July 29, 2023 – A

What has living taught you
about being alive?
What has being alive taught you
about living?
What has life taught you
about living and being alive?

I've learned that people
think the wrong things are important,
take the wrong things seriously,
and spend way too much of their life
not being alive.

Treat everything with the degree
of seriousness
that it deserves,
knowing that seriousness
and meaningfulness
flow from the circumstances
determining each situation
as it arises.

It all depends upon
and flows from
what's what
here and now.
And lasts exactly that long.

What's what and here now does not last.

If you are going to take anything seriously
let it be music.
And laughter.
And playfulness.
And unseriouslyness...

I wish my dad had read poetry
and my mom had played the jazz piano.
Or, vice-versa.
Or, both and.

We have to put some distance
between ourselves and our parents
to have a chance.

It would help if they put some distance
between you and them from the start,
instead of treating you as though
you were them,
and trying to get you 
to be like them.

Knowing what's me
and what's them,
and what's you,
gets off to a rocky start.

We spend a lot of time figuring out
where we stop and others start.
And learning to draw our own lines.
And respecting others' lines--
even when they don't
respect theirs or ours.

The line business takes a while
to get sorted out.

Where the lines lie is serious.
And honoring them.
Particularly our own.

I think everything else falls out
around that.

Honor all legitimate lines
and let that be that.
Knowing "there is only the dance"
(TS Eliot),
and "the still point of the turning world"
is the most important place to be,
any time,
all the time.

If living teaches us that,
it has done its job.

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