Category: An Observation

People commit suicide believing that they haven’t the ability to continue on in this lifetime, and many people are affected. Family and friends of those who die under normal circumstances eventually heal. In death by suicide, the healing takes longer, there’s always a nagging suspicion that it could/should have been avoided if. . . . In years gone by, I felt sorry for everyone involved. However, in the ensuing years, I’ve learned that sorry is not the feeling to express, that Life is much bigger than anything we can imagine, that we all have our own path, and that there’s a thin veil between life and death. What’s interesting is that we tend to see suicide as being quick. When you think about it, however, there’s a slow form of suicide taking place every day and it’s not quick. The slow form of suicide is, “The destruction or ruin of one’s own interests”, as noted in dictionary.com, and it happens on a daily basis.

Many times we’re caught up in this “destruction or ruin of one’s own interests” taking place right where we are. For instance, when traveling we often spend time waiting at airports. There are people who find waiting extremely difficult and tend to make it diffcult for others sharing the same space. Someone gets terribly angry over a minor incident, and everyone around them is disturbed. Someone else says, “I’m going to drown my problems at the bar, and later returns sloshed. You see a child behaving badly, and the parents seem to not have a clue as to what to do, and so they do nothing. On it goes.

And then, in the midst of all this, and in sharp contrast, you see a man or woman sitting quietly, simply attending to the moment. Or you observe a teenager listening to music, tapping her/his feet to the beat. And there’s a well-dressed man reading a paper and pointing to an article for his wife to enjoy. And things feel calmer.

The books I read say that life can be wonderful, not a struggle. The longer I live the more I’m inclined to believe it, and to feel that if we would just spend enough quiet time alone, giving the same attention to the within as we do to the without, we would come to a bigger understanding about Life, and eventually come to understand and appreciate ourselves, others, and the world.

Muffin top! It’s a silly name and we’re hearing it more and more-mainly because of those low-rise jeans. Silly people, wearing ill-fitting jeans deserve a silly name to describe the silly look they’re trying to achieve. If you’ve ever sat on a subway or a bus and have come eye-to-eye with an over-extended muffin top, or someone’s butt (let’s say derriere), facing you, you begin to understand how ridiculous it all is. I think the designers are having a field day with this look, They have one over on the public because they’ve created this silly look and people are falling for it, not realizing that there are very few (size 0-2) people who can pull it off. I think that designers don’t have our interest at heart with this one. I could be wrong, but in looking around….

Twenty years from now those who are not a size 0-2 are going to look at photos of themselves wearing those undersized low-rise jeans and possibly say, “What was I thinking!”

This past month in NH I had a chance to look at some very old photos of my parents, our relatives, and their friends. I hadn’t seen those particular photos. They were in a box more or less forgotten in a basement until someone suggested having a photo party, and the box was brought upstairs. All I have to say is that things have changed. No need for anyone in those photos to say, “What was I thinking!” This is not to say that in today’s world some people don’t dress beautifully. It is to say though that as a whole it sometimes looks as if we’ve become rather lazy. Or should we say that we’ve become sloppy?

I’ve been thinking, Michael, about you and baseball. My thoughts go like this: I don’t understand your devotion to baseball-your devotion to a team of players making a ludicruously big salary who don’t come up with the goods most of the time. You sit, you watch, you anticipate a good game. Why? You’re often bored and disappointed. And how often do they actually win? Do you think that we, the masses, could whip them into shape by neglecting the sport in its entirety?

As far as I can see, the job of the team is to play a good game. And in the process perhaps win the game. Right? That’s what the big bucks are supposedly for. Now, if this were any other line of work (let’s call it that because it’s the way they support themselves and their families), they would have been fired a long time ago for not producing. They should be on their hands and knees grateful for making a splendid living by throwing a ball around.

But, no, the hype, the publicity-the glamour as a result of the hype and publicity-overshadow the fact that baseball is not what it used to be. It must have been lots of fun “in the old days” to attend a baseball game, when the players knew how to play and took pride in the way they mastered the game. And the cost of a hot dog was what it was worth.

Michael, did you read the pleasing story in Time magazine, 18 June 2007 on NASCAR founder Bill France Jr.? It was on the back page and was titled, “King of the Road” by Robert Sullivan. Well, within the story these words were strung together making a sentence: baseball, disgrace, cheaters, government inquiries.

So, I say to you, Michael, let it go. There are other sports you can sink your teeth into. Baseball doesn’t deserve your attention.

Have you ever thought of what it would be like had you been born into a different family? Actually I know people who feel that the family they now have is definitely not the family they want, but somewhere out there is the right family for them. And had they had an opportunity to be in that family with a different mother, another father, a perfect sibling their life would have been wonderful. Certainly much more so than now. But is that true? We see people who are born into families that from all indications look as though they’re the right families for anybody to have been born into. They appear to have “it all.” But wait – look more closely.

Yes, look more closely at everything. Maybe we’re exactly where we’re supposed to be in this lifetime. From all indications, it seems that we’re here to work things out in our life, and the family we find ourselves with is the right family in this particular lifetime. The challenges, the pains, the sufferings are part of life here, and it’s doubtful whether we humans would accomplish anything without them. There’s no escaping them-no matter the family we’re part of-because those challenges, those pains, those sufferings are what we need for our greater growth. And ultimately will make life sweeter, richer, happier, and give us a better understanding of ourselves and our world-if we allow it.

And if we believe in a higher power, and the evolution of a soul, and the orderliness underneath the chaos, then it makes sense to believe that we’re right where we’re supposed to be. That if we would accept where we are, and use our energy to make our life a work of art, if we do that, and not focus on what we think we should have had, we’ll soon see the bigger picture. We’re the one who makes that happen for ourselves, no one else can. It would seem that human beings are on a quest. And the quest is to evolve. To appreciate and enjoy what is before us serves our quest beautifully, yearning for what wasn’t and isn’t, wastes our precious energy.

“Everybody thinks of changing humanity and nobody thinks of changing himself.” -Leo Tolstoy

“You could not discover the frontiers of the soul, even if you traveled every road to do so; such is the depth of its meaning” -Heraclitus of Ephesus

“To know how to live is my trade and my art.” -Michel De Montaigne

Physicist Roger Penrose has said that the chance of an ordered univese happening at random is 10 to the 10 to the 30th against-a number so large that if you programmed a compjuter to write a million zeros per second, it would take a million times the age of the universe just to write the number down.

“Ultimately, one has to wonder how scientists who assume the profound presence of patterns in nature in order to practice their very art can also assume that those patterns developed randomly, from nothingness. Patterns imply intelligence, and an ordered creation implies an orderer.” – Andy Fletcher, Letter to the Editor, Harper’s (from The Road Within)

I very much like the idea of reincarnation, not that it matters, one way or another. It seems a wonderful way of sorting out things. Do you feel the same? I didn’t always think this way. When I first heard a simple explanation of the word reincarnation years ago, I actually felt stuck-yes, stuck in this world-forever and forever. And that was due to the fact that I had no real understanding of its meaning and worth. Now I appreciate what it is, and feel that the Energy that created the Universe created a beautiful, fool-proof, easy way of keeping a balance in everything. We need never be concerned with making sure justice is served as justice is always served one way or another by the Law of the Universe.

We’ve all been helped by people who work at jobs they wouldn’t have chosen given another opportunity. These people I’m thinking about toil easily, efficiently, calmly, and often with a little smile at the corners of their mouth. It almost looks as if they have a secret lingering in their memory. I’d say it’s the secret of being happy. You never know where or when this kind of person will be there for you. It could be in a restaurant, post office, retail shop, hair salon, behind a counter, airport, at a construction site, driving a bus, a taxi. etc. One thing they have in common is that they do their work in an extraordinary way.

Do you remember the 80’s – the decade of the big attitude? That was an interesting time in that many aspects of the service business appeared to fall apart. Maybe we got through that period because of the people who didn’t buy into that way; they treated everyone with kindness, and simply did their job, usually with a smile.

One of those jobs that can be immensely trying is driving a taxi. When you get into one do you notice the driver? All day long he weaves in and out of heavy traffic, sometimes dealing with argumentative, anxious, crabby, sick, demanding passengers, picking up all kinds of people who barely notice him, not even with a simple hello from one human being to another. However that may be, these drivers oftentimes turn their heads, offer a smile, and once again face the traffic. Special. In the years that I’ve been taking NYC cabs, I’ve seen many drivers from many countries around the world sitting at the wheel of one. If you and the driver are in a chatting mood, often you’ll discover that the driver is well-educated and informative, and you leave the cab with a little more understanding of the country he’s from, and what it takes to live in another one.

Where in the world do they come from? How did they get that way? There are many stories. They come from different countries, and have an ability, a knowing, that enables them to do work they wouldn’t necessarily have chosen in an extraordinary way.

Here’s to those people.

Oops! I gave an incorrect address on 12/08/05 regarding New London Pharmacy. www.newlondonpharmacy.com

Please note correction :
New London Pharmacy
246 8th Avenue in Chelsea
NYC

Please scratch the 245 and replace it with 246. I hope anyone trying to find it, did so. Now it will be easier.