For all the advantage that is broadcasted about focussing on the present, one has to question the utility of mentioning the past. More precisely the focus on the present may indirectly turn the glare from one’s Delphic past to the seemingly less virulent present. I’m all for leaving has-beens in the past; especially so if one is enjoying the entitlements of life through the proper eligibility.
Life, I’m convinced, isn’t complicated. If for example we were to conduct ourselves as animals apparently do by listening to our instincts, there’d be less incertitude. Apart from the improving feature of alignment with Nature, this simple rubric affords the most palatable and instructive statement of purpose and function. The government of our lives in accordance with intuition and urge is by logical prescription axiomatic; and, by contrast the ignorance, dilution or alteration of the inner drive is paradoxical beyond awkward.
No doubt we all prefer to render ourselves a worthy member of society. I cannot imagine the sole scope and objective of anyone would be willingly confined to the narrow tinctures of unqualified selfishness and greed. The goal is not to exalt some Vedic hymn but rather to deport oneself as a befitting perhaps even genteel human being. The British have long ago afforded the tangible reward of emblems, badges, coats of arm, logos, trademarks and heraldic devices to those who – at least initially – sought and achieved the approbation of the Crown. Given the historical attempts to align the sovereign with the divine, the perambulations were at times of a decidedly heady and politic force.
Hello, Marilyn!
Thank-you for your email. You’re lucky to have the casual use of the words island, tide, chop, seawall and beach. I am an inveterate lover of all things maritime. I hope you (as a Pacific Ocean resident) won’t be offended when I say my dream has been a cottage on a cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in a village in Nova Scotia.
Everyone makes mistakes. Who hasn’t? It amounts to a platitude. Just bad timing or too much to drink or a moment of misadventure. Some mistakes are however inexplicably egregious – which usually means we haven’t heard the full story. But what to say? Questioning the detail is perhaps too intimate an enquiry, an unwelcome curiosity in what is otherwise intended to be blowing off steam. But it helps in the overall assessment to recall the quip, “What was your first clue?” We have to trust our instincts.
Among what I imagine to be a number of curious foibles of mine – or should I say, habits – is my notable affection for refreshment. I say this as a general even universal application; that is, it extends to the intellectual as well as the visceral usage. It is the obsession driven by the necessity to purify by clarifying the slate and starting anew. On the domestic level it is no more punishing than the preference for showers. This not uncommon proclivity however can be speedily elevated to a more intense atmosphere through the influence of saunas or steam baths (accompanied by vast amounts of cold drinking water for ideal internal cleansing). At the other extreme (for example, in matters of society) the psychosis may entail a sudden (though seldom prolonged) exit from an alliance. The disorder was more tolerable – even preferable – in the exercise of my erstwhile professional obligations because I was always reviewing things from start to finish to ensure I hadn’t overlooked or forgotten something pertinent to fulfillment of the contract. I was aware of the repetition but more often than not I was rewarded with discovery or at the very least self-approbation.
The first recorded use of the phrase to represent Canada was by George Monro Grant, who was Sandford Fleming’s secretary and a Presbyterian minister who used the phrase in his sermons. His great-grandson Michael Ignatieff suggests that Grant used the phrase in a nation-building effort during the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The use of the word “dominion” in the verse reflected the common use of the name “Dominion of Canada” for the new country.
It is not every occasion I have to say anything at all penetrating. The closest I get to that is saying something legal or factual. Not exactly ripping. It is the casual “asides” which capture a far less prosaic conversation, the detached whisper, remark or confidentiality,
There has forever been debate concerning the precise time to reap the bounty of an endeavour. In the agricultural context I expect the timing is fairly easily assessed. Beyond that however the timing is less apparent, less obvious and less compelling. Whenever it is reaped, I prefer to think of bounty less as a handout or prize and more as a dividend. The object isn’t reward or payback but fruition – ripeness, fulfillment and realization.
We have all heard that we shouldn’t sweat the small stuff. Letting oneself get stressed out over the little things in life is one of the biggest ways to bring unnecessary grief into life’s path. We can avoid a lot of negative feelings, and even health problems, simply by learning not to let the little things get to us.