November 10, 2023 – A

The joy for me is found
walking/driving through the world,
eating in the world,
being here/now in the quiet of early morning,
but not so much in the grind of heavy traffic.

I would enjoy a chat with Henry David Thoreau
and Black Elk and Chief Seattle...
and being close to water...

Away from crowds of any kind,
and noise,
and complexity,
drama,
trauma...

I enjoy the pleasure of my own company
in any setting
that doesn't include bores
(Winston Churchill said,
"A bore is someone who robs us of our solitude
without providing us with companionship").

And too many people talk
without having anything to say.
If you find me stuck in a reunion of any kind,
rescue me with an invitation to the desert bar.

I am re-reading Joseph Campbell's Thou Art That,
and finding forgotten delights on practically 
every page.

And I am reminded again that seeing is a function
of how we look, that what we see is a reflection 
of how we see, and that we cannot get away from 
how we see in order to see anything without tampering 
with it, shaping it, "reading things into it,"
in significant ways.

So the observer tampers with what is observed
in the process/act of observing it.
And we cannot see/know anything
apart from our projections/assumptions/conjectures
about it.

How we perceive the world colors what we perceive
about the world,
and we have no idea what we are talking about
when we say anything.
Knowing that requires us to take everything we say
"with a grain of salt."

Keep a salt shaker handy at all times,
for what you say 
and for what others say to you.

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