The Challengers

Almost everyone seems to think the big contest today is for the presidency. I have a different point of view: that the real contest is for souls, in particular the self-saving of souls of the young by they tehmselves through striving for betterment and, along the way, experience of the world.

At present I am tracking the wanderings of two MIT graduates through the hinterlands of America, from Boston to the upper reaches of the West, east of the Rockies, down through Colorado, and back "home."

This would not be possible were it not for two sweeping technological advances of my latter life -- the laptop computer and cellphone -- and an adjunct to them: the weblog.

One of these is an immigrant from one of the Nearer-East countries of the West redeemed after the fall of the Berlin Wall.* The other is my own daughter, fortunate enough to have been born with the lipstick of God still damp upon her forehead, into a family that -- by striving to make it happen -- afforded her a private school education that she honored as she did herself.

They've been camping: that's what young folks do since memory can recall, and finding themselves showers along the way -- and one KOA that has recently installed wireless for its patrons. When she was about eight my daughter pronounced that the only thing she would need to stay on at the primitive lake, where we take sporadic summer vacations without benefit of the flush toilet or even cold showers, would be a good book and computer access. We had quite a good laugh over that, my wife and I. Little did we understand the tendency of the modern age to fulfill her wish.

The thing about young folks today that most interests me is their resourcefulness, mindfulness, and bewildering drive to make a problem (set?) out of anything that might fall into the whirlpools of conversation in which they are always to be found -- all for the sheer joy of solving it. They challenge everything about them and one another, gracefully or not. They are bold, brash, full of joy, and abounding in information that stymies onlooker ability to quickly comprehend what is happening at any given moment. They have taught me what the deeper meaning of "breath-taking" is, and I am often wheezing at the ventricles of my brain, foot racing to keep up.

They read. They write. They expound ... endlessly, to be sure. They stick to it: they are the challengers.

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* You'll note that I do not write "since the fall of communism," which I do not think has fallen, but is merely in shallow hiding that, thinks me, seems to have at least three-quarters of the world duped. Stand by.

The Small Thing

It's a pretty big thing to be in control: we spend half our lives learning how to achieve it and the next half learning how to balance control with decency.

It's a pretty small thing: you give up trying to control everything and everyone else.

Of course, attaining that level of maturity calls for accomplishing the top -- the mountain of courtesy with its steep and backsliding slopes. This is a trifle more interesting to the student of eternal relations, and calls for development of the ability to distinguish between oneself and another, the others.

Here's the short course: Lust runs out in equal proportion to Love running in. This is one of the reasons why so many men and women have acceded to the excuse that they are afflicted with an "addiction to sex" -- because they are stuck at level one (gaining control), but are in defiance of its terms, control meaning something, as in "self-...." Instead, they are suffering a distraction from what life really has to offer in favor of an illusion: that there is a next, a better, the best thrill -- usually defined within the word "orgasm." This gets sticky. The lesson is that while orgasm may be thrilling and confirming it is not what is restorative, what heals the human breast. That is the permanency of the connection and especially the shared confidence of it. Trust. Infidelity is the obserse and opposite, though the coin may remain the same.

The small thing to be sought after in this haystack is an ability that runs counter to what seems to be in one's best interest as a human beast: surrender. Sometimes one achieves it out of exhaustion in the search for the unknown, the unrealized. Yet, usually, surrender appears as but a dim possiblity only after the the spun gold of a relationship shows itself in the turret light of a new dawn.

You cannot hold it in the palm of your hand, you cannot contain it. You cannot explain it. You can only refuse it or give yourself up to it in confident surrender of control, this matter of finding Love.

Welcome! to ... A Good Place to Stick Around

When the phone rings, I know what to expect: "Now that you're retired and have some time, how about ... . "

People -- even close friends -- do not know that I have a life. It is a result of my doing. Something. Just what I am unsure but I think it is because I am generally in good spirits and fine fettle, and that I take time for them when we are together. I like it that way, I like me that way. If I have to take a moment to reschedule my own doings, fair enough -- I'll take the time. That is not an invitation to teleport additional items for the To Do list into my life.


3 findamentals of retirement planning

Get a job.
Show up.
Consistently retrain and expand horizons.
Plan for premature departure from the job.
Do the job well as long as you are at it.
Plan for project/s upon retirement.
Know when to leave.
Depart cheerfully, with gratitude.
Adjust to new circumstances.
Get a job or retire.
Begin project/s.
Live joyfully.
Let others know what you have learned.
Show up.
Complete one thing at a time.
Please your spouse, your children, your friends.
Meet new people all the time.
Stick around.
Be glad.