Cheer The Weed

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

Lao Tzu
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Hello Sandy
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I was out walking yesterday and I noticed how small tufts of green were peeking up from the cracks in the side walk and parking lots. Give Nature a chance and it will find a way to flourish even in the midst of a concrete and asphalt world.

Next to the street at the last place I lived there was a tree. I loved that tree. It was very tall and healthy. Every Spring it got a bit taller, increased the size of its branches and put out some more twigs. I knew that once upon a time that tree was part of a forest. The forest had been leveled to make way for the town, but a few trees here and there were left standing. Those other trees were simply cut down and pulled up. Deep in the earth are the remnants of the relatives of my tree.

I pondered the fact that many of our manifestations of civilization, our roads, parking lots, buildings and bridges are intrusions on primeval landscape. And all that Nature wants to grow here is still underground waiting for the opportunity and the right conditions to begin the process. In fact those small patches of green, which we call "weeds," are the first hardy steps, (the advance guard you might say) of Nature's campaign to reclaim its own, original, slowly evolving design.

If this town was totally and permanently abandoned by all human life it may take hundreds, perhaps thousands of years but Nature would eventually break apart all the pavements, tear down all the buildings, swallow them all up and digest them. The grass would grow, the bushes would flourish, the meadows would stretch out and the forest would reappear.

So why the intrusion? Because there's another kind of Nature, called Human Nature. It is out nature to build shelter, to grow crops, to educate ourselves, to conduct commerce and transportation. And so we bend Nature to our will, leave a few trees and some bushes still standing, maybe we even plant a few, but the rest of it we tear down and replace with our roads. parking lots, buildings and bridges.

But the next time you see a small patch of green peeking up from a crack in the side walk admire its courage and brave but futile attempt to reclaim the world.

DB - The Vagabond
Never give up.
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The Strong Ones

Some people strengthen society just by being the kind of people they are.

John Gardner
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Hello Jen
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Doing the right thing by someone they've badly hurt is beyond the ability of drug users..

To man up or woman up to take joyous responsibility for the society they live in is beyond the ability of the sluggards of the world.

To provide genuine welfare for the society they live in is impossible for the sub-human parasites of life.

To feed the hungry, heal the sick and help the poor is out of bounds for the stupid.

To face the challenge of doing an honest day's work is anathema to the crooked.

And to rely on the gratification of the senses to solve the difficult problems of living is prurient, self righteous suicide.

In a flippant mood I've said that there are two kinds of people in the world: those who leave a mess and those who clean it up. Maybe, since I just had another birthday, I am finally becoming an old curmudgeon. I don't think so though. I'm not running out of compassion, I'm just running out of patience. The worst and most difficult kind of mess to clean up is one who has made a mess out of their lives. If someone wants to really be a member of the low life, antisocial, human trash, let them. And if someone really wants to ally themselves with those weaklings, let them. Who am I to try to take a mop to those unfortunate souls?

I want to continue to be the kind of man who can strengthen society in whatever way I can, which in these days is fairly limited to Vagabond Journeys. And I want to continue to admire and support others who are doing the same strengthening.

I have no patience with the selfish, self serving, self gratifying, self indulgent wastes who seem to people the planet. If someone wants to grow up to be a perpetual adolescent, with no purpose except self destructive behavior and no strength of character what can one person do except to keep pointing out the way and preaching the sermon to those who aren't listening One can always hope that an awaking will come. But for some hopeless people the awakening comes too late in life. Then there is desperation, a fear so deep and suffocating it kills.

Fortunately for us who live there are people who keep civilization from toppling just by nature of who they are. I wish to know only those people and to be one of them in my humble way.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
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Crawling On

The future seems to me no unified dream but a mince pie, long in the baking, never quite done.

Edward Young
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Who can predict the future? Who can say for certain that if we do "this thing" then "that thing" will happen, if it hasn't happened before? Civilization is a grand experiment, an improvisation, so uncertain, so unpredictable and in such a state of potential chaos that people come up with some of the most absurd beliefs to try to make sense out of it. They want to draw circles around everything and put ideas and actions into little boxes, like hieroglyphics, and then put labels on them.

I listen to all kinds of music and I amuse myself sometimes by wondering what composers of the past would think about how music has developed over the years. Johann Sebastian Bach was an unqualified genius and a very prolific composer of the 18th Century. I wonder what he would think of the music of Richard Strauss, or George Gershwin, or Led Zeppelin. Has music developed the way musicians expected it to, foretold it would and, in some cases, guaranteed it would?

I don't ;like Rap Music. It doesn't matter that I don't like it, it's what we have these days. I wouldn't have guessed it was coming. A lot of people don't like it, but I'm just an old fogy so I'll stay out of the fray.

I was talking with my friend Marty last night, and he made an observation which I had never thought about. The First World War was not called The First World War until after the Second World War. It was known as The War To End All Wars, and some people actually believed that, most people probably. At least it was the hope. But alas, along came World War Two. And after all the surrenders were complete World War Three started. There is always a war going on somewhere in the world, from the bushes of the Amazon forest to the deserts of the Middle East. Who predicted that?

The snail I wrote about a few days ago may have made it to the Ark, that was his destination, but he couldn't have known what he was going to encounter along the way.

Selfishness rules. Many people want their little boxes and don't seem to care about peace, disarmament, the growth of science, art, education and culture on the earth, an improved society, a greater more advanced civilization, a better world. Those are definite dreams and destinations for the rest of us to crawl toward. But we have no idea what challenges, changes and dilemmas we will face on the way. The pie is still in the oven.

DB - The Vagabond
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Thank you for all the Valentine's Day greetings.
I'm getting a lot of interesting mangled cliches so I'm leaving the quiz up for another day.

"A stitch in time is worth two in the bush."

Your assignment is to take two or more grand old sayings, cliches, sage saws or famous quotes and cobble (clobber) them together to make a new and wiser adage or utter nonsense as in the above.

Enter as often as you wish. The decision of the ornery, biased judge is final.

Good luck.
DB
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