To thine own self be true

What on earth will they do when the power runs out, the batteries die, or their phones are obsolete? Will life, as they know it, end?

(from Calamity Jane)

Gone but not forgotten. Doris Day, 97. Especially by her many pet dogs.

“…and now my love’s no secret anymore.”

“On a plane of higher regard.”

“Where’s that?”

“The best of civilized culture and consciousness with a huge infusion of the Arts.”

“Are you a better person from all of that?”

“Indubitably.”

“When one experiences the best that has been thought, written, and created, one’s life changes forever. One can never really go back to living small, unremarkably, and limitedly.”

“Does that mean you see yourself as better than others?

“No, I have a huge empathy with Real People and working class folks. The former are far from being phony and hoity-toity. Likewise, the latter, who are the stock my parents came from and people I’ve known and touched base with all my life. I am grateful for the common sense and kindness of those who appreciate and know what it’s like to work hard and for family. People with perspective and a sense of humor as well.”

“What did you learn from your education, higher and otherwise?”

“Life is very complex, difficult, ironic, and yet quite beautiful and rich. The faculties people potentially have such as developed imagination, talent, and intellect can be major forces in changing people’s attitudes and those around them. I see this every day in many situations. One can never underestimate the influence of good self-actualized, educated people who affect others by the simple facts of their deeds, efforts, and consciousness. Good teachers and good people in the health care or charitable works systems are the best examples of this attitude.”

“And consciousness?”

“What the 1960s and ’70s were largely about for me. Positive humanizing change that was in the air. Very grounding and personally informative. “Feeding your head” as Jefferson Airplane said, quoting Lewis Carroll. You have an obligation/responsibility to yourself and others to become as aware and benevolent as you can. In that, the fulfillment of life purpose and the height of what is called today “Wellness.” You have an obligation to make yourself as conscious as possible and as well and fulfilled as possible. Your life is your own, first and foremost, and you need to actualize it as much as you can while assisting and connecting to others. There is a profound inner peace that arises from this approach to life.”

(To the memory of Rosalie Malowny Davies)

An annual day to give thanks and gratitude.

the wonderful, informative sense of context, structure, themes, and organization about my personal specialized interests and, by extension, human behavior and the world.

I took the following contextual courses:

Intro to Greek and Roman Classics
Comparative Lit from Homer On
Canadian Lit (19th & 20th century)
20th Century Am Lit
19th & 20th Century British Lit
20th Century Poetry
Intro to Eng Lit
Can History
British History
Philosophy–basic and aesthetics.

This is an Arts grounding no longer possible at many universities. Deep/broad/inclusive-perspectived courses that today’s students can take no longer in the fashionable morass of technology, deconstructionist post-modernism, and MeToo. There is no longer any sense of significant general context and history (aside from the limited/limiting pc agenda courses) offered at most universities. Yeats’ “The centre cannot hold” is surely truer than ever before in post-secondary these non-book reading daze.

Warm/er sunny weather makes people or strangers cheerier and friendlier.

“DRMA QN”? (On her license plate)

“sordid out” used as a verb phrase

Rejecting the d-hive paradigm
and prevailing winds of
“All’s right with the world”–
the ear candy,
grasshopper minds,
vested interests,
lowest common denominator.
My very free will transcends
a cognitive dissonance
and depressive realism,
moves instead
toward sweetness and light,
Buddha nature,
first magnitude,
binary stars,
the je ne sais quoi and
ad libitum of
blue-sky thinking,
the entre nous of
high kindred spirits,
savor vivre,
and magic hour.

Without an object of desire he could
face down the flames of aurora borealis.
He became a poet of weather now
and carved his name on clouds.

The poles of sun and moon informed this,
his final art in a landscape of enchantment.
His sense of world came from within
and he knew no limits of other.

The propositions of dream had replaced
the latitudes of nuanced love.
The compensation of words fulfilled
the charts of imagination.

His mind had grown vast
like the stars in a living poem.
And that which he loved and could value
was everything he had imagined.

Things were now as they were.
No longer mere man of flesh and bone,
he drew his breath from all of this–
the grand thoughts of refined experience.