My late mother delighted to revive an old black and white photo of me at about two years of age in England while sitting in my perambulator after having taken a sip of beer. I was bawling my eyes out! Apparently – as the story goes – I had initially clamoured for a sip of beer but then reacted unfavourably; then curiously I repeated my urging for another sip of beer. And once again after having drunk that, I began to cry. That was the last time to my knowledge that I cried.
I abhor inactivity. Achievement is a mobile success. And yet succumbing at times to the fertile stream of somnolence that unsparingly overtakes the ancient fibre is a victory of its own. A day is contracted, a morning missed like a passing bus; and yet upon awakening from the drowsy state the reward is uncharacteristically vital. The abounding restraint of torpor opens the avenue to sprightliness.
Dissecting the meaning of things has forever been an abstraction of mine. Whether it is just attaching worthwhile quality to what I do or think; or whether it is analyzing the implication of what I do or think, in either case it is a study which I find provokes endless pursuit. For me it is a force majeure – a recapitulation of events – for clarity and stability on the often bouncy journey out to sea.
While I don’t identify myself with social media (I have a Facebook account but seldom use it), I have however lately amused myself by visiting TikTok. The political algorithms constitute my primary focus – though I am uncertain whether the narratives are genuine or fake. The videos promote possibility if nothing else. Collaterally there is a proliferation of more believable psychological entries which I find are directed to young people whom I wager to be the predominant audience. Many of these latter sites – in addition to giving advice about how to conduct oneself – offer general counsel about life. Following are two such witticisms.
Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.
Confucius
The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.
William Morris
I have deliberately displayed the aphorisms in that order: If life is simple; And if simple is in the daily details; Then life is in the daily details. This curt review of life’s experience is nonetheless loaded with meaningful import. By extension it embraces that other valuable adage that, “There ain’t no ship to take you away from yourself; you merely travel the suburbs of your own mind.” The thrust of these maxims – like most of life’s philosophic directions – is upon the present and the immediate (not the past, future or imagined). By the same token it is a bracing resolve – a splash of cold water. It is a distillation and settlement of conduct; a reduction of objectives to what is at hand. At the same time it is a reminder that the world – wherever you may find yourself – is always gilded by the boundaries of one’s own mind and body.
Lately the physical boundaries of activity have arisen as a more frequent limitation to my erstwhile projections. I should too acknowledge that physical limits are as well spiritually motivated and internal. Exploration needn’t be a superfluous ambition – there is no need to go around the world to see the other side of things. The capital of life’s experiences – whatever and wherever they may be – are forever within the scope of one’s mind. The paradox of perception is that stepping back may increase the view and the rewards. Detail – it hardly bears repeating – is in the eye of the beholder. What however distinguishes the vision is not so much its native singularity as the enhancement of the process of discovery.
What profits a materialist to have a hardware store of products if each is nothing but a collection aimed at fulfilling an appetite long ago dispelled? There is no cave big enough to house all that there is in life. Each hoard is nothing but an atom of the whole. The complication only discolours and contaminates the entirety. Counting one’s advantage may be unwittingly diminished by removal from detail. Excess is a blur. Awakening detail on the other hand may prove more nutritious.
At midday I mechanically sat on the balcony in the blistering summer sunshine. The molten orb shadowed itself behind a small grey cloud and the ambient temperature precipitously fell. Then as the tiny billow moved along the stinging heat as quickly revived. My bare arms burned. There was no escaping the searing radiance. Meanwhile at ground level the bluish green cornstalks flourished by the second. We are now convinced of the nature of the growth seeded in symmetrical lines throughout the pastureland. The prospect of the impending look and smell already inhabits our minds.
It has been a tradition in the Town of Almonte for many years to conduct a Farmer’s Market on Saturday mornings in the summer. Last evening – being the Summer Solstice – conveniently announced today the official beginning of this decidedly rural commercial exploit which by further coincidence was a relaxing Saturday (and an ideally sunny and balmy one to boot).
The emerging cornstalks flutter like feathers in the strolling wind as it sometimes streaks with impromptu gusto across the fields. The entire landscape adjacent the river is an image of green and blue, the tall trees in the distance flailing back and forth, exposing their whiteish undergarments as they writhe and rebound beneath the blue sky. The clarity of the air is my background nourishment today as we approach the Summer Solstice this evening.
The 2025 summer solstice falls on Friday, June 20, at 10:42 p.m. ET, according to NASA and the Old Farmer’s Almanac. This marks the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, when the Earth’s tilt positions it closest to the Sun.
The word “solstice” comes from the Latin solstitium, meaning “sun stands still,” referring to the moment when the sun’s apparent path pauses before reversing direction, according to Royal Museums Greenwich.
According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, the summer solstice doesn’t always occur on the same date. It can fall on June 20, 21, or 22, depending on the year. This is because the timing of the solstice isn’t tied to a fixed calendar date. Instead, it’s determined by the exact moment the sun reaches its northernmost point from the celestial equator during Earth’s orbit.
Likewise I am pointing my direction to the most vivid demarcation of my life. Say what you will about the past, present and future, it remains always possible in any circumstance to reiterate – and in a moment – all that has transpired throughout a lifetime. The tiny particles from childhood through adolescence to adulthood and retirement are easily captured in a swirling globe of remembrance. The stringency of those neurons instantly cement all that is past. Yet as mournful as one might reasonably become upon venturing into the sometimes murky cloud of the past, my logic predicts instead that I shall only profit from – not mourn – the detail. For it is axiomatic only that the measure of time is but a calculation of the present wherein we haven’t the privilege to exhaust it with futility even if we were so disposed. Mine is instead an ambition to cultivate and colour the canvas that is before me, to embed it with immediacy and thriving energy that reflects what is at hand and before my eyes and feet as I step into the inexpressible future.
In doing so I throw aside the erstwhile inhibiting accessories of life. Though unpredictable, life like corn has a time of both growth and harvest, fulfilling the return of energy whence wherever it came. It is therefore a flight too rapid and unimaginable to be burdened with the weight of despondency. Fulfillment is as much an evocation as a summer breeze, natural and auspicious.
Embracing the sinews of life is not an obstruction; rather, it is a release. Reflecting – as is my wont – upon the images of the past, those colourful paintings in my memory, abundant with maritime flavour, I am strangely withdrawn from the past and moved to redefine the present not with imagination but reality. The summer breeze blurts onto the balcony, in and through the doorway, wafting alongside me arm as I stare into the distance. Unwittingly it seems I have escaped the conflicting emotions of the past – from love affairs to geographic and professional choices. I have no remorse. Instead I pronounce my options as the expressions they were. I haven’t the strength or capacity to carry unnecessary baggage. Nor shall I allow the harmful habits of the past to detour my ascent.
The formula – and that’s what it is – gets knotted at times by revisitations from and with other people. But they too are on a similar journey. It is not our need to animate that vernacular. Were I to prepare an outline of my life, how would I begin? Is it better to start at the beginning or at the end? And in a world of manifestly diverse enterprises, is it appropriate to designate one or the other? Or – as I prefer to speculate – it is all a matter of interpretation of the identical exploit.
Meanwhile the harnesses of life magically fall from the shoulders to the ground; specialty is a fiction in a universe of serendipity and fortune. Seen from far enough removed we are mere particles of activity, neither intelligible nor singular. It is a lesson in enquiry – a reminder that we needn’t preoccupy ourselves with needless detail – already we have inherited enough within our genes to promote all that is necessary for development. Okay, there is a certain smugness. At the end of my life I am enabled to feel the air and sit in the sun.
The wind continues to blow across the wavering cornstalks.
Today and two weeks ago, I wrote to Petro-Canada to complain that their Petro-Canada App (designed for use in paying for fuel and washing/cleaning one’s car) did not work at two different gas stations; and, that as a result – by events too tedious to recount – I suffered minor consequence (damage to my car and loss of my walking stick).
From this comes the proverbial expression “to cut the Gordian Knot”, meaning to cut right to the heart of a matter without wasting time on external details.
There are two ways to attack a seemingly insurmountable difficulty: 1) by studied analysis; or 2) by brute force. Employing the latter may have the appearance of success but it may fail to address the root cause.
“Such as your thoughts and ordinary reflections are,’ Marcus Aurelius says, ‘such will your mind be in time.’ Every page of the book shows that he knew thought would surely lead to action. He trains his soul in right principles so that when the time comes, it may be guided by them. To wait until the emergency is to be too late.”
Excerpt From
Meditations: Modern English Edition
Marcus Aurelius
“A great boy in our school, having a little short cassock, by force took a longer from another that was not so tall as he, and gave him his own in exchange: whereupon I, being appointed judge of the controversy, gave judgment, that I thought it best each should keep the coat he had, for that they both of them were better fitted with that of one another than with their own: upon which my master told me, I had done ill, in that I had only considered the fitness of the garments, whereas I ought to have considered the justice of the thing, which required that no one should have anything forcibly taken from him that is his own”.
Excerpt From
The Essays of Montaigne — Complete
Michel de Montaigne
Assuming as I do that the purpose of life is not merely the accumulation of capital and the exhibition of wealth, one must on occasion ponder the success of our elders and leaders to instruct their juniors and subordinates. I speak of course of that process commonly called education – not for the utilitarian purpose of arranging subalterns in the military, rather for the object of instructing the young in morality, jurisprudence, restraint and empathy. The refinement of knowledge does at times enable the appreciation of beauty as well.
“History is my particular game as to matter of reading, or else poetry, for which I have particular kindness and esteem: for, as Cleanthes said, as the voice, forced through the narrow passage of a trumpet, comes out more forcible and shrill: so, methinks, a sentence pressed within the harmony of verse darts out more briskly upon the understanding, and strikes my ear and apprehension with a smarter and more pleasing effect.”
Idem
While I am a fan of the trades for their revealing and axiomatic purpose, Instruction of the seemingly impractical nature mentioned aforehand is however critical to the emancipation of the mind. While much disparagement has been said of pedantry by contrast, it is inescapable that our less than pragmatic motives in life require guidance and experimentation if we are to capture other than its vulgar side. At times we will enhance the meaning by employment of the metaphors of profit and loss to make the point – albeit for a more obscure or Delphic purpose.
By progression I am learning that the substance of life is remarkably clear in spite of its equally unfathomable and oft times nebulous significance. The Stoic truths constructed from ideals of logic, monistic physics and naturalistic ethics encourage “living a well reasoned life”. It is however not an education which in recent centuries of Western society has gained either a popularity or a universality of application. Instruction in logic – to take but one example – is valuable to us all. From its study we are informed of the necessity (when contemplating the avenues of conduct and conclusion) to reason from an opening premise before proceeding to a further narrower premise and then the final deduction. The most esoteric elements of law are founded upon the plainest of principles, including “Nemo dat quod non habet” – No one gives what he does not have; or, “Res ipsa loguitur” – The thing speaks for itself. From these broad truths we may apply specifics.
The complication of education is diminished by the fascination of the experience. There is no reason we should not instruct our youth in a manner of practical application for common good – the ultimate goal of which is to afford “living a well reasoned life”.
This afternoon while driving along the Appleton Side Road – beneath the azure sky and brilliant sunshine – I pondered these gripping principles. The failure to have properly educated our current leaders has affected us all. Nor should we have expected otherwise. The fall-back resort to competitiveness – whether exemplified in sports or scholastic achievement – has unwittingly enabled the bully and aggressive vengeance, the performance of which by our elders is nothing but embarrassment and disappointment – aside from the violations. Our refusal to be intolerant of this intimidation is of no help. We either legitimize the learning or ignore it. The dilemma is not far removed from the painful difference affecting government service based on experience and merit or money and votes (the latter coincidentally illustrative of the Chinese model).