To thine own self be true

(Dwelling in rich multitudinous possibilities, my favorite woman poet)

“I dwell in possibility”–Emily Dickinson
“I am large, I contain multitudes”–Walt Whitman

“A poem should be a part of one’s sense of life.”–Wallace Stevens
“Poetry reminds us of the richness and diversity of human existence.”–John Fitzgerald Kennedy
“Poetry is a perfectly possible means of overcoming chaos.”–I. A. Richards

“A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.”–W.H. Auden
“Poetry is a performance in words.”–Robert Frost
“A poet is a state of mind.”–Virginia Moore
“To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession.”–Robert Graves
Great poets do not die; they are continuing presences.”–Virginia Woolf

“The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom.”–Robert Frost
“Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.”–T.S. Eliot
“Genuine poetry is conceived and composed in the soul.”–Matthew Arnold
“A poet is the most unpoetical of anything in existence because he has no identity–he is continually informing and filling some other body.”–John Keats
“The reader who is illuminated is, in a real sense, the poem.”–H.M. Tomlinson
“Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge.”–William Wordsworth
“No man was ever yet a great poet, without being at the same time a profound philosopher.”–Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“To a poet nothing can be useless.”–Samuel Johnson
“The moment of change is the only poem.”–Adrienne Rich

Killing, Lying, Betrayal, Using, Manipulating, and Controlling Others remain the worst 6 in my opinion. The last three are especially despicable, common social and family practices.

yes, Understanding, Acceptance, Trust, Respect, and Appreciation. Those key five things. What each person expects, desires, earns, wants and needs most deeply. That, being the case, then close friendship and sometimes even love.

(2012: above, my longest, true, close Winnipeg friend of 65 years–Hugh, at the 100th anniversary of the school we attended together in grade 1, 1955; we’ve long shared and experienced the Big Five)

(bust on my bedroom English literature bookshelf)

There are many quotable lines and speeches taken from Shakespeare: “Beware the Ides of March”, “It was Greek to me” , “Romeo, Rome, wherefore art thou Romeo?”, but some have a greater ring of truth than others and I have selected some below which have stood out for or influenced me significantly.

…………………………………………………………………………….

“Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind.” -Midsummer Night’s Dream

(a romantic/idealistic view of love, but perhaps a more significant version than the mere sensory or physical kind)

“Nothing can come of nothing.” -King Lear

(one needs something to work with if one is going to produce anything/get anywhere; for instance, there have to be words, experiences, imaginings, facts, some context, etc. in order to create)

“Can one desire too much of a good thing? -As You Like It

(good question; the questioning of surfeit occurs elsewhere in S’s poems and plays; no doubt people certainly are/get disappointed whenever a good thing ceases)

“True it is that we have seen better days.” -As You Like It

(as one matures and ages, there will be better days and experiences that are recalled when the going gets tough or one is having an off-day or rough patch)

“Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.” -Romeo and Juliet

(this advice often comes in handy especially for young or immature people and old/er people who can physically hurt themselves if moving too fast or incautiously)

“True nobility is exempt from fear.” -Henry VI, Part II

(those we respect and look up to often display courage and a lack of fear even in difficult situations or crises)

“I bear a charmed life.” -Macbeth

(we may feel ourselves to have been lucky or fortunate enough to say the same thing.)

“The play’s the thing.”
–Hamlet

(much of life seems like a play, as reflected in other Shakespearean quotes; this may help us to better understand our lives if we appreciate the wisdom of this metaphor.)

“The native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.”
-Hamlet

(we have all procrastinated about various things in our lives, simply by delaying and thinking too much about them without taking action.)

“There is a diivinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.”
-Hamlet

(often there are times when we feel that there is a fate or destiny beyond whatever personal choices we make.)

“We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.”
-The Tempest

(at times and in the long run, life can tire you out literally; ironically, too we spend a lot of our life dreaming as well as sleeping; much about our lives is basically illusion or dream-like )

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
-As You Like It

(we’ve certainly run into both types of people and understandings; there is irony either way–much of life, as shown in Shakespeare’s writing, is ironic, ambiguous, and paradoxical–these factors are reflected, likewise, in life experience.)

“Lord, what fools these mortals be!”
-Midsummer Night’s Dream

(a lot of human behavior is foolish/absurd which is not surprising given our love of humor and play; we certainly do take ourselves too seriously at times–something mentioned in the previous quote.)

“There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.”
-Julius Caesar

(Timing is very important, as Shakespeare often points out; one has to act when ‘opportunity knocks’ if one wants to be successful in some way; one has to ‘ride the wave’ and ‘go with the flow’ when there are ‘windows’.)

“What’s gone and what’s past help
Should be past grief.”
-Winter’s Tale

(something Robert Frost matter-of-factly records in his “‘Out, Out–‘” poem about the accidental death of a boy–“And,they, since they/ Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs”; there is nothing wrong with facing/accepting facts and stoicism in matters of death.)

“Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.”
-Hamlet

(there seems to be a lot of dishonesty in so many different social situations–cheating on taxes, white lies, plagiarism, etc.; it is always refreshing to meet an outwardly honest person.)

“Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all.”
-Henry VI, Part II

(perspective–judging is easy and common; we all make mistakes; no one is perfect)

“Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgement.”
-Hamlet

(same as above, hold off on easy and fast judgements; be prepared to get judged a lot in the process; it is a good idea to listen closely, too, and get all the facts before responding.)

“We know what we are, but know not what we may be.”
-Hamlet

(this applies to a lot of people who have hidden possibilities and potential, often unknown to themselves.)

“The course of true love never did run smooth.”
-Midsummer Night’s Dream

(it is hard to be pleasant or happy at all times with one’s significant other–no relationship is perfect; there will be upsets, hardships, disagreements, arguments, setbacks, and challenges.)

“Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.”
-Twelfth Night

(sometimes one can look too hard for love; sometimes one gets lucky and someone finds us and loves us anyway.)

“To hold, as t’were, the mirror up to nature.”
-Hamlet

(there is some point to this process–what Hamlet did to Gertrude in the closet scene–it may not be easy but be necessary, nonetheless, to level with people and show who they are and how they are behaving with the end of improvement in mind–‘tough love’)

“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”
-Troilus and Cressida

(nature definitely is what we are a part of, what we arise from; there are many benefits to incorporating nature in our lives and being close to it; potentially, a very positive, renewing and fulfilling relationship.)

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
-Hamlet

(although we may know quite a bit and figure we have a handle on stuff, there are many mysteries and unknowns; these come into play and influence us in significant, unexpected ways.)

“I am a man
More sinn’d against than sinning.”
-King Lear

(this does happen sometime that those who are blamed can also be victimized or marginalized as Lear was; Shakespeare is often perspectively ‘measuring things’ and is concerned about fairness or injustices as much as crimes or mistakes.)

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
-Hamlet

(many situations are relative and not always black-and-white matters; there are usually multiple perspectives on the same thing, different and differing viewpoints; we always reach our conclusions about something through our own thinking; there is ultimately a subjectivity to the process of morality, ethics, and our personal choices.)

“To thine own self be true.”
-Hamlet

(the title of this blog/site; always a starting and reference point; it is usually good to follow your gut instinct, hunches, or intuition when not sure.)

“Brevity is the soul of wit.”
-Hamlet

(Shakespeare intended many meanings for ‘wit’–it can refer to humor and intelligence. Most people prefer concise speeches and humor, brief e-mails, and people getting to the point quickly, clearly, and sometime humorously.)

“For I am nothing if not critical.”
-Othello

(that judgemental side of humanity referred to previously; certainly most people have or find things to criticize and complain about.)

“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em.”
-Twelfth Night

(beyond the quote’s context, some, indeed, are seemingly different, unusual, and unconventional, seemingly marked from birth for greatness; I can’t think of a famous person from history who didn’t have to work to achieve whatever fame and greatness he or she had; it is true, also, that some people are lucky to be in the right place at the right time or become great unexpectedly, perhaps undeservedly.)

“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts.”
-As You Like It

(life is like a play and the metaphors here clarify in what ways and senses that is true; we experience many scenes and other actors every day; the process of life is play-like or movie-like.)

“The quality of mercy is not strain’d…
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.”
-The Merchant of Venice

(mercy is good and necessary in some cases; and it does benefit the people who judge as much as the people who are judged–many people need a break; it is particularly good to cut slack in non-life-and-death matters.)

“We have heard the chimes at midnight.”
-Henry IV, Part II

(at some point, we have all stayed up late having fun or carousing, enjoying life)

“When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions!”
-Hamlet

(seemingly, once we experience troubles, they often mysteriously multiply)

“If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it”
-Twelfth Night

(beautiful music is extremely pleasurable and satisfying; one can never get enough of it; beautiful music and love go together, complement each other)

“The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.”
-A Midsummer Night’s Dream

(truly inspired poets and writers use imagination to create something fine or great out of nothing)

“In delay there lies no plenty.”
-Twelfth Night

(no point in wasting time especially if one is trying to or needs to accomplish something)

“Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast.”
-Macbeth

(sleep is very important and does relieve our worries, restores our faculties, and enables us to go on more clear-headedly)

“Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie.
Which we ascribe to heaven.”
-All’s Well That Ends Well

(too often people rely too much on outside others or external forces to solve their problems; not assuming ultimate responsibility for their own lives)

“All that live must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.”
-Hamlet

(the fact of mortality of all of nature; ‘no one gets out alive’; ‘eternity’–there is a foreverness to death)

“Use every man after his desert and who would ‘scape whipping?”
-Hamlet

(we all make mistakes, have sinned; a certain amount of mercy, leniency, or forgiveness is fair/always a good idea)

“We must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us.”
-Hamlet

(imperfect language is our medium of communication; we need to be clear in what we say and intend or others will not understand or misunderstand us.)

“The readiness is all.”
-Hamlet

(the readiness for when the time to decide, choose, or act comes; there is merit to preparedness and organization as well as imagination to foresee possibilities and likelihoods)

“The time of life is short;
To spend that shortness basely were too long.”
Henry IV, Part 2

(we need to spend our time more judiciously, thoughtfully, sensitively, usefully)

“O! for a Muse of fire, that would ascend,
The brightest heaven of invention.”
-Henry V

(the grandest call for inspiration and to creative expression)

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
-Julius Caesar

(again, we are responsible for what happens to us; character is destiny)

“But I am constant as the northern star,
Of whose true fixed and resting quality
There is no fellow in the firmament.”
-Julius Caesar

(a statement of integrity and unchangeability, but potentially, too, one of stubbornness and pride before a fall)

“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is
To have a thankless child!”
-King Lear

(a parent’s worst nightmare: a child’s ingratitude or abusiveness)

“I am tied to the stake, and must stand the course.”
-King Lear

(there always will be those moments when one can’t run, hide, or dodge conflict, crisis, and suffering; one must ‘face the music’)

“The wheel is come full circle.”
-King Lear

(it does so, from time to time, whether good or bad, and we find history repeating itself or familiar situations and recurring truths all over again)

“Fair is foul, and foul is fair.”
-Macbeth

(well, no one’s perfect’ e.g., Macbeth; sometimes what is fair to someone is foul to someone else–the basic matter of perspective; this is a core life statement which can also refer to the transitions between good and evil, positive and negative situations; given life’s dualities and ambiguities, this is pretty core stuff)

“Nothing is, But what is not.”
-Macbeth

(not surprisingly from the same play, but you can also find many examples of this quote as well in Hamlet, Othello, King Lear; core stuff: appearances can be deceptive, are not always what they seem; reality and illusion are difficult to sort out even on good days!)

“There’s nothing serious in mortality.”
-Macbeth

(very existentialist thought: death is a fact, common, needs to be accepted; this existential point can affect an individual’s attitude)

“To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death,
Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
-Macbeth

(the poetry of the depressed and nihilistic, the lost soul; life is absurd seen a certain way; well if you were Macbeth….)

“Men should be what they seem,”
-Othello

(would that were true, but people are sometimes/often not what they seem as proven by experience)

“Then you must speak
Of one that loved not wisely but too well.”
-Othello

(one can love too much or make mistakes in love; ironically, there are many instances of people, like Othello, hurting or even killing others because they loved them ‘too much’)

“He jests at scars, that never felt a wound.”
-Romeo and Juliet

(very true–once you’ve been hurt, it is possible you will become less sarcastic or more sensitive to others’ pain and suffering)

“These violent delights have violent ends.”
-Romeo and Juliet

(a cautionary note: violence breeds violence–an old story; lots of examples in the day’s headlines)

“How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world
That has such people in ‘t!”
-The Tempest

(true on a good day or a lucky day; there are lots of interesting, ‘beautiful’ people out there; one often stumbles over/onto them)

“When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes
I all alone beweep my outcast state.”
-Sonnet 29

(failure can be personally isolating and depressing; ‘1 is the loneliest number’, though the rest of this poem is about the power of true friendship and love–the remedy for alienation, isolation, and loneliness)

“Haply I think on thee–and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
that then I scorn to change my state with kings.”
-Sonnet 29

(this is the solution to alienation, isolation, and loneliness, a Shakespeare prescription for what still ails many)

“Not marble, nor gilded monuments
of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme.”
-Sonnet 55

(the power of great writing, good literature–beyond the physical and ephemeral)

“Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or tends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark.”
-Sonnet 116

(if it’s ‘the real thing’, it is not subject to the forces of change; it is sustainable and a form of proof and reference simultaneously)

“Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come.”
-Sonnet 116

(ditto, with a note on aging and the passing of time)

“The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust.
-Sonnet 129

(a rather broad-based view of physical lust, but as usual candid Shakespeare is right; in this case, about the loss or waste of spirit and the extremes of lust)

“All that glisters is not gold.”
-Merchant of Venice

(we’ve all been there; if it looks too good…, the deceptiveness of favorable appearances; also, this quote is about true value and how it is not necessarily guaranteed in the case of materialism or material acquisition)

“The dog will have his day.”
-Hamlet

(even your favorite underdog sports team may win the odd game)

“Thereby hangs a tale.”
-Taming of the Shrew

(it’s often the story that is most interesting or back of whatever event; we have all lived, told, read, and heard stories; story is a basic metaphor for our lives, much as in the previous play metaphor quotes of Shakespeare)

“If it were done, when ’tis done, then ’twere well
it were done quickly.”
-Macbeth

(excluding murder, one sometimes needs to take decisive action and this is often best done quickly for various reasons, especially in the case of decidedly unpleasant stuff)

“Dost thou think because thou art virtuous there shall be no more cakes and ale?”
-Twelfth Night

(the moral of Prohibition: people will continue to pursue pleasure even if you encourage them to do otherwise; that is, human nature is what it is and some people cannot be changed; temptation and pleasure-seeking are non-stoppable)

“I must be cruel only to be kind.”
-Hamlet

(presumptuous Dr. Phil stuff–very popular these daze; ‘tough love’; but we sometimes ‘have people’s better interests at heart’ when making tough decisions and choices)

“I am not what I am.”
-Othello

(more on the deceptiveness of appearances; the basic irony of evil, too)

“For ’tis sport to have the enginer
Hoist with his own petard”
-Hamlet

(it can be pleasurable to outwit others, especially those that are trying to exploit, manipulate or destroy us)

“More matter with less art”
-Hamlet

(“Brevity is the soul of wit’ revisited; a plea for substance since style is ‘easy’ and can get in the way of communication or the message)

“What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals.”
-Hamlet

(more ‘on a good day’ stuff; can be true–inspirational stuff; after all, there is art, charity, law, civilization, etc.)

“There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow.”
-Hamlet

(one of those heads-ups; a call to pay attention to ‘signs’; maybe we are getting ‘messages’, maybe there is a greater, larger, unseen plan)

“Who steals my purse steals trash.”
-Othello

(Shakespeare, cynically, on money; what’s it worth? as this play points out, when contrasted to honour and reputation, for instance; there are far more valuable, important and essential things than mere money; “All that glisters…”)

“But I have that within which passes show.’
-Hamlet

(most people do; but we often judge on the basis of physical appearance; as Hamlet later points out and as Iago pointed out, appearances can be faked and both characters get into that ‘game’)

“I do not know
Why yet I live to say this thing’s to do,
Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means to do ‘t.”
-Hamlet

(laziness? procrastination? uncertainty? indecision? fear? cowardice? There are many reasons why people put off doing what they should do)

“The time is out of joint–O cursed spite,
that ever I was born to set it right!”
-Hamlet

(it ain’t gonna be easy, but someone’s gotta ‘bell that cat’ or take out Claudius in Hamlet’s case; there are always difficult things or dilemmas that ‘hang us up’; often the question simply becomes ‘Uh, who else is going to take care of biz’? The fact of the matter is that we may not like or relish the roles we are/seem cast in)

“To be, or not to be, that is the question.”
-Hamlet

(not just a question of whether to live or die and why; also about being in the sense of taking action or becoming what one needs to become–basic stuff again)

“What’s done, is done.”
-Macbeth

(ironically, not really in this tragedy; at other times, yes, kaputsky–something is over, fini and can’t be revisited or changed down the road)

“The whirligig of time”
-Twelfth Night

(doesn’t that image give some sense of time flying and the neverending swirl of days and years? What Joni Mitchell called “The Circle Game”–we’re all “on the carousel of time”)

“Now is the winter of our discontent”
-Richard III

(your typical Canadian winter with accompanying ennui and snow-shovelling)

(the first thesaurus I owned in school)

Below are subject-highlighted Roget words relative to positive and negative human qualities or character development. Words were grouped on obvious/majority number of sub-synonyms leaning toward positive or negative.

Negative (These 87 qualities and tendencies would produce a rather flawed, negative person or negative conflicts.)

absence
accusation
affectation
asceticism
attack
avoidance
badness
blindness
boasting
changeableness
cheapness
cold
concealment
contempt
cowardice
death
debt
deception
dejection
depression
descent
destruction
deterioration
detraction
difficulty
disagreement
disapprobation
discontent
discourtesy
disjunction
disobedience
disorder
disrepute
disrespect
doubt
error
evil
failure
falsehood
fear
guilt
hate
hindrance
idolatry
ignorance
illegality
imperfection
impiety
imprecation
improbity
impurity
inactivity
indifference
ingratitude
injustice
insanity
insolence
insubstantiality
irascibility
killing
limit
loquacity
malevolence
misjudgement
narrowness
negation
neglect
nullification
opposition
ostentation
pain
parsimony
punishment
rashness
resentment
retaliation
ridicule
selfishness
servility
severity
stealing
unskillfulness
uselessness
vanity
violence
vulgarity
waste

Positive (On the other hand, these 77 words are qualities or values which appear to produce positive behaviors, growth, and character development.)

activity
affirmation
agreement
aid
approbation
arrangement
ascent
assent
atonement
attention
beauty
benevolence
breadth
care
cheerfulness
cleanness
coherence
communication
completion
compromise
cooperation
courage
courtesy
curiosity
direction
durability
duty
economy
elegance
endearment
facility
forgiveness
freedom
friend
giving
good, goodness
gratitude
greatness
hope
imagination
improvement
innocence
intellect
intelligence
justice
knowledge
life
light
love
moderation
motion
pacification
penitence
pleasure
preservation
probity
reasoning
rejoicing
respect
restoration
sanity
sensibility
sociality
stability
sufficiency
success
teaching
thought
truth
undertaking
vindication
virtue
vision
whole
wit
wonder
youth

(the author of the first modern novel about anarchists and terrorism)

Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent is a far more modern and relevant book than any of his others. His understanding of evil, ‘chaos theory’, terrorism, agendas, madness, and anarchy are second-to-none among the great novelists most people in our society no longer, ironically, need.

In his time, ‘blowing up’ science was the choice for the power-monger/games-players to get attention and to instill fear into society. (There had also been an unsuccessful actual attempt to blow up Greenwich Observatory in Conrad’s day.) Greenwich, in the author’s time, had also just been chosen as the primal meridian for mean time and, as such, was laden with positive, successful connotations about what modern man or science then could do or was capable of.

Today, of course, we see this kind of terrorism in cyberthugs taking down e- and Internet systems as well as corporations, stores, and banking, who have figured out that people today have placed absolute faith in online security systems and that major chaos and disruption will occur if the cyberthugs choose. The wanna-be-powerful-and-controlling (These agendas all come down to mad gaining-power-and-controlling-others types of agendas) kook who tried to “take the (Canadian) hill” in Oct. 2014 demonstrates one other modern Terminator-style manifestation of Conrad’s agent provocateur.

The third type of modern secret agent is the typical Al-Qaeda/ISIS nutcase who, like the previous two modern types, believes he has the ultimate truth and religious righteousness on his side and so he will exterminate anyone else who is different from him. As Auden said in “There Shall Be No Peace”, these bigots ultimately “hate for hate’s sake”, much like the central character of The Professor in Conrad’s book, who walks the streets of late Victorian London, wearing dynamite with his hand clutching a squeeze ball to blow himself and others up to smithereens if and when he feels like it.

Running through Conrad’s book is an underlying sense of sordidness, absurdity, imminent chaos, and sheer madness about his time, modern times, human beings, and those who would disrupt and annihilate Western civilization if they could.

I think maybe the best aspect of Conrad’s book is how it was and still is a relevant wake-up call as to the nature of how serious all these political problems potentially are. Many of us blithely live our lives dreamily or relatively unconscious about forces that threaten the stability of society, culture, and Western civilization. We are largely unaware of the depths, range, and nature of the destructiveness embedded within our midst and world.

In a parallel way, there has always been people trying to sell others, trying to impose their will on others. You need look no further than the past century of advertising and selling to find close-to-home examples we now take for granted in our lives. Politicians, too, have long tried to gain control and power over masses of people. Most divorces, separations, and child custody fights are about the same struggle, domestically-speaking. As are lawsuits in which one party or side tries to gain control over an individual or others. In other words, the power-and-control theme or script is already well-known to all, and a common motif in our world.

In response to the Parliament killing, Canada has taken a position of uniting and standing up against the irrational, mad savages. This is, it goes without saying, a very good, rational, and necessary thing. This is war stuff after all. ‘Us vs. Them’. Ironically, this is the one and only thing we can agree on and reasonably/minimally do, as individuals, against the forces of the irrational evil so presciently forecast and understood by a writer, who understood man’s potential and real heart of darkness perhaps better than any other writer since.

………………………………..

“We have met the enemy and he is us.”–Pogo (famous newspaper comic character by Walt Kelly)

ps/William Golding, Aldous Huxley, and George Orwell would be three other writers who show us the same kind of agenda-ed power-and-control stuff.

Our lives and any moments or situations you care to name are simply a combination and interaction of three things: process, context, and choice. Life and its many episodes consisting of seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, and months is nothing more than a process–a long series of never-ending moments that unfold in a person’s life. We talk of life process whether we are describing a man, a pelican, a tree, or the ocean. Process can be applied as a concept to many things: the history of a nation, a procedure such as a medical operation, or a stage in one’s life such as adolescence.

Context is simply the situation one finds oneself in whether one is a child in a day-care centre, a career woman encountering a “glass ceiling” in the work world, or a group of oppressed people within a repressive political regime. Context can be personal, social, political, religious, medical (as in the case of having an illness or condition), and so forth. Context is what we, as individuals, are presented with at any given moment, what we find ourselves in. Sometimes the context is familiar, as in waking up in the morning and making our breakfast. Sometimes it is unfamiliar or unstructured, as in when a concert-goer finds himself being pushed to the front of the stage by an enthusiastic crowd. All contexts frequently require response and choice, especially in the face of obstacles or crisis.

Confronted with the never-ending flow of our days and process, and the fact of similarly morphing contexts, we have but one way to respond—via choice. Some Existentialists suggested that the important thing in life was the fact of personal choice. Victor Frankl, the Austrian psychiatrist who wrote movingly of World War II concentration camp experiences, said much the same thing about those personal choices we will into being, especially in contexts of conflict and crisis.

To a large extent, our choices finally define us, whether they are ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ If you want to understand others, consider their choices and decisions. What do they choose to do? How have they chosen to live their lives? What other choices might they make or have made? And what, then, of our own choices? How and why do we choose as we do? What do those choices say about us, our values, and beliefs, and the unique individuals we all are? Understanding our choices can move us forward in our lives. As novelist George Eliot once said, “The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.”

Give us this day our daily process/es.

Our moments, hours, days, months, and years are made up of various processes we are part of or that we participate in. We are, at any given moment, at specific spots in these processes. Most processes we personally choose and continue to experience be they education, learning, work, relationships, home ownership, child-raising, owning a car, looking after various aspects of our health, banking, travelling, and so forth.

Often, processes come down to continuity, communication, development, personal growth, ‘getting things done’, attending to ‘unfinished business’, addressing ‘missing pieces’, learning, making necessary changes, and abandonment. Ultimately, as mentioned in a previous entry on process, context, and change (June 18/2014), process necessitates choices. These choices define us–who and what we are. We can limit, broaden, or free ourselves accordingly with these process choices.

An Irving Berlin song in Holiday Inn (1942) is definitely a favorite self-defining song in my life. There is much that I look back on now that “stood me in good stead’ (as Glen Kirkland used to say) over the long years.

-an outstanding mother who worked very hard to keep our homelife together and to protect and support me
– a true soulmate-spouse who’s stuck with and supported me from 1967 on
-an outstanding pair of kids who are two of the most unique, caring, hard-working, entertaining people I know
-the lucky break of getting into senior-high English teaching for 30 years teaching what I loved about language, literature, literacy, books, and ideas
-the fluke of becoming one of Canada’s most prolific and successful senior-high authors and editors from 1980 to 2007, having my 50 texts and guides used in all provinces
-the privilege of sharing with several thousand ELA teachers across Canada from 1980 to 2010, giving workshops and presentations
-the equal privilege of heading several bands and musical groups publicly performing hundreds of times in a wide variety of settings from 1968 to 2016
-the chance to create two totally unique blog-websites: one on my journey of personal consciousness, the other (totally unique) a vlog on Can Lit books prior to this millennium
-the ability, since retirement, to freely follow my bliss to collect rare and ltd. ed. books, movies, audio recordings (including spoken word), coins, and stamps
-the good fortune of growing up relatively free in childhood, my teen, university years, followed by an early retirement at 52, now in my 16th year of freedom from bosses and limiting work situations
-the opportunity so far to remain relatively alive and healthy despite various ongoing health problems in treatment

Late Additions:

-living out the dream of going to New England twice in the ’80s to explore its many famous writers                                                                                                                                         -meeting the right kind of influential people and role models in my formative years  -meeting as many famous people as I have through reading, by correspondence and in person (the latter ranging from Janis Ian to Jimmie (“Honeycomb”) Rodgers               -being able to get close to natural beauty as much as I have                                              -performing on the Edmonton poetry scene since the ’80s

…………………………………….

It’s been a wonderful, happy, successful life thus far. ‘As they say’, I have no regrets and no unfinished business. Each day always has numerous possibilities with built-in leisure and doing many things I still enjoy doing. And I have more focus than I ever had before to make the choices which are fun, interesting, as well as useful to others.

It’s funny. You hear so many complain about their lives and all their various regrets and missing pieces, but I can’t subscribe to that thinking anymore. Eventually I did all the main things I wanted to do in life and I still have opportunities to continue doing what I like and have prioritized. I fully accept that the world is in other hands (and that includes the U.S., Canadian, and Edmonton problems). I’ve now been where I wanted to be and strived to be so many years ago. I know myself and have filled my life up with what resonates and signifies.

When you get down to it, one’s life is one’s life. You have to live it your way as much as possible, make your various marks, and then be free to explore life beyond work and jobs. Life is much better and best when you can make your own free choices and live life the way you always wanted to on your own terms. When you get to this stage, life just becomes the daily ongoing focusing and everything else takes care of itself. But yes, freedom of choice is the key to wonderland and following your bliss.

(Mill Woods, January 11, 2019)