To thine own self be true

–Alexander Stoddart

natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them–that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
–Lao Tzu

–Henry David Thoreau

Like images from Shakespeare’s tragedies.
Freezing and frozen iguanas falling out of Florida trees because of cold and snow.
Baby bats dying as they fall from trees in excessive
Australian heat and fires.
The unnatural craziness of Nature today.

Living through the seventies, I had more than my share of second-hand smoke. Everyone smoked and it was everywhere. I still attribute many of my worst respiratory moments at home in the ’50s to ’60s to my parents’ chain-smoking.

From 1972-1975, my clothes stank from second-hand smoke from all the bars, lounges, auditoriums, and halls I played in with my bands. My greatest fear performing was that I would lose my voice from all the pollution before we finished playing.

The fog was literally at every social event, in restaurants, bars, universities, on planes, boats, and trains everywhere. Amazingly, thanks to start-up groups like GASP (Group against smokers’ pollution), the pendulum began to swing the other way with bans gradually coming to all the places named above. I still recall being laughed at in a staff meeting when I wore a GASP button. Smoking was that entrenched and taken for granted as a privilege and right everywhere.

*One of the reasons I gave playing in bars was the smoke (to say nothing of the de rigeur drinking before and after sets). I’m sure my lungs or liver would have given out before the ’70s ended if I had pursued what was a possible career in performing in bands.

People born after 1975 have no idea have prevalent and widespread smoking was. It killed millions, including my parents and a musical friend who stayed in bar performing. So many innocents were killed by it ultimately, too. Now and then. The right to breathe clean air. About to be reassaulted by Trudeau’s marijuana bill. The air outside is about to take another hit infringing on the rights of others all over again. Full circle. “When will they ever learn?”

(The Father of The Essay Genre)

“No pleasure hath any savour unless I can communicate it.”–Montaigne

One key model and influence for this discursive blog has been the famous French writer who changed Western civilization writing with the first essays, appropriately called Essais–the height of humanistic communication–published in 1580 and 1588. There is much of his approach I have consciously/subconsciously adopted and followed as my m.o. the past two years.

Montaigne reclusively worked in solitude and inwardly remained very free, his own man. He was solidly engaged in the examination of himself and others as they reciprocally illuminated and clarified one another. Although he was classically trained and academically theorized, he was also inclined, balancedly, to bring personal experience and observation to bear about his opinions on life and human nature. He aimed to tell the truth, even if some of it was unpleasant or unflattering to others.

Ultimately, he created a rounded, brimming self-portrait via his personal discursive essays which rambled like spirited one-man conversation, not unlike that of Socrates. This offered others glimpses not only into him, but into others and themselves. A process similar to Montaigne coming to know man better, then better understanding himself, as a representative of mankind. Above all, he aimed to discover universal truths about life experience and human nature.

As I continue to follow and express the seemingly never-ending flow of daily topics, I often imagine how much Montaigne would have enjoyed the blogging experience and the similar pleasures of having a Read-Only blog. There is a sublime pleasure to consciousness and expressing it for oneself and others. Still best of all is when creativity is ‘automatic’ with pieces ‘writing themselves’,  and, even better, affirming the positive possibilities of human nature and life experience.

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As I have sometimes said to others, if you wish to know, understand, and appreciate me better, then check out my blog. A self-portrait indeed.

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Above, pictured, the 1283 p. Penguin ed. of M’s best 107 essays. Highly recommended.

(do a closeup for main titles)

from Vienna always sends me scrambling for the most beautiful music I know–a 6 CD best of Strauss family set which starts playing here every Jan. 1 while the tree and decorations are up through all of January. This DEcca set is superb–truly transcendent, spirit-lifting music perfect for the dead of winter. Highly recommended listening for one and all. Avail yourself and savour hugely.

Yes, an actual hole forming on its way to blindness. This is one surgery which is a no-brainer. Why lose 50% of one’s vision by not having it or dragging one’s heels?
It’s only been around since 1992. Before that, people just lost the vision in that eye. (Gulp!) Takes about 1 hr. or less. Is done with local anaesthetic. They give your stomach a med to keep it under control, plus a mild sedative immediately before the surgery so you’re conscious, but not inclined to move. You can’t see much with your good eye covered, only shadows as you listen to the dr. at work. In my case, with rock music in the background and something like 6-8 assistants moving around the machine-cramped operating theatre (theatre, a misnomer that).

The main problem for recovery is napping and sleeping for 3 days and nights min. with face-down, eye covered by a shield. Try doing that on your own sometime!)
It’s a slow healing once that gas bubble is injected. 6-8 weeks. No planes, mountains, heavy lifting, driving, the whole ten yards. Bubble gone by then. I would venture an opinion that it would be impossible to do a job as usual for that time, including the driving restriction. A basic shutdown of routine for anyone in the working world.

There is more. In my case, the cataract was going to be taken out, but the dr. and I agreed that the gap in vision and prescription would be too much of a hassle during the recovery period, so it was nixed. Thus, my eyesight prescription stays the same (a plus in healing): less fuss or need for transition lenses.

The other thing is that the cataract will likely be done in 6 mos. or so, followed in a week by the other one. 2018 will likely be The Year of New Insights and Visions.
There is also a possibility (a slim one) that a hole could occur in the other eye. Uh, we’ll see, so to speak.

Anyway, lines of print no longer have half-letters or missing letters and scrunched-up sections or faces when viewed with the repaired eye. Progress. Moving forward. As usual. Dealing with whatever priority in my life.

Night, night–

It is left but for me
to draw close the tired drapes
on a cold December full-moon.
To lock the frosty doors and extinguish the lights.
To diminish the heat and halt all machines.
To take the last pills and climb the too-long stairs to bed and sleep.
The darkness and quietude happen all by themselves.
No conscious will or choice be required.
Just acceptance finally and letting go
of all that dark alone and yet to come.

There are various ‘basics’, but one I come back to more and more the past few years is that life is basically changeful, ironic, and often absurd which makes humor, survival, adaptation, and whatever forms of happiness, even simple contentment and satisfaction, essential. Beauty, curiosity, larger elevating views and passions in whatever forms continue to motivate.

I keep getting blindsided by special, kind, thoughtful offerings and actions of people. There is much unexpected and surprising goodness still ‘out there’ within the ignorance, corruption, control, injustice, unfairness, abuse, violence, needless pain and suffering, evil, and perpetual world turmoil. (Robbie Burns’ man’s inhumanity to man quote accurately reflects how millions continue to mourn and suffer, even if ‘just’ vicariously and too helplessly from a distance, though charity helps and can be a positive contribution against the Dark.)

In the end, though, one’s life is one’s world, realistically and basically, too. No one else can live it for one and one has to make one’s own choices that are right, appropriate, fitting, and fulfilling for oneself. Which takes us to attitude which colors all finally.

Ps/ a postscript about how multitudinous life’s possibilities have always been, are, and can still be. And the possibility of personal and others’ freedoms which remain so very much desirable, worth striving for, and so very basic. Yes, anything remains possible, including all that is true, good, uplifting, and beautiful.