What truly is life?

Life is not what I thought it would be, or rather, I’ve learned that the idyllic life I was expecting to lead is better in some ways, but horribly cruel in others.  This intangible subject of life is one that I ponder often.

My lovely bride and I discuss this subject frequently and it never seems to come to a satisfactory conclusion.  We both agree however that life is not what we expected.  Stepping back to when I was a kid, like most of us, the future was wide open.

*Into the great wide open
Under them skies of blue
Out in the great wide open

That was me and possibly you.  Well, it didn’t turn out quite like that did it?  After high school and four years in the Air Force I gave my life to Jesus Christ, married a local beauty, had two loving children, and spent 37 long years working shift work in the chain link fenced area of a chemical plant.

It is hardly what I expected out of life, but in other ways, extremely rewarding.  The upside was I brought a great measure of security to my family.  I acquired new skills and property.  I worked thousands of hours of overtime.  I learned to repair computers.  I became a writer and author.  In exchange for all this work and commitment, I lost out on family time and this was the downside.

Passing through most of my adult life without serious loss probably put me in the minority, as all of us learn that life can deal us a hand that makes it almost impossible to go on.  Loved ones, friends, and people who are special to us… die.  That’s something that can be so debilitating that our own death seems preferable.

I have a friend who awoke next to his wife of many years only to realize she had passed in the night.  My heart pours out to this fellow and I’m sure his view of life is quite dismal.  I pray the up in his life comes quickly.

I absolutely hate depression or depressing subjects and this is why I couldn’t get through more than a season or so of the award-winning television show, Breaking Bad.  Someone suggested I watch the series Dexter, because “It is so exciting!”  Nope.  One minute into season 1 Episode 1 and I shut it off.  Instead I turned it over to channel 16, our local municipal access channel and watched the Texas Parks and Wildlife’s presentation on prairie chickens, of all things.

Wanda Orton’s column on the antics of Rufus Honeycutt’s father at the Brunson, is the way I choose to see life in the future.  I know there are more setbacks ahead, but I want to see the up coming, even if it means picking myself up off the deck and shaking the dust off after a down.

As a youngster, teen, and man in my twenties, I had no real clue that life for the most part is what I make of it and how I choose to view it.  Guess what folks?  A whole lot of what we see as life is by choice, not necessarily by chance.  Sure, every once in a while a foul ball comes into the stands and there’s not much you can do but cover your face, but this is the exception and even if you are hit, life goes on.

For years I led my life pretty much like an anchorless boat following the current, not realizing that with a little preparation, I could add a rudder and a small motor and danged-well go where I chose.

I can walk into my work place with a good attitude and greeting, or do like most of my coworkers and not even offer a salutation or claim to begin life at the end of their shift.  They are still in the boat drifting and I have a motor.  I’ll take the first choice every time.

Someone said that for every up, there is an equal down.  I think it was the guy who invented the third iteration of Fig Newtons, but I’m not sure.  If you think about it, this is an example of life.  We should be taught as children to not seek a life of pure pleasure and be toughened against adversity.  I don’t rightly know how this can be done in our modern society.  Back in the day, kids had chores and jobs while going to school.  Now they are home more than their parents.

They occupy themselves with anything that can pass the time and it is all based on pleasure.  When the “Fam” can finally get together, it’s time for more pleasure, to “bond the family”.  When anything tragic happens, the kids need counseling, as they are totally unprepared to deal with even the smallest obstacle.

No, life is not what I expected in so many ways and yet, I still have my faith, family, and friends to bolster me and carry me through the low places.  If you are in one of these terrible depths, take heart; you can be sure there is an up coming your way.  It’s Newton’s third law.

* Tom Petty – Into The Great Wide Open

LIfe by Levi McAllister

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Levi is a friend of mine and lives in Baytown, Texas.  He is currently serving our country in the US Navy.  Leave a comment for him on his YouTube page.
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Each Minute of Each Hour of Each Day

In our busy day to day speed-living, the real fulfilling moments of life are as of yet undiscovered, contrary to everything we think or are led to believe. We WANT to believe we are getting fulfillment, but are we? I think not.

By all appearances our individual lives, while arguably peculiar, are still very predictable. Days go by with no apparent change and we are lulled into a semi-stupor state of existence by the mundaneness of it all. We think we are progressing.

Driving to work and listening to the radio drags into a daily routine of zzzzzz and one day leads into a stream of days which becomes a gray area of passed months - and before we know it a whole year has passed…or years have passed.

It’s now February 2009 and yesterday folks were concerned with George Orwell’s 1984 or Y2K. Remember Y2K? We blinked twice and it passed.

How do we get off this Merry-go-round, or how do we bust out of this non-stop cornucopia of blitzkrieg activity and experience a defined sense of enlightenment? Do we need to shave our heads and don orange robes? Ohm ohm. Not me. Can we drive somewhere, get out and blam!, it happens? If it were that simple, we could buy it in the 7-11 stores by now and then it would be cheapened and undesirable.

I stepped out into the chilly thirty-eight degree weather Thursday night and looked up at the star-filled sky. On the horizon, the planet Venus was a few degrees above our beautiful crescent moon. For a fleeting moment I felt I was there with the ancients observing the same celestial display that held them captivated centuries ago. I was there, even though I was here. It was a special moment.

It’s all around us and it’s all going by and it’s up to us to seek after it. No one can do it for us.

Most of us greet each day in a series of sameness, never realizing we are living our lives minute by minute and the quality of our life is dictated by whether we choose to savor it. We are waiting for something big or someone special to stimulate our consciousness and each hour of each day passes without a realization that our state of mind is dependent on us and us alone.

I contend that a moment of blinding truth is worth more than a wheelbarrow of hundred dollar bills and that special moment, that moment when and if it is realized, is probably harder to attain than the load of money. Nevertheless, the money is what we are taught to desire. The great American industrialist, J. Paul Getty is quoted as saying he would give all his vast fortune for “just one happy marriage”. To him, the money, which he had fifty billions of, was nothing without happiness and happiness was something that eluded him. He chased the wrong thing.

Aside from a religious experience or conversion, or maybe a close call with the Grim Reaper, most of us rarely get a peek into real inspirational thinking and I am no exception. My friend and fellow columnist, Jim Finley wrote about writing something truly magical, if I may loosely use that term and I agree with him one hundred per cent.

Maybe, just maybe, someday I will write something that is revelatory and is passed down as worth reading. “Son, read this. It will make a difference in how you think”.

The great Indian sage, Mohandas Gandhi never attained what he was looking for, even though others gladly called him Mahatma, or Great Soul. Gandhi never liked the title, as he felt he didn’t deserve it and in all his works and wanderings, true enlightenment eluded him, according to his own words. The same can be said of Ben Franklin and Ben was considered by many, as the greatest scientist of the eighteenth century. What chance do we have then? Much, in every way, as these great men didn’t recognize it when they saw it.

I dream of the moment when a few divinely-guided chemical synapses pop inside my head and all the pieces of life’s great puzzle are suddenly revealed. Sometimes I feel like I am at the door, only for it to fade and I am left wondering if it will ever come back. The answer is so close, like a parallel universe, but unattainable and mysterious.

So, in the meantime, I will pause and reflect and maybe, just maybe…