Helping Hand

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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Being young is a fault which improves daily.

Swedish proverb
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Yesterday I was lamenting to two people I know that a man like me, who has some years on him, financial and physical limitations, who no longer has a car or a drivers license and who lives in a small bedroom community where everything is spread around has a difficult time being able to do things for people. I have a continual urge to help people who need and can use my help, whatever it may be. It's a question of find a way and a place to "invest my humanity" as Schweitzer put it. But I feel so hampered by things in my life that I'm frustrated.

The artists group, of which I am member, just raised a little money to send to the Red Cross in Japan, and I'm glad to have been a part of that. However, appeals come in to my mail box almost every day from organizations that really are doing good things in the world. But all my extra funds go to paying off the debts imposed on me by plundering banks who do almost nothing to aid the world's needy.

I'm only 72. My goals are still outward and forward. I'm still a progressive thinker, I hope. It is not my desire to lie back, be taken care of and entertained, which is why I didn't and couldn't sign myself over to that assisted living/nursing home last year.

I could give people advice about some of life's lessons, but no one asks me for it. Besides most of the people I know are about my age and the best we could do is sit around shaking our heads and saying "Yes, yes. That's the way it is."

I've never been an ivory tower dweller, never had that advantage. I'm a vagabond, which means I may move on, but as long as I'm alive I'm a thinking, caring member of the human race and I recognize that we all have an obligation to take care of each other in whatever ways we can.

As an artist I know how important it is to maintain a child's heart, to never let go of curiosity and wonder about life, to allow myself to be surprised and to make room for joy. The advantages of being older is to have gained a greater understanding of things we took for granted when we were young or hadn't developed a sensitivity to, and compassion for the courage and ingenuity of our fellow beings.

As Pope Paul VI put it "The older the fiddler, the sweeter the tune."

DB - Vagabond Journeys
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Never give up.