Aging Capriciously

Winnie-the-Pooh was walking home one day when he passed a young man standing on a park bench.  The young man was shouting “Quick, it’s coming quick, it’s coming quick, the end is coming quick.”  This greatly distressed the Pooh bear who ran home as fast as his bear legs could carry him. After arriving home, he made a big honey and jelly sandwich on toast.  He had been saving this honey for a special occasion but since the end was coming quick, he decided he had better eat it as soon as he was able to.  After this, Pooh straightened up his abode and waited.  Pooh thought he might as well wait for the end to happen while he was home and warm and comfortable and feeling very nourished after his honey and jelly on toast sandwich.

But you know Pooh bears, they are not very patient.  Soon, Winnie-the-Pooh became restless and started wondering when the end was coming.  He began pacing back and forth and forth and back but the end still did not come.  Finally, losing patience, Pooh decided to visit his good friend Eeyore to see if he had any news on the end.  After a short trek over to where Eeyore lived in his house made of sticks. The two good friends met and embraced each other.  Quickly, Eeyore started worrying and wondering what was going to happen. If Pooh bear came to see him, something must be wrong.  Eeyore finally blurted out “Pooh, what is up, what is happening, why are you here?”  Pooh knew that Eeyore was easily unsettled but he felt that this situation warranted unsettling poor Eeyore.  Pooh said “Eeyore, the end is coming quick.”  “Oh my, oh my” said Eeyore, “That is a problem.  What do you think we should do?”  Pooh replied well “Do you have any honey or jelly?  We could make some honey and jelly sandwiches and wait for the end.”  Eeyore was not as fond of honey and jelly sandwiches but he had some good hay and aged straw that he had been saving and he invited Pooh to share it with him.  This was not exactly what Pooh had in mind but he watched and paced back and forth and forth and back, while Eeyore ate his aged straw.

Finally, after a very long time had passed (it was actually a very short time but it seemed long to Pooh and Eeyore), they both became restless again.  When was the end going to come?  Pooh suggested that they both go to visit Tigger since he is always very optimistic and might have a different view on things.  Hurrying over to Tigger’s house, they find Tigger out in the front yard playing with a balloon while bouncing up and down on a trampoline.  “Hi” says Tigger, “do you guys want to bounce on my trampoline with me.”  “No, no” says Eeyore, “this is very serious. The end of coming quick, we must be ready.”  “Fine with me” says Tigger, “but can’t we just bounce and play until the end comes?”  “Well,” says Pooh, “that would be fine but I am getting hungry. Do you happen to have any honey or jelly that I could make a sandwich with?”  “Sorry Pooh, but my cupaboard is bare, I have been too busy bouncing to worry about eating.”  So the three friends decided to just wait together for the end.  Tigger kept bouncing, Pooh kept feeling hungry and Eeyore kept fretting since he was becoming less and less certain that anything was really going to happen.

Eventually after a long bout of bouncing, Tigger became tired.  “I am going to take a nap” says Tigger, “if the end is coming, I would just as soon be rested when it does.”  Eeyore, more and more doubting that the end was really coming or at least that it would be quick also decided to go home.  “Bye Pooh, see you later” said Eeyore, “that is if there really is a later.”  Pooh was left all alone. Tired, hungry and confused, he was not sure what to do.  Then, in a flash, it came to him. I will go to see Owl.  He is the wisest animal in the forest.  He will know what to do.  So Pooh went off to see Owl.

When Pooh arrived, Owl was perched up in his nest.  “Hi” said Owl, when Pooh was still a long way off, he could see him coming. “What brings you to the forest today? Are you here to discuss the ethics of Aristotle or maybe you have come to hear about my life when I was a young owl about your age.  Did I ever tell you about the time that I met” —–“Ahem, ahem”, says Pooh, this is an emergency.  The end is coming quick. We must be ready. I tried to warn Eeyore and Tigger, but Tigger decided to take a nap and Eeyore went home. What are we to do?”  “My, my” said Owl, “You say the end is coming quick. Pray tell me what end is coming: the end of the ball game, the end of the warm weather, the end of the hunting season?”  All of these questions just confused Pooh.  He had no idea what end was coming.  He just assumed it meant the end of the world.  Why did Owl always have to make things so complicated?  “Well” said Pooh, “I am not really sure. I saw this young boy (who looked a lot like Christopher Robin) standing on a park bench shouting that the end was coming quick.  I am not really sure what end he meant, now that you have confused me so.  I just came to ask you for advice on what to do.  I am all out of honey and jelly and the end is coming quick.”

Owl thought about the situation and came up with the following poem that he had heard many years before: “A Song on the End of the World” by Czeslaw Milosz, 1944

On the day the world ends

A bee circles a clover,

A fisherman mends a glimmering net.

Happy porpoises jump in the sea,

By the rainspout young sparrows are playing

And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.

 

On the day the world ends

Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas,

A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,

Vegetable peddlers shout in the street

And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,

The voice of a violin lasts in the air

And leads into a starry night.

 

And those who expected lightning and thunder

Are disappointed.

And those who expected signs and archangels’ trumps

Do not believe it is happening now.

As long as the sun and the moon are above,

As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,

As long as rosy infants are born

No one believes it is happening now.

 

Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet

Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy,

Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:

There will be no other end of the world,

There will be no other end of the world.

Pooh honestly did not know what this poem meant or why Owl was telling it to him.  “Owl” says Pooh, “you are hurting my brain.  I am even more confused now then I was before. Couldn’t we keep this simple?”  “Well,” said Owl, “animals and people always want things simple.  But maybe, this is not so simple as you would think.  Perhaps we should discuss this further.”  “That is okay” replied Pooh; “I am too hungry now to worry about the end.  All I know is my stomach is growling and I need to find some honey quick to end the rumbly in my tummy.  In fact, maybe that is what the boy was trying to say.  I must find honey very quick or my end will be near.”  Thinking that this was wise advice, Pooh thanked Owl for his time and ran off to find some honey.  By the time, Pooh returned home, he had found a big stash of honey and had totally forgotten that the end was near.  Pooh made a great big honey sandwich and settled in with a large mug of hot chocolate and decided that the end was no longer near.  As long as he had good friends, honey and a comfortable home, that darn end (whatever it was) could come whenever it wanted to.

Time for Questions:

What do we all have in common with Pooh bear?  What end is coming quick?  When do you think the end will come? Are you ready for the end?  Should you care?  What do you have to do to be ready?  What if your end was tomorrow, what would you do?

Life is just beginning. 

My interpretation of this Winnie-the-Pooh story is based on a recent incident.  Last week while coming back from Minneapolis, I passed a young man standing on a park bench, who was shouting “It is coming quick, it is coming quick. The end is coming quick.”  I passed by him in my car and did not have the time (or most likely the desire) to find out what end was coming or how quick was quick.  I decided it would make a good blog.

A Word of Thanks to A. A. Milne who wrote the original Winnie-the-Pooh stories.  Adults and children will for all of time be inspired and grateful for his wonderful characters and stories.  Please buy the book if you have not read it:

Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne

“We’ll be Friends Forever, won’t we, Pooh?’ asked Piglet.
Even longer,’ Pooh answered.” 

Goering, the second highest ranking official in Nazi Germany said at his trial in Nuremberg that:

“Naturally the common people don’t want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, IT IS THE LEADERS of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is TELL THEM THEY ARE BEING ATTACKED, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. IT WORKS THE SAME IN ANY COUNTRY.” — Goering

Ulysses S. Grant in his autobiography expressed surprise that the common southern White sharecropper could support a civil war to protect slavery when he/she was not treated much better than the African American slaves whom they worked alongside of. They had little or no vested interest in the so-called plantation system. Were these poor White folks under an illusion that they would someday be great plantation owners and have their own slaves?

One of the most decorated men in American military history said the following:

“I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.” ― Smedley D. Butler

The county where I reside in Northern Wisconsin is one of the poorest counties in the state with high unemployment. Nevertheless, the majority of the county has voted Republican (The party of the Rich) in the last several elections. Are the citizens in my county under some illusion that they will become rich like Mitt Romney? Do they think that their circumstances will be improved by the “trickle-down theory?” Do they think that their interests are the same as the interests of the wealthy one percent who are buying politicians?

We think of an illusion as something that deceives our eyes but actually an illusion deceives our minds. Webster’s online dictionary defines an illusion as:

1a obsolete : the action of deceiving
b (1) : the state or fact of being intellectually deceived or misled : misapprehension (2) : an instance of such deception
2 a (1) : a misleading image presented to the vision (2) : something that deceives or misleads intellectually
b (1) : perception of something objectively existing in such a way as to cause misinterpretation of its actual nature (2) : hallucination 1 (3) : a pattern capable of reversible perspective

Goebbels the Nazi Minister of Propaganda said that if you wanted to get the populace to believe something do not tell small lies, tell big lies and tell them often.

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” —- Goebbels

Certain people in our lives will try to deceive us as a matter of course. It is their nature. Like the “Story of the Scorpion and the Frog”. The scorpion wanted to cross the stream and asked the frog for a ride on his back. The frog said “You must be kidding. You would surely sting me and I would die.” The scorpion answered “That would be foolish of me. If I killed you, I would also drown and die.” The frog thought that this reply made sense and told the scorpion to “hop on.” Halfway across the pond, the scorpion stung the frog. In his last dying breath, the frog said “Why?” The scorpion replied “Because it is my nature.”

Magicians deceive us for entertainment. Unfaithful lovers deceive us for love and lust. Schools deceive us to support their reputedly lofty ideals. Religious leaders deceive us to “save” our immortal souls. Gamblers deceive us to take our money. Politicians deceive us for power and glory. Each of these deceivers must spin a web of deceit and deception that will cause us to have a distorted view of reality. The magician says to keep your eye on the ball, but the trick is done by getting you to focus on the ball and not her hand. The unfaithful lover professes undying faithfulness while philandering behind your back. The gambler wants you to believe that the “odds” are in your favor, you can’t lose. The politician trades favors for votes. “Vote for me and I will make your life happy and successful. You too can be a slave owner or a zillionaire.”

All of these groups can be lumped under the rubric of “Con-Artists.” A con-artist is someone who tricks you to get your money. The most common trick is to offer you something that is “Too good to be true.” But our trust in the con-artist prevents us from seeing this simple fact and we are deceived into accepting the reality that the con-artist creates for us. There are a variety of these deceptive realities that many of us fall for:

• Wealth with no hard work
• Instant success
• Lose weight overnight
• No new taxes
• Find undying love
• Get to heaven
• The war to end all wars
• Six pack abs with no sweat
• Everyone will love and admire you

Hardly a day goes by when we are not beset with more illusions than we realize. Each of them spun for us by assorted con-artists to catch and ensnare us in their webs of deceit and betrayal. Betrayal is the final outcome, as we sacrifice our trust, our love, our money and even our lives in pursuit of phantom illusions. We think these con-artists care about us but we are simply means to their ends.

Modern communications, cell phones, high speed internet, Wi-Fi, WiMAX, satellite communications and now drone delivered messages have all become two edged swords. Swords that are often very skillfully wielded by assorted con-artists. One edge provides more information and helps us become better, faster and smarter. The other edge buries us in data, facts, opinions, hyperbole, rhetoric and worthless information. One edge cuts through the fantasies that the con-artists are weaving. The other edge shreds reality and helps the con-artists to spin their illusions.

A recent book worth reading is “Empire of Illusion” by Chris Hedges. The book is a trek through the many pretensions and illusions that are beginning to dominate our culture today. The Empire of Illusion is one of the most thought provoking and provocative books I have read in a long time. Following is an excerpt from the book:

“We pay a variety of lifestyle advisers—Neal Gabler calls them “essentially drama coaches”—to help us look and feel like celebrities, to build around us the set for the movie of our own life. Martha Stewart built her financial empire, when she wasn’t insider trading, telling women how to create and decorate a set design for the perfect home. The realities within the home, the actual family relationships, are never addressed. Appearances make everything whole. Plastic surgeons, fitness gurus, diet doctors, therapists, life coaches, interior designers, and fashion consultants all, in essence, promise to make us happy, to make us celebrities. And happiness comes, we are assured, with how we look and how we present ourselves to others. There are glossy magazines like Town & Country which cater to the absurd pretensions of the very rich to be celebrities. They are photographed in expensive designer clothing inside the lavishly decorated set-pieces that are their homes. The route to happiness is bound up in how skillfully we show ourselves to the world. We not only have to conform to the dictates of this manufactured vision, but we also have to project an unrelenting optimism and happiness.” —– “Empire of Illusion” by Chris Hedges.

Illusions become everything. Truth becomes simply one facet of the illusions that surround us. We look for facts to sort out the truth but facts are simply another facet of the extended illusions that become our minute to minute, day to day and year to year reality. Reality is no longer real. Reality itself has become an illusion. And from these illusions, reality becomes a fantasy that just like in the TV show “Once Upon a Time” is now reality. If this sounds like circular reasoning, that’s because it is. Reality has gone from substance to image. These images are illusions in our minds. Worse, they are traps because they prevent us from seeing what really is important.

“One day everything will be well, that is our hope. Everything’s fine today, that is our illusion” ― Voltaire

Do you remember when you were told, that once you were out of school, you would have to face the “real world.” Did you ever wonder what this meant? Was an “unreal” school environment supposed to prepare you for the real world? Did unreal lectures and unreal instructors have the knowledge that you needed in the real world? How could this be? How could unreal schooling prepare anyone for a vastly different outside world? Only if the school was real (and everyone was lying) or the rest of the world was also unreal could schooling be congruent with reality. Unless you were being prepared for unreality itself! I think the latter is the case in most schools.

The situation is analogous to one I have seen many times as a business consultant. You have a system of business which can only thrive and prosper with sufficient inputs of innovation and creativity. But what do HR managers and recruiters look for in a new hire? Answer: Someone who fits in. And this is what schools teach. Schools teach you to fit in. Few schools readily encourage creativity and innovation. Instead, schools create an illusion whereby they foster the fantasy that you will become creative and innovative if you attend their schools. This is a wonderful illusion that most of us fall for.

The reality is that with grades, tests, common core curriculum, standardized testing, etc. schools teach us how to behave, how to conform and how to fit in. Those that can’t handle the “real” curriculum are given the boot. Business leaders and politicians alike are too often con-artists who extol the virtues of a free market and the dynamics of innovation and creativity but instead practice conformity and loyalty. They well know that innovation and creativity are the keys to success, but self-protection and ego trump reason in a world of illusion. Form is more important than substance. A good business suit and an impressive school resume will get you farther than a spirit of innovation and independent thinking in the “real” world.

“All problems are illusions of the mind.” ― Eckhart Tolle

Conclusions:

How do we see through the fog of illusions that surround our everyday lives? Is it possible to see the world as it really is? What if those designer jeans did not really make you beautiful and happy? What if helping others was more important than growing rich? What if the definition of success was not becoming a celebrity and having a million Facebook followers? What if growing old and wrinkly and slow was really a form of beauty? How can we stop the con-artists from defining our reality in terms that are injurious to our satisfaction with life? How can we develop compassion for the underdogs when the con-artists want us to believe that such people are simply parasites who drag the rest of us down?

The politicians, news spinners, talking heads, radio commentators and other con-artists do not want you to think for yourself. They do not want you to question their wisdom or facts. They do not want you to believe that you have the power or intelligence to make choices for yourself. The power of the con-artist lies in deception. Take away their deceptions and their illusions vanish. It is possible to do this but we have to change our minds about the world because that is what makes these illusions reality.

We can take away the power of these con-artists to lie and distort reality by believing in the goodness of other people and not the evil that resides in a small minority of people. We need to see the world as a place of possibilities and not a place of fear. We need to see the world as a place of abundance and not a place of scarcity. We need to see other nations, religions, and ethnic groups as friends and not enemies. We need to stop creating walls and barriers between us and the rest of the world. The more insulated we become from others, the more we diminish ourselves. The more we seek safety and security, the less freedom and independence we have. The more we seek narrowly defined definitions of success, the more elusive true happiness and success becomes. Success lies not in the numbers of life we can accumulate but in the quality of life we live.

Time for Questions:

Do you want to know the truth or are you happier with an illusion? How often do you go further than the local news reports to find the truth?  Who do you trust?  Why?  Are you open to new images and new ideas?  How fixed are you on the truth?  What if much of what you knew was not true?  How could you test the reality that the con-artists want to spin for you?  What would happen if we were all less believing of the reality out there?

Life is just beginning.

How many of you remember the song “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” by Cyndi Lauper or the song by the Beach Boys “Fun, Fun, Fun”?  I suspect many of you have heard of these songs but never listened to them.  Well, click on both and listen while you read my blog this week.  If you have not heard them before, you might enjoy them.  If you are of the Baby Boom generation, it will be a slight walk down memory lane.  What did we all want in the early sixties, before civil rights, women’s liberation and the Vietnam War intruded on our idylls?   Well of course, FUN<FUN<FUN.  What else does anyone really want in life?

I come home in the morning light
My mother says when you gonna live your life right
Oh mother dear we’re not the fortunate ones
And girls just want to have fun
Oh girls just want to have fun 

We all just wanna have fun, but what is fun?  Webster’s describes it as:  “What provides amusement or enjoyment; specifically: playful often boisterous action or speech.”  Fun, play, recreation all seem to spring from a similar root cause.  You must be able to live in the present and forget about the past or the future.  Goals are the anti-thesis, the arch-enemy, and the adversary of fun.  When you are thinking about the past or planning the future, you are not in a “State” of fun.  Come to think of it, fun is a lot like meditation.  You must be in the proper frame of mind to be having fun.  Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that you must be “out of your mind” to have fun.  When you are in your mind, you are thinking, worrying, planning and problem solving.  Fun cannot take place when this is happening.  Fun is like an orgasm in that everything must be subservient to the immediate now.  However, fun can last much longer than an orgasm.

The phone rings in the middle of the night
My father yells what you gonna do with your life
Oh daddy dear you know you’re still number one
But girls they want to have fun
Oh girls just want to have—

Fun can last for hours and hours.  When mindlessness starts that is when fun begins.  When mindlessness ends and mindfulness begins that is when fun ends.  When you start thinking about repercussions, consequences and ramifications that is when the fun stops.  You must be out of your mind to have fun.  Fun is a visceral emotional experience that has nothing to do with drugs or mind-numbness.   Drugs induce a physical state of euphoria caused by mind numbing.  When have you ever heard of anyone high on drugs say they were having fun?

Fun is a state caused by a natural suspension of thinking, worrying, planning and calculating.  When you are having fun, you are focused on the immediate now.  Nothing else is of concern.  Fun is not so much mind-numbing as it is mind-dumbing.  You stop thinking about problems, issues and ideas and you let yourself go with the visceral emotional experiences of the present.  Fun is illogical and irrational.  Thinking is the exact opposite.  You can only have fun when you stop being logical and contemplative.

That’s all they really want
Some fun
When the working day is done
Girls–they want to have fun
Oh girls just want to have fun,
They want to have fun,
They want to have fun…

However as with everything in life, there are pros and cons.  Fun can be constructive but it can also be destructive.  Consider the story of the ants and the grasshopper by Aesop.  The grasshopper played and had fun all summer while the industrious ants worked and put aside food for the winter. When the harsh winter came and food was nowhere to be found, the grasshopper went begging to the ants.  The ants chastised the grasshopper and turned him away with the warning that he should have thought ahead.   No one knows what happened to the grasshopper, but one can presume he met an early end.  The moral here is clear:  Work before you play and not vice versa.  It is a lesson that many of us learn early in our lives but there are also many of us who never learn it.

Well she got her daddy’s car
And she cruised through the hamburger stand now
Seems she forgot all about the library
Like she told her old man now
And with the radio blasting
Goes cruising just as fast as she can now

And she’ll have fun, fun, fun
Till her daddy takes the t-bird away
(Fun, fun, fun till her daddy takes the t-bird away)

When I was young, I never saved a penny.  I thought of myself as the grasshopper.  Worry about today and let tomorrow take care of itself.  The only problem was that I did not really worry about today.  I simply wanted to play and have fun.  I went from day to day.  I partied too much.  I drank too much and I let the fools (who were the ants) worry about the future.   Fortunately, fate intervened and I got married and had a baby girl when I was only 21.  I think this sobered me up by putting a bunch of responsibilities on my shoulders that I was not really ready for.  At some point, my parental raising kicked in and I started trying to take more responsibility for my life.

At twenty-five, I enrolled in a college and started to work on a degree.  I wanted to “amount” to something and this meant giving up the “fun” and lack of responsibilities that many of us associate with “teen-hood.”  Now I was no longer a teenager and I had “adult” responsibilities.  I had a wife and child to support and a family that wanted me to do something other than party and drink.  Fun as I knew it became a thing of the past.  I spent many years working two jobs and trying to make ends meet.  I was extremely fortunate in that I had a good spouse who tolerated my lapses into irresponsibility and who did her best to help me live up to my potential.  Potential is another “high-school” concept that most of us have undoubtedly been tortured with by parents and teachers.  I don’t think I ever really learned what the word potential meant until later in life.  I often wish that I had understood it much earlier.

Well you knew all along
That your dad was gettin’ wise to you now
(You shouldn’t have lied now, you shouldn’t have lied)
And since he took your set of keys
You’ve been thinking that your fun is all through now
(You shouldn’t have lied now, you shouldn’t have lied)

 So what is the role of “FUN” in our lives?  To have fun or not to have fun?  Is that the question?  We all want to have fun but when, where, why and how are sometimes problematic.  There are appropriate times and places for fun and undoubtedly inappropriate times and places.  Is our role in life simply to have fun?  Or is the big question, how to balance our lives so that we can have fun but also discharge our responsibilities towards our family, friends and society?  Some would say that fun is simply a recreational activity that helps us wind down from the daily chores and burdens of existence.  Others might argue that fun is the goal of life, the reason for being.   What do you think?  Post your replies to the following questions.  I would love to hear your responses to these questions.

Time for Questions:

What would a life without fun be like?  Can we have too much fun or is that idea an oxymoron?  What is the role of fun in our lives?  How do you balance fun and responsibilities?  Do you think you have too much fun or not enough?  Why?  What would you change in your life if you could?

 Life is just beginning. 

One of the true ironies or life is that you cannot hold on to the things you find most precious.  You can try but life will take them away.  The older you get the more you will find the truth in what I am saying.  You can’t hold on to youth.  You can’t hold on to your spouse.  You can’t hold on to your money.  You can’t hold on to your fame.  You cannot hold on to your health and you definitely cannot hold on to your life.  The irony is that the very things that are the most valuable to us (and they may well be) are the very things that we have no way of holding onto.

“Make your ego porous. Will is of little importance, complaining is nothing, fame is nothing. Openness, patience, receptivity, solitude is everything.”  ― Rainer Maria Rilke

I rather not admit it (particularly to myself) but we will eventually lose all of these things.  Your hair, your health, your chin, your physique, your beauty, your best friends, your fame, your fortune, your loved ones and eventually your life will all be snatched away from you.  They will all go before you desire them to go.  Some will go much too soon, but it is safe to say that we are never truly ready for any of them to go no matter when they go.  Perhaps some of us will be ready for death, but I doubt most of us will readily go when death comes calling.  One more year, one more month, one more day is all we will ask, but the answer will always be the same.  As in the famous story “Appointment in Samarra”, when death comes calling, there is no reprieve.

“Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”  – Dylan Thomas

During the course of my life, I have seen countless buildings, stadiums, streets and even airports renamed.  They once were named after someone great and famous.  One might have expected that the names of such persons would be enshrined forever, but times change.  The Humphrey Dome (named after Minnesota’s most famous native son) was renamed the Metro Dome.  A few years later it was named the Mall of America Dome.  Poor Hubert, fame was fleeting.  So it shall be for all of us.  If they build a statue of you or if you have a graveyard someplace with a soaring monument, beware!  In a few years, they will need to put a light rail through or a parking lot.  Your bones and statues will need to be replaced for progress.

“I just really love doing what I do. I know every career is fleeting and there will be time periods when I don’t get the opportunities that I’m getting right now, so I am taking advantage of them.”  — Leonardo DiCaprio

I often tell my students that all an employer cares about is “today and tomorrow.”  Your past accomplishments are hot air.  Cotton Fluff!  Ancient History!  You won three gold medals in the Olympics?  That’s nice, how many software programs do you know?  You climbed Mt. Everest? How many languages can you speak?  You graduated Summa Cum Laude?  How much money can you make me today?  What you did yesterday does not matter; it is what you can do today.  It is hard for most of us (me included) to accept this draconian fact of life, but it is absolutely true.

OSHO tells a famous story about a great ruler who wanted to add his name to the Golden Mountain.  This mountain was the place in the universe where all “great” rulers got to carve their names in gold.  When the ruler died and was carried off to the Golden Mountain, he was amazed.  As far as he could see were the names of other “great” rulers who had been there first and already carved their names.  He looked for days and despite the fact that the Golden Mountain went on forever, there was no place for him to carve his name.  Every single spot on the mountain was already filled with the name of a previous “great” ruler.

How much do you remember of Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar, Napoleon or Peter the Great?  All the great conquerors of the world and today they are dust.  I would bet my last dollar you have never ever visited even one of their graves.  What matters to you today is not who is dead but who is alive and what can they do for you.  What do you care about the dead?  Even Jesus said:  “Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.” (Matthew 8:22) 

How many times have you heard that funerals are not for the dead but for the living?  You cannot do anything for the dead but for the living, life must go on.  How often have you seen or even sent a sympathy card that read:  “I hope the many great memories you have of your loved one will help carry you through this difficult time?”   It is ironic we say this since the very memories they have are what will eat at their heart and ruin their happiness.  If we could only immediately forget the dead and departed we would never suffer.  But our memories keep us anchored to the past.  We replay them over and over again and each time we feel the pain of loss or guilt or dreams that will never be.  How often have you heard or said the words: “I only wish I had spent more time with them when they were alive?”

THEY have chiseled on my stone the words:

“His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him

That nature might stand up and say to all the world,

This was a man.”

Those who knew me smile

As they read this empty rhetoric;

My epitaph should have been:

“Life was not gentle to him,

And the elements so mixed in him

That he made warfare on life

In the which he was slain.”

While I lived I could not cope with slanderous tongues,

Now that I am dead I must submit to an epitaph

Graven by a fool!    (From Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology)

Letting go is the hardest thing that any of us can ever do.  Letting go of the past.  Letting go of the death of a loved one.  Letting go of a goal or dream that has become unrealistic.  Letting go of memories of what or who we once were.  Letting go of expectations concerning our friends, our loved ones and especially our children.  Letting go of expectations for ourselves.  We cling like Saran wrap to outdated aspirations of fame, fortune, success and happiness.

We live in the glory days of the past and somehow we try to live them again.  We buy an old car that reminds us of our high school days and spend countless hours and dollars restoring it.  It is the car that we always wanted when we were in high school but could not afford.  Now we have it and we can drive it to rallies with lots of other old people who have restored their own memories at the cost of many dollars and hours.  Now we can sit around and talk about the “good old days” with fellow reminiscers caught in the fantasies of youth.  But we cannot be young again.   We become recyclers of the past.

As with everything, there is a Golden Mean.  Too much focus on the past may be bad, but perhaps a little is necessary for our lives.  Too much focus on the future may be just as bad but may also be necessary for our lives.  However, we cannot obtain the happiness and peace of mind that we all want by living in the past or in the future.  The true secret of happiness is finding the balance. The great prophets have always counseled on the need to live in the present.

“Tomorrow is tomorrow.  Future cares have future cures, and we must mind today.” ― Sophocles, Antigone

Being human, it is very likely we will fail often in our attempts to move on or to let go.  We sometimes get stuck in the past.  We fret feverishly about the future.  We mark time by looking backwards or forwards and the day we are living in is forgotten.  We all have the human faults of greed, desire, envy, regret, and too much ambition.   I think this is what Christians mean when they say we are all sinners.  I would probably choose a different description but the end result is the same.  We make mistakes every day.  We have goals that we fall short of.  Resolutions that are soon broken.  Promises that are not kept for more than a few weeks.

“Not all of our heartless plans work as we intend; nor do all of our good intentions. We are where we are, and we can rarely predict where we will go, no matter how firm our beliefs.”  ― Michelle Sagara West,

I speak for myself when I say I have all of these faults.  They sometimes cause me to lose sight of the present.  I might more honestly say that they OFTEN cause me to lose sight of the present.  An old regret creeps in and I feel guilty.  A piece of envy sneaks up when I meet a former friend who seems to have “made it.”  A bit of greed arises when I see a neighbor’s new car.  A speck of denial follows the realization that I can no longer do some of the things I did when I was 25.  I count the days and weeks and months and years that I have left to truly make my mark on the world.  And all the time, the present slips by and I fail to notice the day and the wonderful gifts that each day brings.  I remember too late to appreciate the day and then it is already time for bed.

But tomorrow will bring another day and another opportunity to live life to the fullest.  If we can only let go of the past and the future, we have the opportunity for the happiness we all seek.  It is in front of us each time we wake up.  Carpe Diem!

Carpe Diem — by Robert Frost

Age saw two quiet children
Go loving by at twilight,
He knew not whether homeward,
Or outward from the village,
Or (chimes were ringing) church ward,
He waited, (they were strangers)
Till they were out of hearing
To bid them both be happy.
‘Be happy, happy, happy,
And seize the day of pleasure.’
The age-long theme is Age’s.
‘Twas Age imposed on poems
Their gather-roses burden
To warn against the danger
That overtaken lovers
From being over flooded
With happiness should have it.
And yet not know they have it.
But bid life seize the present?
It lives less in the present
Than in the future always,
And less in both together
Than in the past. The present
Is too much for the senses,
Too crowding, too confusing-
Too present to imagine. 

Time for Questions:

What fantasies about the past do you hang onto?  What memories would you let go of if you could?  Are you still trying too hard to forget the past?  Are you trying too hard to live the past or to make up for something you did in the past?  What stops you from moving on?  What are the important things in your life?  What if each day you simply focused on the present?  What do you think would happen to the important things?  Are they really that important?

Life is just beginning.

Picture yourself in a boat on a river
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes  —- (From the Beatles) (Click here to listen)

Have you ever wondered why we do not arrest obese people?  What if we treated people who abused food like we treated people who abused drugs?  We could argue “Why don’t we arrest obese people since we arrest drug addicts?”  Do not both of them abuse their bodies?  If you look at the five most common reasons given for drug control policy:  Morality, Health, Profit, Discrimination and Social Control, it could be argued that obesity violates at least four of these principles.  As yet, we do not see too many obese people running amok, but who knows, maybe cases of “Crazed” obese people are just being under-reported.

It seems unfair to me that obese people are not treated the same as drug abusers.  Obese people are making a choice to the same extent that most drug users are.  Obese people cause a huge drain on our medical system.  Obesity is an offense to morality (sloth) if not aesthetics.  A large portion of the increase in medical expenses over the last twenty years can be blamed on lifestyle choices of which obesity is one of the primary negative factors.  Thus obesity directly impacts our national productivity.  What if obesity was subject to a series of “obesity laws” that made obesity illegal?

Consider the following court scenario in a system where obesity was illegal.    Jane Doe has just been arrested on charges of obesity and is brought to court for a pre-trial hearing. 

Prosecutor:  I am going to bring five charges against the defendant for gross and negligent obesity.

Defense Attorney:  We are not going to argue that the defendant is not fat or grossly obese.  We are going to argue that the defendant posed no threat to society.

Prosecutor:  The defendant was found in a Mc Donald’s eating a Big Mac in clear violation of the 2017 Obesity Act (OA) which states that “No obese person may partake of high fat foods found in fast food restaurants.”   A DOP agent (Department of Obese Patrol) found the defendant eating a Big Mac, fries and a shake.  The defendant tried to conceal the food and when confronted by the DOP agent, she attacked the agent and tried to resist arrest.

Judge:  What are your five charges?

Prosecutor:  The five charges are as follows:

1. Gross obesity in violation of the 2017 Obesity Act, article 1
2. Posing a hazard to the national health in violation of Article 6 of the OA
3. Hiding the presence of fattening foods in violation of Article 27 of the OA
4. Contributing to the deterioration of the military readiness statute as specified in Article 29 of the OA
5. Presenting a negative image of Americans to the world in violation of Article 31 of the OA

Prosecutor:  Each of these charges carries a minimum felony sentence of two years.  However, because this is the defendant’s third offense, the minimum sentence would be life.  We would be willing to plea bargain this to forty years without parole if the defendant agrees.

Defense Attorney:  Your honor this is a travesty of justice and a mockery of everything the judicial system was established for.  I have already noted that my defendant posed no threat to society.  We expect a jury to hear this case and we will not plea bargain.  This law is wrong, unfair and does not help protect or prevent the rest of the population from gross obesity.

Judge:  You are entitled to a trial if you so desire it, but I warn you.  You will not be allowed to challenge the validity of the Obesity law.  The law is the law and the legislative and judicial functions are clearly separated by the US constitution.  This law has been duly authorized and approved by the government of the United States of America.  The only question here is was the defendant guilty as charged.  We will not question the validity, fairness or equitability of the law.

Cellophane flowers of yellow and green
Towering over your head
Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes
And she’s gone

Now consider the criminal justice system as it applies to drugs.  By the term “drug” I am defining as anything that is either a: Hallucinogen, opiate, stimulant, or depressant.  See also the list for Schedule II drugs which includes many more than the following list:

• Alcohol is legal if you are over 21 in most states.  Alcohol is a depressant.
• The sale of marijuana for recreational use is a felony in nine states and illegal in a dozen others.
• Coffee and caffeine is legal in all States in coffee, tea, soft drinks and energy drinks.  Caffeine is a stimulant.
• LSD, Peyote, Hashish and Mescaline are illegal in all 50 states unless you have a permit to use for experimental or religious reasons.    These are all hallucinogens.
• Nicotine in cigarettes is legal in all 50 states.   Nicotine is a stimulant.
• Vicodin, Percocet, Oxycodone must have a doctor’s prescription in all fifty states.  Buying controlled substances online without a valid prescription may be punishable by imprisonment under Federal law.  These are all opiates.
• Cocaine and Methamphetamines are classed as Schedule II drugs and both are illegal without medical authorization in all 50 states. Both are classed as stimulants.

If you look at the list you may wonder what the criteria for banning some drugs are and legalizing other drugs.  If you can figure this out, you are either an anti-drug zealot or you live in Wonderland along with the Red Queen and the Mad Hatter.  Consider the following possible drugs and some criteria which might impact their legality:

Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds

If after looking at this chart, you conclude that alcohol and nicotine should be added to the list of illegal substances, you would not be alone.  Conversely, you might wonder why opiates and Marijuana are illegal (a situation which is finally beginning to change with Marijuana).   The fact is there is no rhyme or reason.  Prejudice, bias, stupidity, ignorance and politics govern the legality of drugs in all fifty states and the Federal government.  The results of this irrational and ignorant policy are as follows:  (These facts are from the Drug Policy Alliance)

• Amount spent annually in the U.S. on the war on drugs: More than $51,000,000,000
• Number of people arrested in 2012 in the U.S. on nonviolent drug charges: 1.55 million
• Number of people arrested for a marijuana law violation in 2012: 749,825
• Number of those charged with marijuana law violations who were arrested for possession only: 658,231 (88 percent)
• Number of Americans incarcerated in 2012 in federal, state and local prisons and  jails: 2,228,400 or 1 in every 108 adults, the highest incarceration rate in the world
• Proportion of people incarcerated for a drug offense in state prison that are black or Hispanic, although these groups use and sell drugs at similar rates as whites: 61 percent
• Number of states that allow the medical use of marijuana: 20 + District of Columbia
• Estimated annual revenue that California would raise if it taxed and regulated the sale of marijuana: $1,400,000,000
• Number of people killed in Mexico’s drug war since 2006: 70,000+
• Number of students who have lost federal financial aid eligibility because of a drug conviction: 200,000+
• Number of people in the U.S. that died from a drug overdose in 2010: 38,329
• Tax revenue that drug legalization would yield annually, if currently-illegal drugs were taxed at rates comparable to those on alcohol and tobacco: $46.7 billion
• One-third of all AIDS cases in the U.S. have been caused by syringe sharing: 354,000 people
• U.S. federal government support for syringe access programs: $0.00, thanks to a federal ban reinstated by Congress in 2011 that prohibits any federal assistance for them

Follow her down to a bridge by a fountain
Where rocking horse people eat marshmallow pies
Everyone smiles as you drift past the flowers
That grow so incredibly high

The above statistics do not talk about the human toll that our so-called drug policy exacts.  What about the thousands of people labeled as ex-cons and felons who may never be able to find a legitimate job again?  What about the thousands of families destroyed by taking a parent away from their children?  What about the inability or unwillingness to help treat people with an addiction?  What about the wasted lives and productivity of the men and women that we incarcerate under our present drug laws?

Again, you may wonder if something has been left unsaid.  Surely there must be a good reason or even several good reasons for our current drug policy.  Could anyone want to spend billions of dollars without some underlying rationale?  Indeed, several possible reasons for our present drug policy have been advanced.  Let us take a brief look at how each of the following reasons impact drug policy.

• Morality
• Health
• Profit
• Discrimination
• Lack of social control and violence

Morality:  Some people think that they should be able to dictate what the rest of us can do, think, wear, feel or put in our bodies.  It is immoral to have sex.  It is immoral to dance.  It is immoral to sing.  It is immoral to play.  It is immoral to get high.  “An idle mind is the devils workshop.”  The Moral Majority wants to dictate parsimony in terms of who can be idle and who cannot.  Drug laws are made to prevent us from having too much fun.  That would be a sin.

Health:  We need to protect the public health.  The logic here is that drugs are harmful and can do damage to the human body.  The problem with this reason is the lack of consistency in its application.  While it is undoubtedly true that many drugs if taken to excess can kill, it is also true that many legal drugs (Alcohol and nicotine) are very dangerous to the body over a period of time.  The decision as to which drugs are harmful and which are not seems to be purely a matter of popular preference.   As far as I know, there is little interest in banning cigarettes, despite the fact that they do much more harm.  According to the Centers for Disease Control, tobacco kills more people than HIV, illegal drugs, car accidents, suicides and murder combined.  Drug laws are made to protect our health.  God forbid anyone would overdose on drugs.

Profit:  This reason concerns the profit motive with the drug trade.  If drugs were legal and cheap, who would benefit?  The answer would be the larger population.  This cannot be permitted to happen until there is a profit to be made.  Thus, it is more beneficial to wage a war on drugs until drugs can be commercialized and like cigarettes mass produced at a considerable profit to a select few.  It will not do to allow people to grow pot in their back yards or synthesize meth in a kitchen lab.  We have a game here and the game is called MONEY.  Until the powerful with money can figure out how to control the means and modes of production, drugs will remain illegal.  There is presently a great deal more profit in illegal drugs than legal drugs.  Drug laws are made to protect commercial interests and to insure profits for a few.  You cannot have drugs without taxes.

Discrimination:  One reason that has been advanced is a blatant discrimination against minorities and poor.   It is more often the poor and minorities who turn to illicit drugs to escape the lack of opportunities and frustration with an economic system that seems like no win for them.  The data on incarceration for drug use shows a disproportionate number of minorities arrested and convicted for drugs.  (See statistics above from the Drug Policy Alliance)

Do you dig it Man?  If you are rich or a celebrity or powerful, you can get high and no one will care or bother you.  But if you are poor, ebony, amber, ruby or chestnut, the fates will not be so kind to you.  Politics and not reason rule drug policy and the drug war.  More Americans use drugs of one kind or another than at any point in history.  Prisons are so full; they have to release many convicts before their time is up.  What if all the people misusing prescription narcotics were suddenly arrested?  What if the doctors who are over prescribing these drugs were arrested?  We would have to change the name of this country from the USA to the UPA or United Prisons of America.  Drug laws are made to keep the poor and minorities in their place.  You cannot allow the underprivileged to have any escape from a reality that haunts and torments them daily.

Lack of Social Control and Violence:  Another reason is the idea that drugs lead to wanton violence and lowering of criminal inhibitions.  Examples abound of outlandish portrayals of drug maniacs and drug users’ gone lunatic.  One popular one was a movie called “Reefer Madness” in which drug crazed people descend into scenes of rape, suicide and murder.

An interesting study conducted in Great Britain on drug use and its portrayal in the press (Representations of Drug Use and Drug Users in the British Press, 2010) concluded that

• Drug users were more likely to be condemned than empathized with in all newspapers, but were most likely to be condemned in the tabloid press, where around a fifth of users were condemned.
• Where the effects of drug use were mentioned in news items for either the community or the individual, these were overwhelmingly negative.
• Over the sample period, stories that mainly focused on recovery and rehabilitation were few and far between. When they did surface they mainly concerned the appropriateness of government proposals to rehabilitate heroin users.

The media needs to sell papers.  Titillating stories of drug abuse and drug addicts run amok sell more papers and get more watchers then stories of drug use that have more positive outcomes.  The hypocrisy here is beyond imagination.  The majority of Americans use drugs every day to treat low energy, pains, headaches, depression and simply for recreation.  Drug laws are made to insure that drug use does not get out of hand.  Out of hand drug use is an oxymoron if there ever was one.

“In June 2011, the Global Commission on Drug Policy soberly proclaimed: “The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world.” In its report, the commission — members of which include economists, policy experts, and several former world leaders — argued that, 40 years after President Richard Nixon launched the U.S. War on Drugs, circumstances today demand a new approach. Among the commissioners’ recommendations, two stand out: to “end the criminalization, marginalization and stigmatization of people who use drugs but who do no harm to others,” and to “encourage experimentation by governments with models of legal regulation of drugs,” particularly cannabis, “to undermine the power of organized crime and safeguard the health and security of their citizens.”   National Affairs

To paraphrase Patrick Henry, what are we waiting for?  What are we procrastinating for?  What are we afraid of?  What will it take for us to change these barbaric laws?  How many more lives will we damage?  How much more money will we waste?  How many more people will we allow to die?  Shall we argue? Shall we entreat?  Shall we equivocate?  Are we blind to the truth?  Will we wait until it is too late?  What more arguments need be made before we are convinced?  What evidence needs to be produced that has not already been made evident?  What research is left to find regarding the failure of our drug policy?  What is stopping us from seeing the truth?  How many more people will be arrested before we decide to act?

Newspaper taxis appear on the shore
Waiting to take you away
Climb in the back with your head in the clouds
And you’re gone

You say well “Marijuana will slowly become legal as the tide is starting to shift and public opinion is being exerted on our political leaders.”  This is simply the first step.  It is not nearly enough.  The discrimination and stupidity that is behind most of our drug policy must be completely routed out and eradicated.  It will not solve the problem if we only legalize or decriminalize Marijuana.  The focus on drugs must be shifted from seeing drug use or drug abuse as a crime to seeing it as a treatable medical or emotional problem.  Putting people in jail for drug abuse is cynical where no crimes are committed and no one is hurt.  It is like the old debtors prison where poor people were thrown in jail until they could pay their bills.

It is time for us to speak out against a political leadership that refuses to accept the truth.  The truth is that our national drug policy is a failure.  Those who have the power are afraid of an environment in which the populace can find alternatives to such profitable mass produced narcotics such as television, shopping malls, video games, sports and movies.  They are afraid of a population that can make its own decision concerning what drugs it uses and what it uses drugs for.  They are afraid of an environment where decisions on drug use are taken away from the “authorities” and given back to the citizen.  It is time we “take back our rights.”  Prohibition was a massive failure and simply caused alcohol to become more expensive, more crime and more criminals.  Our current drug war has had the same disastrous effects.  When will we learn?

Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds

Time for Questions: 

What drugs have you taken this morning?  Do you consider pills drugs?  What about coffee and alcohol, how much of these do you use weekly?  Do you think that our present drug policy is effective? Why?  What would you change if you could?  Do you know any drug addicts?  Are they criminals?  Do you think they should be arrested and jailed?  Why or why not?  What would you do to someone who broke into your house to steal your pills or to steal money to buy drugs?  Should we arrest them, shoot them or treat them?

Life is just beginning.

I would like to make it clear that while I find some merit in each of the five reasons most often given to ban drugs or to control the sale of drugs, I also find a great deal of hypocrisy and politics in each of these reasons. You may ask: “If someone broke into your house to steal or buy drugs, what would you do?”  My answer:  I would probably shoot them.  I am not condoning criminal behavior or the argument that so and so was drunk or high and was not responsible.  Drug addicts and alcoholics should not be exempt from the responsibility for crimes they commit while under the influence.   You do the crime, you serve the time.