Life is a Puzzle
Life is a Puzzle
The majesty of past years is not lost to us who know endings are about growth, change, and enlightenment.
As we get older the mystical changes in evolution begin falling into place. For instance, we know our President is Black. We know 35 of our Senate Representatives are now young and inexperienced.
They are probably afraid of change just like us. So what if the Republicans outnumber the Democrats? We the People voted them in. It is my hope they do not waste their time on any one bill like some have warned us, but remember small changes bring big results. If they waste their time, we will all lose out. It was Eleanor Roosevelt so many years ago who reminded us, “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift; that’s why they call it the present.”
Looking back we lost many talented and infamous people who have passed, yet we are left with Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga and her pound of flesh and much more to watch closely. Most of us hate death. We do not enjoy saying goodbye. We do want to remember good times. We have Twitter and FaceBook to help us stay connected all in a big way. This New Year we will renew our love affair with both of them as well as YouTube, TV, Blue Ray, Amazon and independent publishing.
Oprah started working on her own network, OWN. She has found a way to transport passion via others. Studies argue that most of us agree with Oprah that flexibility and creativity are the keys to success in a changing world. Oprah, Obama, and Michelle have all reinvented themselves as well as Hillary and Bill Clinton. Many of us are following their lead and finding new ways to live and love.
Yeah for the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Maybe, someday we’ll have one God, one religion, and one people. Ursula K. LeGuin says, “It is good to have an end to journey towards, but it is the journey that matters in the end.”
We need jobs, food, medical, and housing above all. We’re as humans fighting for our survival.
We are people who also need to be productive and busy otherwise we resort to crime and abusive behavior onto others. Statistics tell us energy costs will keep raising until we pursue clean green ways of replacing more than 85 million barrels of oil per day. The weakened dollar alone raises prices all around us even at the pump. Natural gas could help against the unpredictability of foreign oil prices.
Poverty, war, and greed trap us all around the world in a never-ending cycle. In my opinion, the glory days of this country is perhaps not behind us but way ahead of us when the government starts working for Americans not so many other special interests.
There were many natural disasters this last year like hurricanes, floods, fires, and tornados that left many of us living like animals, depressed, afraid and unconnected. Humans need to be connected. For some people with few skills and little education, things won’t get better soon. I wonder if God was watching when thousands of dead red-winged blackbirds and drum fish committed collective suicide in protest.
Some say it is more likely that their death was a result of something that has already happened, rather than something that is about to happen if you are worried about Doomsday 2012. It is said that every calamity presents an opportunity.
I guess it is good to remember life is a puzzle and we humans are the corner pieces. There is no beginning and no end to puzzles without the corner pieces. Otto Rank, the infamous philosopher reminds us, “Change and growth take place when a person has risked himself and dares to become involved with experimenting with his own life.
We are all functioning at a small fraction of our capacity to live fully in its total meaning of loving, caring, creating, and adventuring. The actualizing of our potential can become the most exciting adventure of our lifetime.”
As a poet, I look at beginnings and endings with metaphors.
Polliwogs & Pain
It’s nice to think of tears…
like polliwogs swimming around excitedly ready to evolve,
It’s nice to think of sorrow as water,
all those tears escaping where
swelling pain had been,
It’s nice to think our sorrow will soon
evaporate just like our tears,
It is nice to think we are like polliwogs
merely evolving into a higher form,
And someday, we’ll be up in the
clouds dreaming of the comfort
and safety of polliwogs
swimming in a mortal’s eyes.
