There is no original truth, only original error.
Gaston Bachelard
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Are you there?
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It puzzles and often frustrates me how many different ways I can get things wrong. I, like many, can be very inventive and imaginative about how I screw things up. "Let me count the ways." No, let me not.
When I was a lad of about 8 years old a kind friend of my mother sent me to summer camp. The camp counselor was a Native American and so we had a lot of activities that were of an Amerindian nature. We all had Indian names. I was "Long Arrow." There was a lake with canoes, a wigwam, a circular pow wow place with a bonfire, horseback riding and archery. I enjoyed the archery and I was good at it, more or less. Mostly less.
The problem was that I would either hit the bulls eye or else I would completely miss the target. There was no in between. That action has become a metaphor for my life. I have occasionally hit the bulls eye but I have done a lot of missing the target.
The people I've chosen as friends or lovers, auditions I've been through, jobs I've taken, places I've gone, turns I've made, roads I've taken, things I've said, letters I've written, advice I've given, theories I've held onto, opinions I've defended, things I did or decided not to do, an endless list of errors that are all stacked up in my archives in the file marked "Arrows in the Grass."
Life doesn't unfold in a nice neat pattern, even though we might wish it to and often willfully try to make it so. I think the easiest thing in life to do is to get things wrong, to make a mistake. Nothing is simpler. Most of the time the mistake is a small and forgivable one. But sometimes it's a big one. Those are the ones we remember because we have to live with the consequences, either in daily life or in regrets.
And that's why it is so important to air out and don the garment of self-forgiveness. When you are facing one of life's targets remember there is a bulls eye, and the rest of the vast, unlimited universe is not it.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
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May this day be an adventure.
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AUTUMN QUESTION
This is not a contest.
If you could be remembered for one thing, what would it be and why?
You have all Fall to answer if you wish,
Reply here or at dbdacoba@aol.com
2 responses so far
Thank you
DB
3 comments:
I'm still here
when I was 7 years old
my mother lied
and said I was eight
so, she could send me off
to camp for 2 weeks
I liked archery, too
I like to believe that life can be like archery, the more we practice, the more we hit the target, with even more in the scoring zone. I find that my decisions now result in fewer challenges and opportunities than previously, will not call them mistakes because they are all learning opportunities.
I love the Arrows in the Grass analogy. I'm sure we all have plenty of those! :)
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