Love Again

To love, and to be hurt often, and to love again - this the brave and happy life.

J. E. Buchrose
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Hello Bruce
******************
As one who was recently wearing a broken heart I can speak with some authority about this topic. A broken heart is a terrible thing to have. It resembles the end of life as you know it. It takes a moment to break it and takes a long time to heal. And one of the wrest parts about it is that it puts you into a state of denial. You don't want to accept that it happened because the relationship that ended was too important and you try to regain what you had even though you know in your reasoning mind it's impossible.

As Pearl Buck said "What really broke a heart was taking away its dream - whatever that dream may be."

But this time around I uncovered another even more horrifying effect. I woke up one morning having had a dream in which I was talking to some actors I used to work with about a theatre that no longer existed. One of the older actresses said "It's over. No more. Never again."

I bolted awake and sat up in a panic. I interpreted the dream as saying that in my advanced age I had just had my last chance of loving anyone. That the love that lives in my heart would never again have a chance to express itself to anyone. "No more. Never again."

I can't describe the terrifying sense of loss I went through that day, and it took a full day of stern reasoning with myself to come to understand it was a fear, not a truth. Now I can say as I put it in one of my Jottings "I loved and lost, but I will live to love again."

It takes courage to be a lover. Love is risky business. There is always the chance for a broken heart. But I like to recall a song Mabel Mercer used to sing "It's true your not the first, but maybe you'll be the first to last."

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never give up.
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Choose Your Results

If your life is orbiting around a single reference point, make it a healthy one.

Dana Bate
*************
Hello Marty
**************
Years ago, among my many other jobs, I conducted some seminars in public speaking. The seminar was in New York City. At the beginning of the first session I asked each of the participants to stand and speak for a minute about themselves and any special interests they had. One fellow spoke about his love of gambling. I lectured briefly and then we went to lunch. When we returned from lunch the man wasn't there. He didn't reappear later or on any of the other days he had paid for. I knew exactly where he was. He had talked himself into a mini vacation in Atlantic City. Obviously gambling was more important to him than learning to be a better public speaker. Gambling was evidently what his real life was about.

I know drinkers whose life is centered around sucking intoxicating liquids out of a bottle any way they can.

I know drug users whose lives defined by smoking, sniffing, swallowing some sort of dope or injecting it into themselves through a needle..

To those people losing money, getting disgusting or paranoid, sloppy and sulfuring withdrawal pains are not results but annoying intrusions on the otherwise happy times they would be having.

The danger is in just that. There is so much enthusiasm connected to whatever the particular habit is that one forgets how self destructive it is. In fact the enjoyment is so great that anything negative about it will usually be ignored.

I used to know some drug users in New York who talked of nothing else but the drugs, what they were, where they got them and when they took them and never about their families, the work or their careers.

Enthusiasm is a very good thing if it's focused in the right direction. Enthusiasm is among the first steps toward any activity. A further step is imagining and determining what the result will be of that activity. Is it a waste of money with negative and possibly dangerous outcomes? Or is it rather something that will provide a happier and better life for you and for those around you. People for whom the center of their lives is involved in working a successful business, raising a family or even tending a flower garden may have a positive, healthy point around which their lives are orbiting.

It isn't difficult to find such a focal point if one looks for the right results and strives for them. A clean, clear, positive, happy life is not found in the dope, the booze or the roulette wheel. Those are where death is found.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never give up.
****************************

New York

Everything that furthers companionship is a dress that properly clothes virtue.

Immanuel Kant
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Hello Sandy
*******************
I don't know what furthers companionship any more because I don't have any. There was a time when I lived among people I admired and was admired by them for what abilities and talents we had and how we used them. Now I live among petty criminals who are admired for their ability to go undetected. What has brought me to such a wretched state? Never mind. I don't want an answer to that. I want an answer to how I get out of here and back among people I can admire for good reasons.

There is virtue to be found in the world. I know that. But for a gregarious man like me to be stuck in a place where virtue is not a goal and a practice makes for a hard and painful life. Companionship here seems to consist of getting together and getting stoned. Where is the desire for a better life?

I seem to be living in a community of people who have given up in one way or another, as if there was no other way to live, as if there was nothing more to life than just existing until you die.

Help!! Get me away from this masquerade. I never want to fall into that mentality and have no temptation to do it. I don't fit in here, obviously. In short I'm not happy here. But where will I be happy, or at least alive?

These vagabond shoes
They are longing to stray
Right through the very heart of it
New York, New York
(Ebb)

Is there crime in New York, petty and otherwise? Of course. a lot of it. But there are also artists, actors, musicians, writers, thinkers. For every one hundred people who don't give a damn, there is one who does, and with millions of people living there that's a lot of people who care, a lot of -people to admire.

Well, it's a dream. But it's one that has occupied my thoughts most of the day, every day, since I was finally convinced. by irrational reactions to virtue itself that I live in a dead end town.

Now I have to make a long, painful walk on my crutches to do some food shopping. In New York that would be just to the corner. or on a bus. Please NYC, take me back. I'll be a good companion.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never give up.
******************************

The Fire Bird

There is a phoenix inside of you. Know what to do when the flame erupts.

Dana Bate
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Hello Ken
****************
The phoenix is a fabled bird with brightly colored feathers. Legend has it that the phoenix lives for a long time but then one day it builds a nest. Sitting in the nest it catches fire and nest and bird are both destroyed in the fire and reduced to ashes. But out of the ashes comes an egg. The egg is hatched and the phoenix emerges to live again.

There are times in life when things don't feel right. Our mood is dark and gloomy, perhaps we are having twinges of fear and don't know why. We are disturbed and confused.

Then we try to do things to compensate and erase the gloom. We may listen to some of our favorite music or go for a walk, do some shopping, or pick up a book or magazine and try to read ourselves out of our morose mood. But those things don't help.

Some people will go off to the doctor and get a prescription for pep pills of some kind, some mood altering substance, or some will drink liquor or take illegal drugs, or some similar extreme and excessive behavior all in the attempt to ignore the signs from within ourselves that something important is taking place.

THE NEST Transitions are never easy. They usually begin with an unsettling dissatisfaction with things and at first it is hard to determine what we are dissatisfied with. We may not know until a crises occurs if we keep pushing our uncomfortable feelings out of the way. But the omens are insistent enough that we finally have to pay attention to them.

THE FIRE "Put off the old man...put on the new." When it becomes clear what the transition is that is taking place we discover changes in our lives. Old things about ourselves that we are reluctant to discard suddenly become useless and are cast off and thrown into the fire. It's difficult. Memories will remind us of the fine, former feathers we used to display. Forget them.

THE EGG Then the period of adjustment comes. We have to get used to ourselves in a new light of understanding. We may feel a sense of loss. Uncomfortable memories wail come to remind usof who we used to be and will make us want to recapture some of that life.

THE BIRTH There is a definite gestation going on now and the new person is about to emerge with a fine new set of feathers and a new life. Most of the old life is still with us but now we have a different point of view about things that are important to it. When the new birth is accomplished flap your wings in joy. The gloomy days are over.

Check you Hands of the Vagabond http://vagabondhand.blogspot.com/

Dana Bate - The Vagabond
Never Give Up

The Shadow Knows

There's something about shadows because you make your own mind up about what's lurking in them.

Richard O'Brien
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Hello Stuart
*********************
Here are four interesting tales about shadows.

In early days philosophers were also mathematicians. The ancient Greek Thales was one of those. He took on the task of determining the height of the great pyramid of Egypt. Because he was a thinker he used a very simple method. He put a staff in the ground and measured its shadow. At the same moment he measured the pyramid's shadow. Just as the pyramid's shadow was so many times the staff's shadow so the pyramid was so many times the height of the staff.

I knew a photographer in New York who once mounted an exhibit of photos which she called self portraits. Intrigued, I went to see it. She had photographed her shadow, up against a wall, on the sidewalk, along a fence. on the grass and various other places. They were fascinating pictures because you wanted to know who the person was that was casting the shadow.

Another photograph I saw in a magazine was of a herd of large animals running across a field. They were clearly very big dark colored beasts in a small herd. But next to each of them was a strange thin wedge of block stripes. Each of these animals had seemingly attached to their sides that streak of black stripes. I stared at the picture for a while and then realized the photograph was taken from directly overhead at dawn or dusk when the sun was low, the stripes were in fact the necks and backs of zebras and the large dark beasts were their shadows.

In another magazine I read about two physicists who were working on an experiment trying to make a solid object so transparent that it would seem to disappear. The worked on the principle of deflecting light rays away from the object on the basis of the inability to see something which does not reflect light. Although the room was lit the object did indeed become transparent. Though it didn't disappear, it become such that they could see thorough it. It almost disappeared. But they noted that the experiment had no effect whatsoever on the object's shadow. That was just as dark as when they started.

He that dwells in the secret place of the most high shall abide under the shadow of the almighty.

Please check out my newest journal, Hands of the Vagabond at http://vagabondhand.blogspot.com/

DB - The Vagabond
Never give up.
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Hands Across The Net

Remember we all stumble, every one of us. That's why it's a comfort to go hand in hand.

Emily Kimbrough
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" Come, ye disconsolate, where'er ye languish,
here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish."
(Thomas Hastings)

I'm introducing a new journal. It has come to me that there are people out there who suffer from acute or chronic problems, physical, emotional, psychological, social, ethical and otherwise, who need to talk about them.. In many cases a person has no one they trust to talk to and it is more helpful to write things out.

I know it was palpably therapeutic for me to write out my fear and pain during my recent nightmare months of February and March. I also know that a lot of people avoided reading it because of various reasons. And it was semi public at the time.

But then I believe Guido had some success with his Calls For Prayer. My new journal is not asking for prayer but a place to weep, rage, complain, beg, plead, and give up (temporarily) if you want to.

If you have the option to write anonymously, please do that if you want to, no one will erase your entry.or refuse it. Give me your trouble, your wounded heart, your terror and your anguish. Let your words flow into the warm hands of those who care. I'll take all your good news also and celebrate with you.

The new journal is called Hand of the Vagabond and it's at http://vagabondhand.blogspot.com/

Vagabond Journeys will keep posting things of the inane, insane and germane for our reading pleaser, yours and mine.

DB - The Vagabond
Never Give Up
*********************

Don't Let It Pass

As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.

Albert Schweitzer
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Hello Sue
********************
This is a subject that is dear to me these days. An act of kindness can be a mighty thing. Kindness often appears to have some divine unction. Other times it seems to have some occult power. An act of kindness may seem to be no more important than a raindrop which has no power to vaporize hostilities, but it might, and persistent kindness most definitely will.

Thee is a story about couple who were breaking up. Too many marital problems had caused a lot of resentment and dislike between them. She was filing for a divorce. But then one day when he wasn't there she saw a pair of his shoes sitting on the floor near the closet. She thought about the man she had loved who wore those shoes, about the brave things he had done when he was wearing them and how, over time, they had been shaped to fit, to caress his feet. She polished and shined them and put them back where they were. When he came home later and noticed what she had done it was like a moment of renewal for them.

There is a problem with kindness when the person you want to be kind to is no longer in your life. There are former friends and family members I wish I could do something nice for. But they are gone. Either they passed from the scene or I don't know where they are, Love and good thoughts are fine, but we often want a hands on expression of our love.

I have a former friend in New York who is convinced I wronged him.. I didn't, but there is no way to change his mind because he won't answer my mail or my calls. And that's another problem, when two people are no longer talking to each other.

In my recent awful experience when I found that a dear friend was deceiving me and being false the friendship ended with a lot of resentment and pain. Even so, my light is always on for a simple act of kindness and reconciliation, But it will probably never happen, alas. My email is blocked. We no longer know each other.

When those opportunities are lost, when those chances pass, of divine unction and spiritual power, those moments of a simple act of kindness. When they are passed by and lost it's a tragic waste.

There is no "why" or "because" about true kindness. It just is.

Dana - The Vagabond
Never Give Up
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The Big Swim

Not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, does the enlightened man dislike to wade into its waters.

Friedrich Nietzsche
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Hello Jen
*********************
That statement could just as easily come from Lao Tze as from Nietzsche. They were both enlightened and comparable thinkers. Both were accustomed to tread into the murky, trash filled waters of pseudo science and false morality. Both could be found cleaning up the deep swamps of superstition. And they would enjoy swimming in the oceans of creativity, imagination and inspired thought.

I read both of those philosophers as well as others who have avoided the ankle deep mud puddles of tinsel intellect and waded into the deep. The most exciting part of any study that takes one into serious water is that the inspiration for ardent, progressive thought comes from the unmet and unknown community of thinkers. It is why the enlightened ones need to write and be published. Even though any language is limited in its ability to translate supreme ideas into words and symbols, the attempt to do so and the accompanying challenges from other thinkers to those ideas is what creates the commerce of ocean dwelling men and women and the sharing and gradual focusing of immortal light on the truth.

To me, in my advancement into the senior class, there is hardly any human activity more interesting than the market place of ideas as it is found in philosophy, art and science. To identify a controlling principle through understanding its expressions and to trace individual experiences, mental and spiritual, back up to a dominant principle is an ever exciting journey.

The world of pond and brook dwellers tend to think of advanced intellectuals as ivory tower types who live in a world of isolation from other thinkers. But that's a false impression. I have often said that as an actor when I see a play or a film I am watching other actors working. I know a difficult scene when I see one and I can admire how a good actor engineers his way through it. The same can be said for musicians listening to other musicians playing or artists at an exhibit of paintings. There are some fundamental ethical, psychological and metaphysical questions that all philosophers must approach at some point in their work and how they engineer their way through the questions to a proposed answer is fuel and food for another thinker. And thus the big swim continues.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
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Your Majesty

Not what I have, but what I do is my kingdom.

Thomas Carlyle
****************
Hello Bruce
****************
This is the one thousand, seven hundred and twenty third (1,723) edition of Vagabond Journeys. Some of them were lost in the great computer crash of 2006 but most of those were recovered. Others have been recycled, retooled and reedited. What have you been doing lately Vagabond?

I write everyday because I wrote yesterday and I usually have something to say of varying degrees of importance and of arguably suspicious literary skill. But what do I do the rest of the time, you ask?

Okay, you didn't ask. But I'll tell you. I paint, I fret, I read, I worry, I answer emails, I do something to try to organize my still chaotic apartment, I listen to music, I fanaticize, I feed myself, I IM with Sue or Krissy, I go for long painful walks to the market, I dream, I plan. It's a life. It's not that unlike many other people's lives. But it's my life.

If you had to give up your possessions what would you miss the most? Your clothes, your books, you pictures? What about your freedom? That is probably the most valuable possession you have. The freedom to work and earn money, to pursue happiness, to live the way you want to, to raise a family, to be involved in causes you believe in, to worship, to hold opinions and express them, those gold and silver coins of your realm are some of the sacred freedoms civilization owes to civilized people who don't try to destroy it.

Freedom of expression is of particular importance to me. It is quite likely the greatest possession I have. It is not only vital to my being it is what I do, and have done 1,723 times so far. I can't imagine what my life would be like if some potency emerged to prevent me from writing, from painting, from expressing my thoughts and feelings, from doing what I do, from reigning safely and supremely in my kingdom

I say take stock of your possessions, of the innumerable things you do, the things you do today because you did them yesterday, the things that for you are the most important to be done and let those things be the measure of your royalty.

Dana Bate - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
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Empty Tank

Dig the well before you are thirsty.

Chinese proverb
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Hello Rose
**************************
You've heard of the U of HK, otherwise known as the University of Hard Knocks. We have all been matriculated into it at one time or another. The lessons we learn there are things we could have learned if instead we had enrolled in The Institute of Higher Reason. `

There is a professional theatre in this town. As an actor I performed at that theatre off and on for 14 years. The audiences come from all over and as far away as Philadelphia. But they don't come from the local community. I played major roles and large supporting roles but whenever I spoke about it with any of the local people, even the artists in the town, no one saw any of my work.

Sometimes life is like getting an envelope in the mail and when you take it to your desk and open it there's nothing inside. It's addressed to you but it's an empty envelope. And that's quite the way I feel these days around here. I live in a place devoid of ideas, drugged up and dulled down. Attempts to establish myself as a member of a community based on who I am and what I've done are futile since no one knows any of it. They don't love me. They don't hate me. They are just indifferent. The worst kind of treatment there is.

I want to be back in New York to pick up on my acting career. While here I've done a lot of writing and some painting, so I haven't been idle, but I need to be where it matters. The only thing I fear is not ever having achieved my potential, accomplished what I know I'm capable of or receiving the recognition I know I deserve.

As I wrote to Jon today the big fault in my thinking was that I did not provide an escape route for myself. Now at last (even after "at last") I'm desperate to get out of here and get with people for whom life is important, who challenge the sunshine to play, who can grow enthusiasm in the palms of their hands.

And today, since I did not provide a means of escape when I had the chance escaping and finding a happy place to be seems an impossibility. I'm trying to begin my journey with an empty tank. Many good people are wishing me well and will utter a Bon Voyage. But there are no doors open to receive me yet and no gas in the tank. Such a dilemma.

All the evidence available, a years lease on a large apartment full of furniture, crippling physical problems, no health insurance of any kind and very little money, would discourage any sane man from trying such a move. But since I'm a certifiably crazy old vagabond I'll do it.

I have to.
-------------------------
DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
***********************

Foul

I'm in a foul state of mind and I don't feel like writing anything nice, so I won't.

I'm sick to my stomach and up to my nose living in this dead end, drugged up town. I want freedom. I want to get out of here. I want to get back to New York, the only place that interests me. I want to get out of debt, get healthy and go back to work. And everything I've done since January has been aimed at that. But very little has come of any of it.

The wonderful Linda Reboh renoodles1@comcast.net who doesn't live next door, has driven over here time and again to help me with a lot of things. She's an artist who makes and sells fascinating jewelry. She deserves some thanks and appreciation on my behalf. If it weren't for Linda and a few of the other artists whom I almost never see, I would be talking to the culturally self satisfied, the mentally settled, the morally unconcerned. This is not a community of ideas.

Considering a large apartment full of furniture and books, in a town I don't want to live in any more, my debts, ill health and financial crunch the idea of stepping back on any stage with an Equity contract seems like a thoroughly impossible goal.

But I owe it to myself to accomplish all I can in the few hours of the day. There's no use saying what I should have done 30 or 40 years ago. I did what I could, but I'm not done doing. I write. I paint, I read (lamely with a magnifying glass). It isn't enough. I freely admit I'm frightened. Not of dying but of having wasted my life. I have to revive, revivify, restart, recreate, resurrect, renew myself. Death is the alternative.

DB
Never give up.
**********************

You Choose

We can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe.

John Newman
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Hello Lily
*********************
A belief is like a body of water. Naturally we should keep an eye on our beliefs because they tend to affect our behavior and our points of view about many things. For some a belief is allied to a religious faith. To others they may correspond to social and ethical matters and some beliefs are coordinate with natural laws. Almost all beliefs are found tied to opinions, which are usually the product of ideas. But whatever the origins and structures of one's beliefs they should be held up for review regularly.

Naturally we should look at our beliefs to see what they are made of but we should also determine how deeply and seriously held those beliefs are. Is your belief a bird bath, a pond, a lake and ocean? The deeper the belief the more changes it can go through, and that's a good thing. Opinions change and beliefs change along with them. If they don't things get muddy and dangerous. William Blake wrote "A man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, & breeds reptiles of the mind. "

Some people suffer from the ornery ego inflated problem of being possessive about their beliefs, holding on to some threadbare idea because they don't want to challenge or be challenged for it. That man's belief is a swamp unless he runs it past his reason a few times and cleans it up.

It is permissible and quite natural to have beliefs you can't prove as long as they remain beliefs, subject to review and change, and are not stated as truth.

To choose what to believe is our right as humans. Being told what to believe by someone else is not.

DB - Vagabond
Happy birthday JSB, wherever you are.
Never give up.
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It's Time Again

Your past may be silently holding your future hostage.

Unknown
*****************
Hello Sandy
*****************
I've been thinking and writing lately about the subject of time. Time, like the concepts of up and down, left and right is a strictly human measurement based on a limited sense of existence. In most of the universe there are no lefts and rights, up and downs. And when we talk about stars we talk about how many light years they are away from us, the distance light can travel in one year. And considering the speed of light, those distances are not only inconceivable to most people but it also means that the event we are seeing happened a long time ago. And there's that issue of time again.

What we are viewing is a stars past. Based on accumulated knowledge, an astronomer may be able to predict that stars future. But in fact he will only be predicting it's present, or its recent past. We won't know its future because we don't know its present.

Now what does that say about your life? When you look at it are you looking at your past because the present hasn't caught up with you yet and are you trying to predict your future from that past.? The past is a period of time, light years away from the now. It is useless information for predicting the future. It is best discarded or tucked away for safe keeping and ignored. It may have shaped you into what you are today, but it is a poor measurement for who you will become. That will happen because of who you are and what you do today. It's OK to have happy memories of the past as long as they are kept in their places, gathering dust. Who you are is who you are today and what you think of yourself today and what you think of yourself days, months and light years from now.

There is no time. We live at an instant. We always have and we always will.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
***************************

Some Place

Isn't there some place a 73 year old single man can live in safety, peace and comfort and still maintain his independence, still work at what he loves? Is that such an impossible thing to ask?

Hold On

Hold On. Hold On. Hold On.
Never Give Up.
With terror as your companion.
Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot.
You must walk through the valley of the shadow of death.
Forever if necessary.
This is your life.
***********************
Vagabond Journeys
***********************

Writers Cramp

Most writers who wait until they are inspired to write are just waiting for the fear to subside.

Barry Mann
****************
Hello Arlene
******************
Oh come now. It's just putting works together on a page What is there to be afraid of?


Plenty.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
**************************

In The Morning

Live your life as though there is great joy to be experienced.

Meladee McCarty
**********************
Hello Linda
**********************
In the Sophocles play "Oedipus the King" Jocasta, Oedipus' wife and mother has a speech in which she states that she has come to that point in life where there can be no more joy, implying that it is a point we will all inevitably reach. The first time I heard that speech I had a strong negative reaction to it. A hopelessly joyless life may be what she looks forward to considering the tragedy that has unfolded before her. But that certainly doesn't need to mean the permanent loss of joy for all of us.

There is no joy in my life currently. It was taken from me in early February by an unfortunate set of discoveries and realizations just as Jocasta faced in her life. Though hers were much more tragic than mine the resultant disappearance of joy was the same. To find out as Jocasta did and as I did that we were living in a lie, living with a lie, for years and not knowing it is an agony of unspeakable depth.

Since that time I have been repositioning myself, mentally, emotionally and physically to rediscover the joy I had. Though I can sympathize with her I don't have the same attitude Jocasta had. I believe the joy is in me and I will experience it again.

There are many things that can deprive someone of their joy. Fear and pain are two big ones. In fact those two horros are major villains in everyone's life. And they must be fought against with vigor and persistence every day. The joy of standing on the summit of the mountain can only be attained by the dangerous struggle to climb it.

I go back to the metaphor of the radio that only plays two stations. One is blaring all the fearful thoughts that trouble me and cause me pain, and the other has the soothing voice of reason, harmony and truth. But the ornery dial keeps switching back to the negative station and if I'm not careful I find myself listening to it. One station speaks of loss, loss of joy, loss of everything, the fear of never again having the life you had. The other station speaks of life, future, freedom. joy. And that's the doctrine I accept.

The struggle against fear and loss is harder than I thought it would be but I've won enough battles to know I will win the fight, and that will be a joyous day.

Dana Bate - Vagabond
Never give up.
***********************

Wrong Be Gone

With the pride of the artist, you must blow against the walls of every power that exists the small trumpet of your defiance.

Norman Mailer
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Hello Sandy
************************
I think I've reached a fearful and dangerous point in my life where I can no longer bear complacency and acquiescence when it comes to things that are wrong and that are just loft alone to be wrong. Excuses are made, powers that have the right to cleanse and revive turn away, shoulders are shrugged and hands are raised like dolphins fins in an expression which says "What can you do?"

The opposite of good is not evil. The opposite of good is good-and-evil, the original trouble causing tree. It is that mixture of good and evil that produces a toxic cocktail which poisons the human race as it tries to survive.

At the risk of being an absolutist or an extremist, both of which I do my best to avoid, I am believing that the struggle for good, for the right, is now the most important one for me and for humanity in general. Intelligence is wasted justifying, excusing, rationalizing and not challenging the basic morality of every action and belief. As someone recently said the lesser of two evil is still evil. If a thing is wrong it's wrong and there is nothing right about it. If a thing is right it has no opposite. You can tell a thing is wrong by what it's results are. It may be pleasurable but if it eventually leads to corruption, degradation, illness, moral idiocy it's wrong, there is nothing good about it. If a thing is good it only has one result, more good.

If charity begins at home then so does righteousness. In a recent experience I saw wrong being done and justified, blandly excused, even to the point where the people who were doing it did it in such a way they convinced themselves they were doing good.

As a result of thinking abut that episode I now look more closely into my own thinking to find any place where I have woven cob webs or sent up clouds over some ethical choice that I may have on an extended leash, venturing itself into areas of my life where it doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

There's more good-and-evil in the world than I can ever stand up to and overturn. But I've grown out of gentleness putting up with the wrongs as they approach my waking steps. I worked at a camp that was unstructured. The children were all over the place and so were the counselors. The rule was a counselor was responsible for the safety of every child he could see.

Maybe I can't see, hear or feel every thought or intent of immorality as it occurs but I won't have the patience to let it pass. As an artist I owe that to myself.

DB - The Vagabond
Never give up.

Stop The Clock

When a thing is done, it's done. Don't look back. .Look forward to your next objective.

General George Marshall
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Hello Arlene
*****************************
I've been thinking about the subject of time. Time, one of the nastiest apples ever plucked from the tree of good and evil. I'm not sure if I have time to write about it this evening, It will take some time and even though I have time on my hands, it may be time to do something else. But since it's a timely subject I'll take the time to address it.

I'm beginning to believe as many forward thinking and prophetic philosophers and scientists have said, time doesn't really exist. There is no time. Time hasn't run out. It was never there in the first place.

"Stand still ,you ever-moving spheres of heaven,
That time may cease, and midnight never come."
(Christopher Marlowe)

We are tyrannized by our clocks and calendars. While time is really only a human measurement of how long it takes something to move. we shape our lives around it. And the worst part of it, the most toxic part, is that we put events into a time slot of future, present and past. But I've come to realize that there is no past. The past is gone, so it doesn't exist and therefore it doesn't require my attention nor do the memories that cloud around it.

"Behind me the branches of a wasted and sterile existence are cracking."
(Gustav Mahler)

And so they should be though one could hardly call Mahler's life wasted and sterile. But what is cracking is gone and will do what all past does, fall back into it's essence and create the present, and the present will create the future. The future, like the past, doesn't exist and it never will because all there is is the present and the present doesn't exist in time.

"And the angel...lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware...that there should be time no longer."
(Revelation)

If Mahler's life was wasted and sterile than everyone's life was also. but only if we didn't take advantage of the now. We have always been and always will be in the present moment because there is no other. Now is the only time. "Now is the day of salvation."
(Corinthians II)

Well, I can see from the old clock on the wall that it's almost time to post this. Today is the only day. Do good things today and keep on doing them.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never give up.
*****************************

Reconciliation, part 2

Dear Folks, thank you for your wise words and sound advice with which you all agree. It has been over two months but I finally got to the point where i can think of her and what she did without that wrenching pain in my gut.
------------------------------------------
It turned out that my kind and generous friend was continually deceiving me. Deception is fatal to love and friendship. Is reconciliation even possible?



Linda Smith Shook My advice~forgive but don't forget the deception.

Arlene (AJ) has left a new comment on your post "Reconciliation":
Reconciliation may be possible, but is it truly something you would want....I would be leery that something else would happen down the line. You just have to allow yourself to move forward and learn from this.
mrs.missalaineus has left a new comment on your post "Reconciliation": only if you want the door to remain open for the deception to happen again.
there is no shame in walking away from someone who is toxic to you DB.
being kind to others is not about letting them victimize you-
i hope this helps you make your peace with the situation.
Donna has left a new comment on your post "Reconciliation":
Are you familiar with the old saying, "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me"?
Don't be a victim.

Big Mark 243 has left a new comment on your post "Reconciliation":
No. Simple as that. Lose no sleep over it either.

pacifica62 has left a new comment on your post "Reconciliation":
Reconciliation is possible, but would you really want it. Can't go back to the way things were and in order to go forward you would have to deal with a lot of issues like trust, truth and respect. I am with the other readers that say cut your losses and move on. Open your heart to someone who will be kind to you.
--------------------------------------------
To forgive her is inevitable at some point. Reconciliation is near unto impossible. Some sort of revenge is absolutely not an option.

I regret not being more proactive when it all came down. I even allowed myself to be insulted, but not intimidated, by that fool of a dealer, due to my non confrontational character. I regret some of the harsh things I wrote about her. They came out of intense pain and fear. But I do not regret dropping her from my life and moving away. It was the right thing to do. "I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my god, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness."

Thank you all for your compassion and good advice.

Dana

Guardianship

So long as that strange sad cry rings out over the world, the birth pangs of an artist - all cannot be lost.

Lawrence Durrell
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Hello Jon
************************
I went to the market yesterday to get a few things. As I was leaving I passed a display of wind chimes. I stopped to try them out, There was one very fancy one made of shells, another of little bells, some traditional metal strips and pipes, and some wooden tubes. I tested them all out, listening to each of them ring and tinkle.

As I did that I noted that I was not listening for the prettiest sounding one or the one that would be most pleasing for my neighbors. I was listening for the sound that I thought best described my own character and personality as an artist. As it turned out I didn't buy one. I was on my crutches with several other items to maneuver. But I vowed to go back today or tomorrow a get one of the wooden ones, with a gentle, natural sound.

Most people would probably not think of it that way. But the world of an artist is an immediate one. As I write this I'm hearing a symphony by Franz Joseph Haydn. That music was composed in the 18th Century. The reason it is still relevant today is because the composer wasn't trying to mimic anyone. He wrote originally and immediately. He took the risk, based on his knowledge and experience as a master artist to say something new, fresh and prophetic. We thank him by still playing and listening to these creations from the true and trusted heart of that original man.

To be a serious artist is not always a joyous experience. It's an obligation. It has uncertainty and anguish built in to the process. There is great sadness over lost and discarded ideas. There is the intense struggle against an empty mind, a vanished imagination., temporary madness There is throwing yourself into the work when it is the last thing you feel you can do (every performing artist know that feeling). And, yes, there are regrets.

Every work of art has a conception, a gestation and a birth. Sometimes it's painless. Often it is not. But when it happens it is, like the birth of a human being, a reaffirmation of life. There are many forces in this world that would silence the artists, make them conform to rigid recidivism and codes of complacent inanity. The struggle is always against neglect, starvation, financial and spiritual, and ignorant disrespect and disregard. We are society's orphans.

So why would anyone be an artist? Because today's artist is the guardian of the world.
***********************************************

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
****************************

Reconciliation

It turned out that my kind and generous friend was continually deceiving me. Deception is fatal to love and friendship. Is reconciliation even possible?

The Back Porch

In order that all men be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.

Samuel Johnson
*******************
Hello Linda
*******************
"The best class room is a park bench, with you on one end and your teacher on the other." Bate

One day I interviewed a man who was engaged in a fruitless campaign to be elected President of the United States. It was pointless because he was a Republican running against the entrenched and very popular incumbent Republican President. I was only a local broadcaster but I was asked to interview this man for the Associated Press. I had made up what I thought was a formidable list of questions to ask him, but I never got to ask him any of them, except for the first one, "Why do you want to be President?"

It was a beautiful, warm day in Autumn, we sat on the back porch of a country house in northern New England, staring out at the mountains and the trees, and he spoke non stop for 2 hours. He covered every topic I thought to ask him about and more, while I recorded him on my little Sony cassette recorder.

I listened in amazement to a clearly passionate man talk about the country, his ideas and beliefs and what he would do if elected. I learned more about him, how his mind worked, how he came to his conclusions and what America really meant to him. Even though he was younger than I and I wasn't convinced of his politics, I felt as if I was in the presence of a fascinating professor.

The Associated Press wanted a one paragraph report. I couldn't possibly condense what he had to say into a single paragraph. So I didn't try. I didn't even listen to the tape. I wrote subjectively about my experience, my impressions of him and of the interview. The AP published it.

Observation, attention, watching, listening are the best tools for learning anything, and how easy it is to ignore them, to form opinions based on nothing substantial, and go off with a conceit of ignorance to face a life we don't understand.

Join me on the back porch. Let's talk.

DB - The Vagabond
Never give up.
*************************

Cause And Effect

Aim your stick, not the cue ball.

Gemine Lentine
----------------------------------
Direct the play, not the players.

Dana Bate
***************************
Hello Sandy
***************************
I wonder how many things don't get done or get done in a slip shod and sloppy manner because the doer started out with the wrong idea. There is a tendency among otherwise intelligent people to ga after an effect rather than investigating and performing the cause that brings on the effect.

Think of an aspiring rock guitarist who wants to sound like Eric Clapton. He listens to Clapton records and does his best to mimic what he hears. And maybe he does well at mimicry, but in the meantime he hasn't really learned how to play the guitar, which if he did could come up with his own sound and wouldn't have to imitate anyone.

I have auditioned with actors who had a perfectly fine speaking voice but as soon as they were presented with a script started to sound like Marlon Brando. And some women wanted to be Katherine Hepburn.

I had the unfortunate experience one hour of performing a scene for an NYU Film School directing class. I don't know if the teacher was just playing a stupid game with the class or if he really didn't know what he was talking about. I tend to think it was the latter, And the reason I think so is that I have worked with young folks fresh out of a school somewhere who have wrong and useless ideas which they learned and have to unlearn quickly if they wish to keep working..

An actor makes a choice based on his understanding of the play and the character. He acts on that choice. If a good director doesn't see and hear what he wants he will ask for a different choice, or suggest one, if he has the imagination for it. A bad director will criticize the performing of the scene without knowing the choice, which causes a lot if misunderstanding and wastes a lot of time. Going for effect instead of cause is a big mistake. Some people won't learn that lesson.

There's a story my own director/teacher told me about his teacher, Maria Ouspenskaya. She was working on a scene with an actor and the director was giving her a lot of confusing notes. Finally she said "Do I want him, or don't I want him?" The director said "You want him." "OK" she said and played the scene the way the director wanted.

We should never be blamed for missing the target. We should only be blamed for not aiming at it.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
***************************

Growing Up

I am here for a purpose and that purpose is to grow into a mountain, not to shrink into a grain of sand.

Og Mandino
*********************
Hello Ken
*********************
What style of a mountain are you? Or are you just a grain of sand like millions of others on the remote and secluded beaches of the world? I fear I'm becoming that grain myself One unfortunate but undeniable truth which perforates a hole in a person's sense of themselves is that if you think you are a humble grain of sand other people will treat you that way, crushing you under foot as they move along their pretended mountain trails.

I personally feel that I'm becoming more like a grain of sand everyday. I've lost some friends and readers. I owe so much money I can't afford health insurance so I live with my infirmaries. I live in a place where there is nothing for my talents and abilities except at the keyboard. I seem to have some readers at various places around the world: the US, Europe, Saudi Arabia, Asia.. But I don't know who they are. I sure would like to hear from some of them. Thee may be mountains out there I don't know about.

Well I'm not a grain of sand yet, in spite of the grinding down I've been subjected to in my life. The right and possibility to grow back into the mountain direction is the best cure for sand mentality. So how does one achieve mountainhood? I think there are at least two seemingly opposing geological techniques. One is to persist in doing the best one can do, never giving up. And the other is not repeating oneself, doing the same thing over again, no matter how good it is. Appetizing inspirations generally go stale after a while if they aren't subjected to constant renewal. Persistence and innovation. Those are the two horses hooked up to the wagon.

After one gets those two beasts of burden going in harmony, then it's time to decide on where you're going. Mark down mountain on your map of buried treasure and then draw lines to it labeled "talent," "imagination," "passion,' and one of the most important lines called "today."

Now why do I want to be a mountain? Because a mountain is a mighty and inspiring thing. It's slopes, meadows and streams provide sustenance, some people will always want to climb to your summit to learn what you know and a mountain also provides shade to the grains of sand below.

I am not a grain of sand, I'm not just another pebble on the beach, I'm not a stone wall, a pile of rocks or even a boulder. I'm hitched up, with map in hand and on my way at growing into a mountain. Join me?

Dana Bate - The Vagabond
Never Give Up
*************************

What's Right

A man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous.

Nicccolo Machiavelli
**********************
Hello Arlene
*********************
Virtue is a tough one. Don't start putting on airs, patting yourself on the back or wearing a hat that's too small for your head. Philosophers have been puzzling over this issue for centuries and leading a lot of horses to water, but most of the time, in most of the pages I've read, it is easier to coax the horses to drink than it is to tell them what the water is made of.

Let's see. Virtue is doing good. Right? Virtue is doing the best you can under the circumstances. OK? Virtue is making the right choice when faced with an ethical dilemma. Well. Is it virtuous to lie to someone in order to spare their feelings? Is it virtuous to steal in order to feed your starving family? Is torture a virtue if it is in order to obtain information that might save lives? I read somewhere that in ancient Rome there was a time when a slave's testimony could only be accepted as truth if it was obtained under torture. Is the soldier who blows the brains out of an enemy soldier being virtuous.

Here's an interesting ethical dilemma and test of virtue. A famous journalist from one country is given the privilege of reporting on the war for the International News, from behind the enemies lines. He finds out about a surprise attack the enemy is planning to make on the other army, the army of his homeland. What does he do?

Does he continue to objectively report what he sees and what happens in his capacity as trusted international journalist? Or does he warn his countrymen thereby losing his reputation, his credentials, his privilege and possibly his life? Where are his loyalties, to his profession or to his country? It's certain his respectability will be in jeopardy whichever choice he makes. But which choice is the virtuous one?

Most of us are never put into such an ethical vice, at least not on that level of severity. But it does bring up the subject of ethical choices and how they are made. Since no two human beings are alike I think it is safe to say that such choices reflect a person's individuality, point of view and life experiences. Thus one man's choice would not be another's. And in that case wouldn't it be just to say that one man's choice is going to be considered without virtue by another man, meaning that the virtuous man is living at the same water hole as the not virtuous man and yet both horses are drinking from the same stream., both justified in their choices.

Have I obfuscated the subject enough? What is or is not virtue is a complicated problem and that's why philosophers have been spending centuries on the topic. And I only spent six paragraphs.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up

Greeting

Happy Easter everyone.

The Other Side

My grudges, frustrations, resentments and jealousies will finally disappear.

Evel Knievel
***************
Hello Jon
***************
No one wants to read this. Whenever I write something that even hints at peeking under the covers of life into something that has the aroma of otherworldliness, people sense it and put a hundred miles between themselves and my vagabond journey. Well, I can't help that. Some topics need to be investigated with a torch and a shovel that most people would not attempt, not from lack of courage but most likely from lack of interest.

Robert Craig Knievel (1938 - 2007) Evel, was like a superman of the motorcycle. People called him crazy, a daredevil and that he cheated death. What was he trying to prove? Maybe nothing. But he was doing things no one else would attempt, maybe from lack of courage, but more likely from lack of interest.

I think Knievel was not "cheating death." I think he was looking death in the face and challenging it. He was living out on the edge of mortality and peering through it into the other side. And did he sometimes drive through to the other side? If so, what did he see?

Fatalists, nihilists will say there is no other side. This is all there is, what you get is what you get. And yet today the Christian world is celebrating a man who went through to the other side and returned, a man who said "If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death."

All the negatives, the mortal things, like "grudges, frustrations, resentments and jealousies" are the pathways of mortality, the stings of death, the victories of finality, but if there is something to go through, another side, a mentality where the negatives disappear in a greater understanding of existence then maybe Knieval saw it and, if so, that's why he could know that the negatives would disappear, would become nothing.

Who knows, maybe there are some "glad tidings" for us once we get on our motorcycles and get moving.

DB - Vagabond
Never give up.
*******************

The Seder

We build where monsters used to hide themselves.

Longfellow
*******************
Hello Stuart
*******************
I have been to a few Passover Seders. They are traditionally joyous events with good food, songs, games and some history lessons. You don't have to be Jewish. If you are invited to a Seder go and have a good time.

I knew a man years ago who was a full bred German. He had been conscripted into the German Army during World War Two. Even though he was a German soldier he had a lot of Jewish friends. He talked about the tension and fierceness of his life and how much he hated the Nazis. He was fortunate enough that he wasn't on the front lines or assigned to a prison camp or concentration camp. He feared constantly for the Jewish people he knew, some of whom did not make it through, and for his homeland in general..

He spoke of Hitler and the German government as being very intelligent, but brutal, sadistic and uncompromising. He said they were monsters. When the war ended and he could take off his uniform and go home he was greatly relieved.

But, he told me, there was still one more thing to do. All Jewish religious celebrations had been outlawed by the Nazi government. But with the Nazis defeated it was time to celebrate again. And when Passover came the first Seder since before the war was celebrated in Berlin. He was there, along with thousands of people, Jews and non Jews, to sing and laugh and enjoy freedom from the monsters.
,
DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
(if it's bad it will end, if it's good it will happen.)**************************


Recipe for Restored Friendship.

Risks tried.
Confessions made.
Wrongs forgiven.
Explanations offered.
Affections admitted.
Love allowed.

DB

Uplift

Times come and come again when everyone must lift up their thoughts, feelings and actions to a higher level of moral responsibility than what they are used to. Failure to do so will cause great personal pain.

On Wisdom

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

T S Eliot
(Thank you Jim)
******************
Hello George
*****************
Lately I have been concerned with some topics that often make me crawl a little bit, or a lot. The main heading on the banner that flaps above my head is the word "importance." What is important and what is not and how do we know which is which.

I look around my home and I see stacks of books, too many books. I bought the books because I considered them important. They are books about things that I consider important, or used to. I think back over the years and realize I have spent many hours in obligatory reading, too many hours. Now I have a stack of books I will donate to the library, not because they aren't important but because I will never get to them. There are some books that will never leave me until the moment I step out of the dark forest.

Then there is the time wasted doing nothing. I don't mean recreation and relaxation, sports, dinner parties, having drinks and laughs with the boys. I mean hours spent shamelessly doing nothing, Maybe years.

The really terrible part of those wastes is the heart breaking sense of loss one eventually feels. Opportunities we didn't take advantage of, mistakes we made that were never corrected, people we should have remembered but forgot about, can grip us like a biting, relentless winter wind until we know how to get past them.

What do you do when all your obligations are no more? Maybe your life was filled with a lot of happiness and so you have some great memories. It is tempting to sit and contemplate the good old days. But to me that's as bad as obligatory reading, not bad to dip into now and then but not to spend the years of one's life in the past. Memories are good if they are good ones, but they are of the past, not of the present or the future. And there are still a lot more good memories to make.

You may have accumulated a lot of knowledge along the way, but you are never too young to ask yourself how much wisdom you have really won for yourself. To know things is good, to understand them is even better, but to really see how all things fit in the overall cosmic scheme of things, to have a universal awareness, to be enlightened, is best. Every step in that direction is a joyful one. a vital one.

True wisdom is far above information and knowledge. I have a lot of information, some knowledge, a spoonful of wisdom, but I am humbled in the realization of what it is possible for me to experience. I am in a dark forest of ignorance and fear, but I know the light is there and once I step into it information, knowledge, ignorance and fear will disappear, leaving the clear, still waters of wisdom as my preparation for enlightenment.

Dana Bate - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
***************************

Friends

Recipe for Restored Friendship.

Risks tried.
Confessions made.
Wrongs forgiven.
Explanations offered.
Affections admitted.
Love allowed.

Doing Things

Gardens are not made by sitting in the shade.

Rudyard Kipling
*****************
Hello Linda
*****************
Inertia. Ssssss. That's one of the nastiest words in the language. In human terms it's the official word for laziness, immobility, noninvolvement, slacking off, taking it easy, phoning it in, out to lunch, gone fishing, I can't be bothered.

When I was about 12 years old I remember sitting on the ground, playing with some sticks, with the warm sun on my back. It felt so good to be doing nothing important and having the sun caressing my central nervous system I decided then and there that was the way to live my life, no cares, no responsibilities, nothing serious. And so I did, for a while. I coasted my way through high school doing well enough to pass with a good grade and then coasted my way into college, which turned out to be the wrong way to coast.

At about the same time I discovered that I had talent as an actor. It was easier for me to be an actor than a scholar . I thought. That idea and my whole life with it went through a major change. I know I've written before about Edward, my first and only acting teacher who taught by directing plays, real plays in a real theatre with rehearsals, a dress rehearsal, an opening night and an audience of strangers.

Edward and I had spoken to each other as acquaintances a few times, but when I signed the contract he became my teacher and my boss. And I will never forget the first official words he said to me. "Can't you find anything to do?"

That remark set a spinning wheel of energy inside me which has never stopped. I can write about many ways that spinning wheel has characterized my life, but it's all in the past and the past doesn't interest me anymore. Contemplating bittersweet memories of the past is enervating and bothersome. I'd rather have a stiff drink and forget the past, the good and the bad.

The real story of Edward's energy cell gift to me is that it's still spinning. Now I can enjoy sitting in the shade and imagining a garden. But sooner or later I will get up and start poking in the ground to create the garden I have in mind. Everything you do has an effect and that effect is the future. If you sit still and coast along through life where's your future?

Sue Hertz took the challenge and knitted herself a sweater, something she's never done before. It's a success. Maybe she can't wear it now. But when the nasty winter winds begin to blow she has a brand new sweater to wear.

It's Spring. Poke in the dirt, push some seeds in there, water, fertilize, tend, weed and in the near future sit in the shade and admire your garden. But don't sit too long. Can't you find anything to do?

DB - The Vagabond
Never Give Up
***************************

George's View

It's hard not to like somebody who sees something in you that nobody else has seen.

Sally Kellerman
**********************
Hello Kate
***********************
Do you ever get fed up with yourself? Do you ever get to the point where you are sick and tired of who you are and you don't mind if you know it? Did you ever wonder where this lump of neurotic behavior, inconsistency, irrationality , unpredictability and unorthodox foolery came from?

It's a good thing to remind ourselves every now and then that we aren't the magnetic, charismatic, invincible genius we think we are. But too much of that is a negative activity and I don't offer it as an everyday occurrence. It is not a chapter in my book "How To Win and Influence Yourself." However, a little bit of respectable humility goes a long way in this world of self-satisfied lumps of ego.

On the other hand, and more to the point of being influenced by yourself, it is always a pleasure and a necessity to be seen as better than you think you are, to have hidden virtues and qualities exposed by an outside observer and to be reminded that you are who you are and not who you used to be.

Going through the boxes here is a sad experience because I'm being reminded of who I used to be. There are reminders of people I used to know whom I will never see again, places I once worked that I will never visit again and roles I once played I will never play again. Looking at these things gives me an uncomfortable sense of loss.

But even if I had the money it would be a monstrous act of futility and foolishness to go around looking up all the people I once knew and liked and visiting all the places I once spent some time in.

I have some good friends who have been my friends for many years. We are friends because we share similar ways of looking at life and the world. In the search for truth and value we friends have found each other.
We have grown but not changed that much. And whenever a friend of mine is feeling fed up with himself I can remind him of all the good qualities that make him who he is. And when I am sick and tired of myself there will be a friend who will remind me of who I am and the values and goodness in me that I'm not looking at, a friend who will rescue me from the pit of self-disliking that I dug and jumped into..

Such a friend is George Millenbach who yesterday cut into his bedtime to talk to me as I am and not as the miserable wretch I thought I was when we began the conversation. Thank you George.

One of the best things we can do for our friends is to remind them of the sturdy statuesque and colorful herb garden qualities they have and why we love them. and allow them to do the same.

I'm not a WAS. I'm an IS.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
***************************

End Game or Gambit

Why does it have to be the end of everything? I came here for a new beginning. The trail I was on has stopped some ways back. I can't locate it to find my way home. I'm out on the water in a row boat. The sea is calm and I've lost sight of land. I spend my days and nights in sadness, loss and fear. In my box are remembrances of a life I used to have. Where did it go? I have items saved for some things I wanted to do someday. I will never do them. What's left? Things and people slip away and are gone for ever. I have lost so much, too much. But regrets and memories I wash i didn't have. What's left of my life? Just the end game?

Am I Finished

I accidentally erased the entire journal entry for today. I'm very sorry.

It is very, very bad for me to be alone at this time.

DB

Friend

How much would it take to begin to make a former friend a restored friend, a false friend a true friend, a word here and a word there, an apology here, an apology there, and explanation or two. I've got my word.

Vagabondism 306

Vagabondism #306 You can't go back and recapture the past, so instead go ahead and capture the future.

Sorting Through The Pieces

Even in a time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people.

Garrison Keillor
*****************
Hello Sandy
*****************
While trudging through this tangled jungle of human behavior one day in the merry, merry month of April, I was taken by surprise by a pair of roving ideas. One was that I was lugging around with me a heavy sack of my past, recent and otherwise. The sack contains all kinds of useless and harmful memories, impressions, thoughts, beliefs and regrets. It was clear to me that I could not go forward in my life with any degree of energy and purpose until I had unloaded this sack, threw it off the edge of a cliff.

But the other idea is that maybe not everything in this sack is worthless. I know better than to go through everything that's in there to make a value judgement about each thing. I might as well throw myself off the cliff if I tried to do that.

I took a nap this afternoon and woke up with a start thinking about someone I hardly knew. I had been working at the Provincetown Playhouse on Cape Cod. It was my day off and suddenly there was a French Canadian girl following me around. She was very nice and we spent the day together, the evening and eventually went to sleep somewhere around the playhouse. We didn't have sex, we just knocked around and did things. I remember I woke up in the middle of the night and she was staring at me, eyes wide open. I spoke to her but she didn't answer. She was asleep. She slept withy her eyes open. I remembered hearing about people who did that. It was strange. I went back to sleep. When I woke and went back to work she disappeared. I never knew her name. What a strange memory to have. It happened over 50 years ago. And why did it suddenly come back to me?

What it tells me is that there are things and people in that bag of trash that will come out to be looked at and thrown out or saved and that I probably don't need to go searching for them.

That experience quite unnerved me. I went for a walk in the cold and rain. As I can tell I'm still having trouble getting rid of the bag of junk I brought with me when I moved. The only time I feel alright is when I'm typing. It's logical and therefore calming. As someone said I'm putting the pieces of the puzzle back together after an upheaval. There's a strange paradox here. It doesn't matter what goes on around me here, It's unimportant. But it's the only thing going on around me. Meanwhile I'm trying to sort through the thoughts, emotions, point of view about this and that, memories, and find the right place in my head and my heart for the things that need a home while I look at the same chaos with my material belongings. I don't want to do either. I've never felt this way before that I can remember. I hope I'm not losing my mind.

I think Bruce had the best solution. He told me to read a novel of far away places. So I read some philosophy. I'm searching for the campfires of those gentle people. Haven't found them yet.

DB - Vagabond
Never give up.
**********************

Friends

It is a strange thing how life works, how the mere murmur of apology, compensation or explanation could begin to turn a false friend into a true friend and a former friend into a friend. Wished for, but not heard.

DB

Vagabondism 305

Vagabondism #305 You can't reason with irrationality nor teach ethics to immorality. http://vagabondjourneys.blogspot.com/

Drop That Bag

Flee those degrees of knowledge that necessarily increase your woes.

Giordano Bruno
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Hello Sue
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I thought about finding a journey to write about that would be appropriate for All Fools Day. I thought I could come up with something humorous that would be a relief from some of the ponderous stuff I've been writing lately. But instead I'm writing about something wryly funny, perhaps, but of serious foolery.

This evening I had a conversation with my friend Marty, a New York City sidewalk philosopher and concrete psychologist of the highest order. He told about a few of the women at his job who come to work with huge heavy bags of things they never use and are of no importance, but they would feel lost and naked without them. I've known other people like that. It's like a madness of possessions. One is possessed by one's possessions.

Surely I'm not like that. Am I?

I was complaining to Marty about how I can't seem to shake the doubts, fears, suspicions and painful memories of my recent experiences, and of why, even though I know I must, I can't make them unimportant to me.

That's when he told me about the ladies with the bags. Thanks to Marty I realized that along with my books, clothes, papers, paintings, bits of furniture and other things I had also brought along in a heavy bag all the memories, and reminders of the terrible time I had and was now stuffing into it the doubts and suspicions of my present life. I can't let go of all the negative feelings because I keep referring back to what is in the bag. And the reason I do that is because the bag is all I have.

Now some of my other friends like Arlene, Pacifica, Rose, Val and others have been urging me to get out, meet other people, go to the church near by and find other things to do with nice, good people. So I guess I've been putting it off because I had to take care of what's in the bag.

But none of those things matter. I brought a lot of books with me, some I won't ever read, they will go to the library. It doesn't matter what is going on in my old apartment building, if the dope is still selling dope there and who is buying it. It doesn't matter what my false and former friend is doing or where she's doing it. It doesn't matter that I'm not being driven around these days by her and have to walk places It doesn't matter what my next door neighbors are like or what they do, so I don't have to keep an eye or an ear on them. It doesn't matter what cars are parked in the parking lot so I don't have to keep looking out the window. I doesn't matter what happened or didn't happen, what was said or not said, what I knew or didn't know. None of it is important. It is all just junk in the heavy bag I lugged with me when I moved. And I've been caring about it because it was all I had. The only reason it was important to me was that I had nothing else.

Marty's advice: Take the bag out to the edge of a steep cliff and give it a boot. And anyone who is still toting around a big bag full of useless thoughts, impressions, emotions and memories, I suggest you follow Marty's advice.

Thank you Marty. Love to you.

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DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
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