I was never very good at sports.  That's okay.  Sports are not important.

To Be Young Again...

Just at the age 'twixt boy and youth,
When thought is speech, and speech is truth.

-Sir Walter Scott

The older I become, the more I realize what I have lost.  The longer I leave my past unexamined, the deeper my memories are buried.

I became a record keeper much too late in my life.  I now have wonderful and detailed accounts of my life which date back to just after my life became boring so that attempts at recording my new history might be seen as attempts at trying to piece together meaning for the prior years.  This is not the case.  However, my lesson was learned too late but also too well.  A captain or pilot is profited little at the reception of a map when the journey is closing with the destination in view.  It does a man no good to receive answers to questions he no longer asks.

The key folly is not that we do not receive answers or directions in our younger years, though there are certainly a fair amount of that.  No, the key folly is that a vast majority of people do not give proper value to the experiential knowledge and wisdom of others older than the individual involved.  We pass through life always hoping for improvement and for the best life has to offer while discrediting and discarding the keys to what we wish for.  Why do we do this?  That is a question for the individual, but one that must be answered at the peril of many lost years.

I do not regret how I have lived my life.  Nor is this post the product of a failed discussion with a particular arrogant youth, as often as they do visit.  Consider your life as you might look back on it at dusk - from the other side of the hill.  Not all of life nor all lives are worth investigation.   All can be.  All have that potential.  Here is a chance to make yours exemplary, at least for your own purposes.

Keep a record of your life.  It is a disgrace to the ignorant that there are individuals in the world who have forgotten more knowledge than they will ever have learned.  In the same song, I may add my own verse that if I had effected to remember everything I have learned and thought, than I would certainly be a genius and much greater in my own existence.  However, knowledge is not the ultimate goal of my counsel nor of life.

Live life youthfully without the follies of youth.  If we can remember our lives - all of the lessons, all of our worthy and promoting ideas, all of our deeds which decide our path, and all of our observations and influences - we would never look back through the bitter lens of regret.  We can be young forever.  Knowledge, experience, and responsibility do not prevent us from maintaining youth.  It is loss and neglect which age our faces and dampen our vigor.  If we will learn to continually learn, remember, and examine with love and purpose, both our own life and others' lives, we will be able to age without the inexperience which youth impossibly fails to injure us with.

Learn from the children, teach the adolescent, and aid the elderly.  The adults will need to learn this for themselves.

I have a very busy and important life.

I do not start my blogging life by trying to deter my readers from interest in my future retelling of life events.  For there will certainly be many people of varying levels of importance to themselves and to the world around them, who, upon reading my first line, will think it a waste of time or "insulting for this person to think that he is by birth and accomplishment more important than I."  The forever undimmed truth is I am more important than you and this because of birth, accomplishment, and so much more noble traits and deeds than you may yet realize.  I must stress that though I may reach this conclusion without solicitation or hesitation by my own judgment, it is the remarks of others, commonly cited as dignitaries and held in high status by peoples and countries, which justifies my own expression of my worth and standing.  For when I forward praises to make me so shine as to shame the sun, I only retell praises received.  It is repugnant and ultimately vain to try to exalt oneself in another's eye.  Only the world may do so and permit fame to grow to legend.

If it will be less distracting, I could title this post "You have a very busy and important life".  However, that may be misleading and hint that the subject "you" is referring to someone else besides the author, me.  I prefer direct and honest communication, sometimes at the cost of offending the soft-hearted and unconfident.

But again, don't be misled by pride into foolishly leaving to never return.  A man looking at the sun may see it pass from east, to overhead, to west, and finally out of sight and very easily assume that he is greater than it by seeing that the light revolves around him.  This is plainly not correct.  Any learned man or one of intelligence or even ears to hear has a better notion of the correct function of the sun's movement.  Consider the analogy when you remember that it is the sun that maintains the earth in its correct orbit in the universe.  Without it, our common home would hurdle away and die within days along with even those who still are fooled by appearance.  Don't shun yourself from the light which I offer.

You will soon learn that what I offer is merely my life experience shared.  But, if you have a mind to learn, if you would drink from pure waters and live in light, if you will listen, then return.  Listen to the child within who asks questions which adults destroy.  If we can share our lives, each will be lived by more than just one.  We need not rely on self to learn or live. We can live jointly and find greater riches than had ever been considered.  We will love and will truly be alive.

Until next time or until never again, farewell.  Share, learn, love, return.