Good Morning,
I have found over the years that there are some mornings when I sit down to write this letter that it is quite difficult to find a subject. Not because there isn’t something I could write about. It is usually that I have too many things (alligators, lions and bears) going on and while any one of them could be fodder for a letter, they are not something I would want to elaborate on and have in print, even though I may have strong opinions about them. I have touched on a few subjects in the past and have had to deal with the fallout, which wasn’t where I wanted to spend my time. Past experiences have shown me that it is better not to share in the immediate those thoughts, and if at all, let them live for another time, when my only voice is in print. Maybe that is self-censoring for the moment, but the purpose of these letters, when I started, was to share myself as a person and some of my life’s philosophies with you, my children, so that you in the present and possibly future generations, may know me better. Then ultimately in the process, achieve a level of communication that I did not have with my parents, grand parents and certainly generations previous. Kind of filling in the dash between my birth date and demise on my stone.
There is, of course always the risk of damaging relationships in the present, when points of view are shared and not mutually appreciated. Anticipating the possible reactions from some of you and configuring the message in a way to carry the point becomes almost a game for me and certainly a challenge at other times. To occasionally, when needed, cleverly deliver an esoteric message to one person, while several read it, is what I find to be the “fun part” and also proves most challenging.
I tend to write in the immediate and am usually influenced by things going on in my life. It has helped create a diary of sorts as my life continually changes, be it geographical, philosophical, physical or relational. There have been times when I have gone back and read some of these messages and can see how I and my life has changed over the years. I now feel that this is beginning to accomplish what I set out to do and hopefully someday will be seen as gesture having merit.
My life presently, is exactly what I have chosen to make it, now and over the years. Mostly by one little decision at a time, compounded to make the whole. If I am not retired and relaxing in “The Bahamas” or enjoying the fairways of some distant golf course, it is solely my choice and the choices that have brought me here in this moment. In retrospect, if I did not “put enough nuts away” for this winter of my life, well it is because I chose to eat them with ice cream in the summer and fall in the sun, while fattening myself up. So, now it is the time to become like the hibernating Bear in a “Bear Market” and bear with it while bearing in mind that barely surviving is better than not. (Sorry I couldn’t help myself with that one.)
Would I like things to be different right now? Sure, many would. While my list is presently longer than I would like, I also know it could always be worse. To realize that, I need only to look around and not very far.
To quote Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) the German Philosopher,
“That which does not kill us, makes us stronger”.
I’m starting to think Tattoo… Maybe I could live with this one. It does fit my belief system, has survived the ages and a good compliment to my “Tigger” tattoo. Humm…
Love, Dad