Clear The Stage

It is always in season for old men to learn.

Aeschylus
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The boards have stories to tell. Great humor and great tragedy have been told on the bare boards of the stages in the world. Those boards have supported the feet of some of the greatest players on earth and some of the worst. Those boards have heard it all. If only those boards could talk.

After the show closes the properties are gathered up, the lights are taken down and the scenery is struck. Nothing is left but the boards, cleared, ready and waiting for the next production to be mounted on them. There's an old saying in show business,"Give me a bare board and a passion." It is a description of the actor's life in it's simplest and most fundamental form.

One thing this old man has learned is the importance of reducing life itself to it's fundamental forms. Most of our lives is lived by obligations. "I gotta do this, I gotta get there, I gotta do that."

"Duty, duty must be done
The rule applies to everyone,
And painful though the duty be
To shirk the task were fiddle dee dee."
(W. S. Gilbert)

We fill our lives with duties and obligations because that's what we're used to. We've been programmed to find things we have to do, deadlines we must meet and tasks that can't wait. And that is accompanied by the horrifying thought that if we didn't fill up our days with things we "gotta do" what would happen to us. It's a void we don't want to face.

The specifications for a healthy, contented life are so much less than the rigors we force ourselves through, the unnecessary knots we tie around our freedoms, freedom to live and to think.

I like being busy. I didn't retire to sit around and do nothing. The freedom of retirement is that I can sit around and do nothing if I want to. But it is also the freedom to busy myself with things that matter to me. When the alarm clock in my mind went off the other day I awoke to two fundamentally important things to do. One, clear the stage. Two, prepare for the next show. To relinquish all the obligations and duties I am not required to perform and to make room for joy.

DB - The Vagabond
Never give up.
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SUMMER IS COMING !!!!!

SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)

Come on. 11 diverse and interesting answers so far. Where's yours?

NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.

Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?

dbdacoba@aol.com

I eagerly await your answer.

DB
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**********************
SUMMER IS COMING !!!!

SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)

Come on. 11 diverse and interesting answers so far. Where's yours?

NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.

Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?

dbdacoba@aol.com

I eagerly await your answer.

DB
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