Our dinner conversation about happiness took an unexpected turn into serendipity.

After sharing what makes each of us happiest, I had an epiphany. All our happiest scenarios were circumstantial, based on fortunate events and experiences that either happened around us, to us, or were otherwise created by us to experience and briefly enjoy.

It occurred to me “that’s a lot of work for a moment of fleeting bliss which is ultimately dependent on the next one.”

Being continuously happy requires effort and exposure to things outside ourselves while being content is a still, taskless state of peace within our circumstances whatever they are. Happiness is the ! at the end while contentment is the sentence before it we need not work to write, because we just let it fall into place.

It was at that moment we all discovered that serendipity is both insightful, wondrous, beautiful, and exactly what our dinner conversation that evening had happily become.

Tiny

droplets

falling,

landing,

faster now,

they race

for standing,

driving down

in revving sheets

a bouncing frenzy

each drop competes

but

I

lost

count

and a new river won.

I sat to watch

the cool summer rain

applaud the earth and

to it waved the checkered flag.

I don’t want to know it when I die. I just want to come home from a long day at work, open the door, drop my briefcase for the last time and suddenly everyone I ever loved jumps out from behind the sofa and yells “Surprise!” and all my old dogs run up and lick me like it’s been ME who’s been gone so long.

Out of ICU after a near miss with a defibrillator yesterday. Not the original reason for admission but perhaps a red herring. Triglycerides down to 400 vs 2000+. Going for a stress test this morning. Maybe home. Good spirits and new awakenings abound from the past 6 days here, the greatest of which was waking up to another day, another sunrise, another chance to dance. #thanksforthelove

Well, your love and prayers brought me home from the hospital last night after an ordeal that logically should not have.

So many first hand nursing accounts of young dead COVID patients in the ICU hall next door was sobering to say the very least. I was in bad shape but my mountains were rolling hills in comparison to the desperation only 300 feet away I could occasionally hear when those sealed double doors opened. Some called it ‘the tomb’ while others called codes on the dead and dying.

There are indeed heroes inside those walls whose dedication to serve others seemingly outpaces their own need to survive.

Until there is a better solution, wear a mask. Keep your distance. Keep hope alive.

It does the dance

to get the glance

and soon entrance

upon the chance

you’ll drop your stance

and die just a little more.

#temptation

I find it remarkable how what lifts us from bed in the morning is the anticipation of a 10% sliver of the day’s hopes and holdings and what puts us to sleep at night is the reality that the day  had actually held so much more. #the10percentsolution

With all that’s going on these days, I’m not entirely convinced the question is whether we are all indeed equal, but rather, do we actually aspire to be?
Hear me out. I’ll be brief.
While we publicly abhor practices that promote differentiation from one another, at the same time behind the scenes, we are actively differentiating ourselves from one another, climbing ladders from lower rungs onto those higher, more distinguished or better regarded by society.
Like it or not, more measures of success in American culture still lie squarely in the value of being better than, with little to no reward earned for actually being equal. The climb crosses race, sex and all other classifications.
Those less successful at the climb are underfoot to the more accomplished climbers of a society disgustingly compelled to prove it with titles, money, power and prestige afforded by the present distance of their earned position from where they once began. Chances of the two ever meeting are reduced and subsequently, lines between the two are consequently more clearly defined.
Maybe what we really need is a better means of measuring achievement that’s not in light of being relative to that of another. Then inspire and equip people solely to be better climbers. Equality may be less about the height attained and more about progress made from where each begins his own adventure.
Just my thoughts.

A brush with depth.
I once knew a man who had a serious brush with depth. He failed to resurface, abandoned the life he knew and was never the same again.

Each of us is given one or two moments in a lifetime to dramatically change course if we want it bad enough, have vision to recognize the opportunity and the courage to act upon it.