There is no easy road to freedom.
Nelson Mandela
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Hello Sandy
*********************
Once you set out on the troublesome and unpredictable waters of life you will never reach a destination if you turn back to the safety of the port. It's the trepidation of facing new views, it's fear of and animosity toward taking the risks necessary to bring about the freedom we're entitled to that make the road difficult The recidivist urges that hold so many people in bondage, in a static state, comfortable with less than the rough road of progress can supply.
The rewards are rich for those who stick to the road, no matter how many boulders and wild animals appear. And what if freedom is the destination, freedom from oppression, poverty, sickness, fear or ignorance? The attainment of that objective is elation, elevation of one's life. Freedom from means freedom to. Freedom that will never be attained by backing up or standing still.
There are stories of people who have fought their way to freedom from cancer and other diseases, because the alternatives were not acceptable. There are stories of young folks who, at great risk, faced the dangers and freed themselves from kidnappers. There are stories of innocent people who painstakingly freed themselves from prison where they were serving a sentence for a crime they didn't commit. And there re stories of those who freed themselves from poverty and homelessness, even if it took many years. One story I frequently remember is of a woman who was blind and deaf, who came out of the ghetto, to earn a graduate degree is Psychology from a New York City University.
Life. No one ever said it was easy. But it's a pointless life if one sits in the port and complains about the weather instead of launching out into the rain and wind with courage, a noble purpose, a progressive goal and drawing the map to the buried treasure as you go.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
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This invitation is still open for anyone and everyone to post an entry of their own on my journal, Vagabond Journeys http://vagabondjourneys.blogspot.com/.
A new year is upon us and since it is a time for celebrations, remembrances, resolutions and plans for the future I think people have things to say.
Not to take away from the postings on your own journals, but to add to the joy of my own is why I invite you to write for me.
I want to read what your thoughts are about this magical time of the year. This invitation is open to everyone: Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Pagans, Agnostics, Atheists and the Uncertain or the Confused. Tell me your thoughts on any subject you wish.
There are no limits in regard to length. The only limitation is that, for reasons so far unexplained to me, my blog does not take photographs, animations, videos or pictures of any kind. I deal in words.
Please accept my invitation. Send your entry to my email address dbdacoba@aol.com I will copy and paste it into my journal and it will be displayed promptly. You may sign your name or not as you wish, and you may leave a link to your blog or your email or not, as you wish. I will do NO editing or censoring. Eloquence is not necessary, mind or heart or both is all.
I have 13 Guest Authors so far. Check them out.
All are welcome. Admission is free.
DB - The Vagabond
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Showing posts with label destinations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label destinations. Show all posts
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Where Am I Going?
Try early in life to find an unobtainable objective.
George Wald
*****************
Every day I make a list of all the things I want to do tomorrow. Included on the list is making a list for the next day. Some of the things on my list for today are simple things, like trimming my fingernails and cleaning the kitchen counter. Among the more serious and complicated things is writing my journal for the next day, which I am doing right now.
My life was not caotic and undisciplined before I started making lists. It was merely that I would become so involved with what I was doing I would forget about other important things. So now they're on the list (if I remember to put them there, that is). The problem with the list is that now I feel as if I have all these obligations. I never accomplish everything on the list so they get moved over to the next day. It isn't that I feel guilty about it. It's more a matter of feeling that I have to be busy all the time. A polite but insistent imp in my conscience is saying "What are you doing now?" If the answer is "I'm waiting for the coffee water to boil" then the little devil asks if I should find some small task to do in the meantime, wash a dish, trim my moustache. If I prefer to sit and think about something, why should I feel guilty?
I have come to believe and appreciate two important things. One is that thinking is what a challenged and treacherous life is all about. "Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much, such man are dangerous>" Shakespeare. Yes, I am dangerous. I think "too much." I am armed and dangerous. Armed with ideas and observations that upset the mental apple carts, my own and others.
Also in my bag of beliefs is the view that the journey of life is an endless one because the destination is never reached. I did a play in which one character spoke about working many years and saving up money to buy a house, then when you buy the house and move into it where are you? That existential question was never answered by the playwright.
If you take the A Train going south from Manhattan you can eventually reach Far Rockaway, one of the distant out posts of New York City. But if you get off at the last stop and walk east a couple of blocks you will be in the town of Inwood, New York. It's in Nassau County, not part of New York City.
Being a northeasterner I am used to towns and villages abutting each other, even across state lines. When I hitchhiked to California in 1960 I was astonished at how far I had to go to reach the next town. Once past the big river everything stretched out to pasture, farmland, desert and open spaces. When evening came and I was walking I would yearn to see lights ahead, hoping for a diner, a truck stop or any sliver of civilization. I had a very clear sense of destination. Just get somewhere.
As I think (too much) about these things I wonder if there is ever any real destination at all. Life is unfinished business, another task to do, another meal to be prepared, another day to plan, another visit, another thing to learn, another discovery, another realization, another destination on the long walk. If we finally get to heaven we will probably have things to do, lists to make, places to go and things to think about. I hope so.
DB - The Vagabond
**********************
AUTUMN QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)
At what event of the past do you wish you could be present? Why?
8 responses so far.
dbdacoba@aol.com
Thank you.
DB
************************
George Wald
*****************
Every day I make a list of all the things I want to do tomorrow. Included on the list is making a list for the next day. Some of the things on my list for today are simple things, like trimming my fingernails and cleaning the kitchen counter. Among the more serious and complicated things is writing my journal for the next day, which I am doing right now.
My life was not caotic and undisciplined before I started making lists. It was merely that I would become so involved with what I was doing I would forget about other important things. So now they're on the list (if I remember to put them there, that is). The problem with the list is that now I feel as if I have all these obligations. I never accomplish everything on the list so they get moved over to the next day. It isn't that I feel guilty about it. It's more a matter of feeling that I have to be busy all the time. A polite but insistent imp in my conscience is saying "What are you doing now?" If the answer is "I'm waiting for the coffee water to boil" then the little devil asks if I should find some small task to do in the meantime, wash a dish, trim my moustache. If I prefer to sit and think about something, why should I feel guilty?
I have come to believe and appreciate two important things. One is that thinking is what a challenged and treacherous life is all about. "Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much, such man are dangerous>" Shakespeare. Yes, I am dangerous. I think "too much." I am armed and dangerous. Armed with ideas and observations that upset the mental apple carts, my own and others.
Also in my bag of beliefs is the view that the journey of life is an endless one because the destination is never reached. I did a play in which one character spoke about working many years and saving up money to buy a house, then when you buy the house and move into it where are you? That existential question was never answered by the playwright.
If you take the A Train going south from Manhattan you can eventually reach Far Rockaway, one of the distant out posts of New York City. But if you get off at the last stop and walk east a couple of blocks you will be in the town of Inwood, New York. It's in Nassau County, not part of New York City.
Being a northeasterner I am used to towns and villages abutting each other, even across state lines. When I hitchhiked to California in 1960 I was astonished at how far I had to go to reach the next town. Once past the big river everything stretched out to pasture, farmland, desert and open spaces. When evening came and I was walking I would yearn to see lights ahead, hoping for a diner, a truck stop or any sliver of civilization. I had a very clear sense of destination. Just get somewhere.
As I think (too much) about these things I wonder if there is ever any real destination at all. Life is unfinished business, another task to do, another meal to be prepared, another day to plan, another visit, another thing to learn, another discovery, another realization, another destination on the long walk. If we finally get to heaven we will probably have things to do, lists to make, places to go and things to think about. I hope so.
DB - The Vagabond
**********************
AUTUMN QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)
At what event of the past do you wish you could be present? Why?
8 responses so far.
dbdacoba@aol.com
Thank you.
DB
************************
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Optimum Outreach 5/16/09
You should never give up on anybody.
David Ortiz
********************
Smile, you're on Candid Camera.
-------------------------
One of my Vagabondisms reads "Don’t give up on people – every road goes somewhere."
Yesterday I had one of those days you never want to have. It started out bad, got worse and ended up drowned in beer. After struggling all morning to install some statistical sites on my journal page, I was dismayed to find I had a lot fewer readers to it than I thought I did. I wanted to toss the whole thing in my local Dumpster as a wasteful, useless example of futility. Hence, you didn't get one of my verbose entries, my meager attempts at purple prose and pink poesy, my staggering, trembling observations about life. I was FED UP with life.
But when I woke up this morning, too early, hungry, hung over and with a bewildering headache, I managed to make myself a cup of coffee and to think about things,
The first step in my reasoning was that I write because I want to. There is almost nothing obligatory about it. I enjoy it and therefore should continue, no matter what. Secondly I do have a few people who enjoy reading my journal and if I can easily stuff them all into the back of a Chevy pick-up, so what? And why should I give up on one neighbor just because the neighborhood is alien, As my quote says, I don't believe in giving up on people. Some good friendships and interesting discussions have come from folks reading and responding to what I write and from my reading and responding to what they write.
But the most surprising and significant arrival of thought into my hung over head was that if I closed the cover on my journal and tossed it on a bottom shelf to gather dust, I would be giving up on myself. (It takes a genius like me to figure that one out.)
One thing a vagabond knows is that the journey continues. There are still adventures to be had, problems to be solved, mysteries to be unraveled, landscapes to be investigated, bridges to be crossed, a magic lamp to be rubbed, a conduit of truth to be opened and a higher self to be discovered, in everyone's life. In my life they appear out of the fog as I write.
There's no point in giving up on myself, or anyone else, because the roads keep going somewhere. One destination leads to another.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
____________________
Practice joy.
************************
SPRING QUIZ
THIS IS NOT A CONTEST
What do you think was the most important event of 2008? and
What was the most significant event in your life last year?
You have all Spring to answer if you wish.
15 responses so far.
Leave answers on my email dbdacoba@aol.com or on my journal
http://vagabondjourneys.blogspot.com/. Thank you. DB
David Ortiz
********************
Smile, you're on Candid Camera.
-------------------------
One of my Vagabondisms reads "Don’t give up on people – every road goes somewhere."
Yesterday I had one of those days you never want to have. It started out bad, got worse and ended up drowned in beer. After struggling all morning to install some statistical sites on my journal page, I was dismayed to find I had a lot fewer readers to it than I thought I did. I wanted to toss the whole thing in my local Dumpster as a wasteful, useless example of futility. Hence, you didn't get one of my verbose entries, my meager attempts at purple prose and pink poesy, my staggering, trembling observations about life. I was FED UP with life.
But when I woke up this morning, too early, hungry, hung over and with a bewildering headache, I managed to make myself a cup of coffee and to think about things,
The first step in my reasoning was that I write because I want to. There is almost nothing obligatory about it. I enjoy it and therefore should continue, no matter what. Secondly I do have a few people who enjoy reading my journal and if I can easily stuff them all into the back of a Chevy pick-up, so what? And why should I give up on one neighbor just because the neighborhood is alien, As my quote says, I don't believe in giving up on people. Some good friendships and interesting discussions have come from folks reading and responding to what I write and from my reading and responding to what they write.
But the most surprising and significant arrival of thought into my hung over head was that if I closed the cover on my journal and tossed it on a bottom shelf to gather dust, I would be giving up on myself. (It takes a genius like me to figure that one out.)
One thing a vagabond knows is that the journey continues. There are still adventures to be had, problems to be solved, mysteries to be unraveled, landscapes to be investigated, bridges to be crossed, a magic lamp to be rubbed, a conduit of truth to be opened and a higher self to be discovered, in everyone's life. In my life they appear out of the fog as I write.
There's no point in giving up on myself, or anyone else, because the roads keep going somewhere. One destination leads to another.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
____________________
Practice joy.
************************
SPRING QUIZ
THIS IS NOT A CONTEST
What do you think was the most important event of 2008? and
What was the most significant event in your life last year?
You have all Spring to answer if you wish.
15 responses so far.
Leave answers on my email dbdacoba@aol.com or on my journal
http://vagabondjourneys.blogspot.com/. Thank you. DB
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