook: " It is not in the least likely that any life has ever been lived which was not a failure in the secret judgement of the person who lived it".

So....I guess I'm not alone in finding fault with many parts of my life, that, if given the possibility of living my life over, I would vow to do differently.

But, would I? Since there is no recorded instance of any man having the opportunity to live his life over (this probably applies to you, as well, girls!) There is no way to say whether or not I would make the same mistakes in life Redux, as I did in Opus one.

But, it pleases me to think that I would seize the opportunity to correct all those things I did wrong,and would try to eliminate the things in my 'First Life' that were detrimental to other people. I like to think I would somehow, in this "Second Chance" seize the too-late recognized opportunities that I failed to grasp in part one, and eliminate the errors which most of us commit in the exercise of growing up. I think I would somehow recognize the good people I have met over my lifetime more quickly, and not only learn from observing them, but to stay in touch with them, but I should quickly add that I honestly believe that I have learned everything that I know from either watching other people and noting their mistakes and successes, and listening more to what they said instead of trying to think about they really meant, their hidden meaning behind their words, as it were . I have said, pretty much all through my life, that one can learn something from almost anyone one meets in life, even if it is only to forswear something that this other person has done or is doing. And I know that I have said that I have learned something from virtually every book that I have read, either for Education, edification or enjoyment and escape, but, that said, I hastily admit that there is a whole lot more that I don't know than there is that I know for sure.

For instance, in this blog, I frequently criticise politicians, as they are such an easy target. I happen to live in Illinois, a State that is rich with Politicians who are so crooked that they have to screw their socks on, and in fact, are so crooked that it is becoming less and less fun to pick on them. I guess its not the old "familiarity breeds contempt" syndrome, and becomes more what I would call the "Familiarity breeds Assumption" syndrome. This would automatically lead one to assume that if a person is an Illinois Politician, they are simply a criminal not yet indicted.

Maybe we could save time, if, instead of swearing in a new Politician, we just forward their file to a Grand Jury and skip the preliminaries .

But, I digress, and in digression I exemplify what I have already admitted to myself and to the world,that there is just a whole lot that I don't know.

But maybe, by admitting this, I will sort of begin to recognize the person I see in the mirror, instead of mentally asking "who the heck IS this person?

If anyone has any answers I would welcome the opportunity to hear them.

Enough of the Introspective Thought, already, that way leads to madness.

Recently, I have been randomly checking other Blogs. There are quite a number that I like to keep up with, for I have learned from them, and enjoy them.

But, instead of just going to my favorites list, one day I just started checking "next blog" on the toolbar and running through quite a number of Blogs.

I have found through this exercise that it seems that a whole lot of Blogs are written by young people, and this is good, in that these folks are developing their talent for writing BY writing, which I guess is as good a way as any, and I applaud them for it. But, I worry, in a way, that more older people are not writing a blog, so that the young people out there, if they are smart enough, can read these amateur writings and perhaps learn a thing or two from them.

I have discovered also that more than a few Poets use their Blog as a way of "Publishing" their works. Personally I have, through my life, found very few poems that have lodged themselves in my memory, and have also noticed that too many poets are apparently sad creatures, as reflected in their poems, and are thus, at least to me, pretty depressing to read, and are best avoided.

There are, of course, poets whose works will live on, due to the quality of their works. Carl Sandburg comes to mind as A good example.

My wife and I visited Carl Sandburg's home a few years ago, and I was struck by the number of books in Mr. Sandburg's Library and how few of them were books of Poetry.

So I guess in the main, I notice poetic works more when their Author has written in other genres, such as Sandburg's excellent Biography of Abraham Lincoln.

But, back to blogs, and their Authors (if that is the correct term ) and my wondering why so few older people seem to maintain a blog. Perhaps it is because they have too many other things to occupy their time, and are thus to be envied.

I guess if there is one thing I have discovered in this Life of mine, that generally, people who stay busy just don't have time to be depressed, let alone write Poetry or fool around with a Blog, and if they aren't depressed maybe they won't be driven to express their depression in "Poetry" (if you can call it that), and thus depress anyone else who reads it.

As for me, my favorite poems are of the nonsensical sort, and generally amuse the folks who read them.

So, enough for now, and I pray the Good Lord will forgive my failures.

Best

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