Love It

I think we are blind. Blind people who can see, but do not see.

Jose Saramago
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Hello Arlene
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There are three ways of looking at something. With the eyes, with the mind and with love. Most of us ignore the second two most of the time.

Yesterday afternoon when I went down for the mail I sat for a while on the porch outside my apartment to enjoy some sunshine. I had been reading some articles on sight and as I looked around I began to really notice some things: the chair I was sitting in, the porch with its railing, the steps down to the ground level, the car parked in front of the building, another car passing with music coming from it, the mail box, the mail.

Who was it who first designed the folding chair? I don't know, but what a great invention, easily transported and stacked and yet opens out to provide a comfortable place for a person to sit.

Then there was the porch, an ample space outside my kitchen door with a railing for me to stand next to and rest my arms on and also to protect me so I won't fall off the porch to the hard ground below. Then the wide staircase to the lower level. The architect didn't just design a stairway to my door but a nice porch in front of it. I will never know that architect or the carpenter who built them.

I observed the parked car and saw a machine that enables someone to transport themselves quickly, safely and comfortably. A lot of design and careful manufacture went into that.

I admired the fact that a person can drive and listen to the music the like at the same time through a car radio or cd player.

I descended the stairs and walked down the alley where there was my mail box. Someone had attached it years ago. I will never know who that was. Inside was my mail. Some anonymous person from the postal service had put it in my box. I thought about how great it is that we have a postal service. We drop a letter in the mail box and it may go thousands of miles to its destination and we hardly ever think about it. It's still the best deal in America.

My mail was a magazine with articles to help me be a better writer (don't you dare say I need it, I know I do). And a postcard from Beth and Ken, somewhere along Route 66, Beth's favorite highway.

When I got back to my apartment I put on a Bach violin concerto, while I checked out Beth's card.

I admire the love behind the workmanship that gave me a comfortable chair to sit in on a pleasant porch.

I admire the love behind automotive manufacturing with all the safety features and beauty of design.

I admire the love of the singers and bands that provide the music that is meaningful and important to people's lives and the companies that record it..

I note the love that motivates the earnestness of the postal workers and mail carriers.

My magazine was written, edited and published so that others can improve their writing skills and through the love of words and communication speak through them to many other people.

I appreciate the love from Beth and Ken for their friends to take the time to send us cards during their 66 adventures.

And I admire the genius, J. S. Bach, who a few centuries ago loved his music enough to write it down and leave it for the musicians today who also love it, play it and record it so that I may enjoy it in my own humble home.

We do take things for granted. We should stop that. There is a lot of ugliness and hate in the world. I prefer to look for the beauty and the love.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never give up.
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Know Thyself. Impossible?

Inside us there is something that has no name, that something is what we are.

Jose Saramago
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One of the bad habits of casting directors and other people who are conducting a jab interview is to say to the applicant "So, tell me about yourself." They don't really want you to tell them about yourself, they want facts and figures about your work experience, aptitude, intelligence, special interests and other issues. If you really told them about yourself they would be horrified or embarrassed and in either case you probably wouldn't get the job.

That something inside us that has no name is why it is so difficult to know ourselves. Sometimes we can be taught about ourselves through experiences or other people, but usually those lessons are things we can put a label on. Even the knowledge of who we are can carry a label, but our real essence, the thing that the knowledge points to, is nameless.

"So, tell me about yourself." Where do you start? Anywhere you start is a door that probably leads nowhere. "Tell you about me? Well, I'm this tall, I'm this old,
I've been around the block a few times and I need a job. What else is there to know?"

"Tall you about myself? Well, my life has been filled with many failures and a few triumphs, I have too many regrets. I'm generous and hard working. I know how to live with financial insecurity. But I'm afraid of snakes, courts and bullies. I am a loyal employee but I don't relate well to people. I know how dangerous the world can be. What else do you want to know?"

"Tell you about myself? Well, inside me there lives a human being with traits, natures, talents, formations, facilities, clouds, ghosts and histories, an individual piece in the inscrutable puzzle of the universe.?

"Tell you about myself? I can't, because like everyone else who lives, I don't know what I am."

DB - The Vagabond
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SUMMER QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)

Who are the 2 (two) most important people alive today? Why?

1 reply so far.

dbdacoba@aol.com

Thank you.
DB
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