Reinventing the Wheel
Reflections on the Confessions of St. Augustine

Acknowledgment

I wish to thank the Mental Health Okamoto Memorial Foundation for its longstanding support of my work in Japan every spring and fall.

Foreword

Augustine lived in troubled times, an era of "wars and wars and rumors of wars." Who does not? Governmental corruption, slavery, religious strife, and a widening gap between rich and poor are characteristics of Augustine's time not unfamiliar to us today.

Founder of the Augustinian religious order and Bishop of Hippo, Augustine found time to write extensively. Though consistently emanating from a Catholic Christian philosophy Augustine's literary works have particular appeal because of their wide range of topics related to human existence. Whether or not one agrees with Augustine's perspective he stimulates thinking about what it is to be human and to live this human life. Though sometimes appearing long-winded and tedious to the modern reader the Confessions of St. Augustine offer chartings of a mind engaged in self-examination, an effort to fit Augustine himself within a consistent and meaningful framework for understanding the reality of human existence. Thus, the Confessions offer an extraordinary stimulus for exploring an alternative (or perhaps complementary) framework. Whether the perspective described in the following pages contrasts with Augustine's or complements it, I leave to the reader to decide.

Augustine died in 430 A.D. We all share that ultimate fate. It is kind of you to invest some of your precious life-time in reading these words. Please apply them well. To do so will make my time well spent.

Introduction

These thoughts occurred to me during my reading of the Confessions of St. Augustine. "Occurred" is an apt word; isn't that what happens when we think? Thoughts "occur;" they appear from nowhere and happen to us. So this book happened to me. Now it is happening to you as you read it.

You might call this book a reinterpretation of St. Augustine's Confessions in Constructive Living terms. Constructive Living is a way of operating in the world derived and extended from the thought of a couple of twentieth century Japanese philosophers and therapists, Masatake Morita and Ishin Yoshimoto. There are already quite a few books and other sources of information about Constructive Living available. However, I suspect that you need not explore the sources elsewhere to make some sense of these reflections here. Later, if you decide to learn more about Constructive Living thought, see the references and contact possibilities at the end of the book.

Book I

I am surrounded by reality, am part of it, yet wondrously aware of it. I know only a part of reality, but seek to know more. The knowledge and the seeking, too, come from reality. I translate this awareness into word thoughts, an imprecise translation. The words, too, are reality's gifts. Sometimes I mix up knowing and words--bird within egg within bird within egg with no hope of breaking out of the shell. I format reality with my words, on occasion with awareness.

I bump into reminders of reality. Examples get my attention. With borrowed words and knowledge and eyes I look around to find myself and define these showered stimuli "me." All the while reality contains me, sustains me. Wherever the wind blows, wherever space insinuates itself, wherever thoughts drift--there it is already and always.

Where did reality come from? Where did this very thought come from? Where does this searching for answers come from? These questions tower over us, but not over reality. There is nothing beyond reality's grasp.

When I am miserable reality is there for me. When I am gleeful it remains my intimate companion. When I forget about its presence it is there keeping its promises. When I acknowledge it only the me-part changes. Does reality care one way or the other? I do, so it must. The caring is borrowed, too.Do you suppose gravity gets tired or the stars get bored? Do you wonder at time's pacing? Is there balance somewhere teetering on a fulcrum of this moment?

Words skitter like oil in reality's frying pan. The adjectives don't stick. Changing circumstances, changing vision, changing mind. Or so they say.

So what is reality up to? It goes about its business being what it is. We discover/create purposes in our glosses on the flow. And we ride the current.

Those who deny it, those who defy it, those who ignore it must bear more reality springing from their resistance. Some praise it, some condemn it; yet all are caught up in the flow. We try to work the system while it works us.

Where is our salvation? Where is the safety net, the soul salve? The whole of it lies in giving up on ourselves. We discover the deliverance by emptying ourselves of fluff-pride and mist-confidence and foam-prowess and by emptying ourselves of ourselves altogether. We must strip ourselves to embrace reality naked and helpless. Then we discover that reality never allows us to be naked and helpless, never did. There were always hands under us lifting, minds clothed in languages of reality's design. Salvation was there all along. Relief was there for the taking. We are all qualified to give up our qualifications and thus find them.

Hurting is recursive. Pain in me is reality's pain. Relief is both prize and gift. See the whole of it. Lack of awareness is a sort of death available to the living. We all die a lot.

How then to advance? How shall I remedy this tendency to die? How do I attain this endowment offered from time's beginning? Do more, ruminate less. Accept more, reject less. Thank more, complain less. Attend more, lie less. Have purpose more, compare less.

The perspective is straightforward--within the sounds of the universe I'm a gnat's sneeze. And that is just as it is. Fine. Reality created this small sound. Reality will silence it. On. Off. Amplified stereo in this small room. Reality, the only show in town. Now playing.

Somebody fed me. Somebody bathed me. Somebody cleaned my messes. They were reality's hands. I never thanked them. I whizzed along on the tracks they greased until I set my own course. On the new course, too, I found others were smoothing my way without complaint, as though it were unremarkable. Borrowed tracks. Borrowed locomotion. Borrowed me. Thanks, at last.

So I, the taker, sucked milk and time and effort reflexively. I consumed the resources and drained the assets of others' lives. I exhausted pencils and wasted cars and kitchen sinks. I sat on a thousand toilet seats. And never once said "I appreciate that." I thought they were mine. But I'm them and never knew it.

This body went unnoticed until pride or pain drew my attention to it. Health was due me, a reward for occasional considerations. Pain engendered polite curses and complaints. Illness was an inconvenience, an obstruction on the way to my goals. Yet thanks to illness there are fresh goals, vital goals. Reality sends them, like all the rest. Notice, notice.

Watch the infant's satisfied smile, the taken-care-of smile. My smile grows more like that. As the tapestry unweaves I see the loom strands clearly. The frame remains solid, stable. Thank you, reality-weaver. Let me spin a thread to make the pattern more visible. Hand weaving. Hand woven.

"Look at the wondrous pattern!" I called and failed to see that those who refused were part of the pattern, too. I shouted and gestured to make them see. I was the one needing glasses. I tried to shrink wrap the tapestry to fit in a cereal box. It didn't fit. My mistake.

With all my ups and downs reality rolls on.

Where was I before this life? Where was I before this moment? Do the questions make sense? Where do the questions come from, and where do they go when forgotten? If these riddles make sense, are answers possible? Are answers necessary? Or do I flee from driving the car by pondering its engineering. The fact remains that these questions appear and disappear just as I emerge fresh in each moment. As always the search is a gift.

From infancy I screamed for my share and lashed out at those who obstructed me. I forgot their services and remembered their shortcomings. I ignored my failings and remembered my dispensations to those I deemed worthy--the cheap perfume for Mother, the hand-drawn cards for Father... They didn't seem to mind or even notice my selfishness. And I outgrew only the expression of my faults. So others can keep forgiving me.

The doing of the nows is miraculous. When I look behind them it is now. When I gaze ahead it is now. Always newly created, this infinite moment.

We've disappointed our parents, and they've disappointed us. We've hurt them, and they've hurt us. And despite all that accumulation of aching they gave us life. How can you repay someone for your existence? How can you make up for the favorite meals and laundered sheets and birthday toys and powdered rashes and dental bills and stolen coins and snuggling warm under quilts and sleeping bags? It's so much simpler to forget and criticize and discount the debt or believe foolishly that the debt could be reversed. The account is complicated with reimbursed moments of joy and love. Such complex transactions cannot be evaluated in a golden hour a week or a summer retreat of contemplation. The more closely we examine, the more overwhelmed we become. The older we become the more we see our debt ripen. The better the recollection the surer we become of our ignorance then and now.

Infants aren't lazy or wanton. I saw with eyes I didn't make. I heard borrowed sounds with borrowed ears. How marvelous! I didn't notice then, rarely notice now. Formal explanations of these senses may pertain to humankind, but not to this single personal me.

From infancy I passed to childhood and learned to play with words. Still I play them on my mind flute with childish delight. I learned to rebel on purpose, to conceal and perturb and frustrate. I learned to seek my share at others' expense. I learned to redefine my surroundings for my own convenience. I learned to want to win. I learned to expect salvation of all sorts and then to reject what reality offered with grumbles and grief. All the while I craved and clutched and pilfered and plundered automatically, without thought, without the need for justification because the issue didn't arise, conveniently.

So did those around me. But to say so relieves me not at all.

All the while death kept score on my life. It mostly sat and sometimes stood waiting its chance to call the game, to end it. On rare occasions I peeked from the corner of my eye at the scoreboard but never saw it clearly enough to know either my chances of victory or the time remaining. That scoreboard wasn't all of life, but it was not to be ignored with impunity. I could see other players enter and leave the game, coached by reality with immediate tactics and life strategies more or less clear, but their scores, too, remained a mystery. Others cheered me on, became teammates, strategists, managers, trainers. No one, however, could play the game for me. There are no substitutions in this life. I must play the whole game right to the end. I play by reality's clock.

Reality was and continues to be my mother and father. I am reality's child nurtured by reality's representatives. I squall with a thousand excuses for my poor behavior: I am too greatly tempted, my past was flawed, my resources are lacking, my mind is bruised, my body is defective. I can recite the litany of limitation in the chorus of complaint. Well wishers understand and excuse, comfort and forgive. For all my grownup childishness the fresh moments of opportunity trickle forth from the rock wall of the present. No one drinks for me.

Studying isn't always fun. Working isn't always enjoyable. Some jobs are difficult and dirty and unappreciated and time-consuming. Some jobs have no apparent end and no apparent reward. I have no character to build. But if reality sends me a job to do, even if it's the job of resting or playing, I must do it with full attention. Until the next task emerges.

Beware the dangers of praise. Others' praise can control us; self praise can blind us. Like perfume, praise evaporates over time. It is a gift offered for reasons just and unjust and all unknown. It is a gift with vectors of reinforcement, shaping who we become. Offer it thoughtfully, receive it with watchful thanks.

Beware, too, the dangers of intellectual pride. It hides doubts and fear and sloth. It forsakes trudging through snowdrifts of achievement in exchange for the mists of snobbery. Learning is replaced by the appearance of learning. Study is replaced by administration. Keep your eyes on reality, even when creating with imagination. Avoid the trap of learning for social or political or economic ends.

There is a time for fantasy reading and a time for non-fiction. Beware the escape that lures you too long from the joys and responsibilities of your daily life. Beware the habitual substitution of flying for walking. Even when flying, walk alertly.

Natural curiosity makes the world interesting, worth learning. Like any other feeling curiosity cannot be bought or sold, though a good teacher makes window shopping worthwhile. We learn in order to get reality's work done well. Learning helps us grow up, is growing up into the ordinariness of divinity, the celestially mundane.

Words may be used to hide, to excuse, to deny, to seduce, to preen and mock. They become the paint for self portraits, brushed on with tongues and pens, splashed on as exclamations and epithets, shaded with feeling. The words are not at fault. They are signs, like smoke signals fire. We are the fire, ever flickering, flaming, floating, flashing, flowing toward uncertain certainty.

Looking larger than life we grin like high school heroes in a yearbook. As though brash bravado could make atrocities into antics. As though we could evade responsibility by appealing to our never-ending adolescence. We're too rich to be wicked. We are merely naughty, mischievous pranksters. Or so we would like to believe.

We fly so high we fail to see the earth for all the clouds of comfort. When there is a break in the clouds we prefer to view humans as statistical collections of dots, distantly below us. They are no more real to us than the printed symbols on our newspapers. We keep our distance with black ink and phosphoric images on television screens. And wait to die. For death promises sure relief from the nagging discomfort of looking away, the migraine of averted eyes.

Prodded by pain and longing some will seek the superior life. Some will pursue ordinary excellence. Upon diligent searching they will discover that they are guests in a world of hosts. Proper guests work to make their stay less burdensome on the hosts. It's the least they can do. So their stay becomes more pleasant for all concerned. Keeping the guest room neat benefits the guest most of all. Maligning the host changes the guest into slanderer, diminishing the guest's rightful status and disregarding the truth that guests and hosts are all guests and hosts.

The wavy mind may generate frothy fears of culpability, of possible affronts and imagined disasters and overlooked errors. The wavy mind may generate crystal dreams of perfection, of ideal partners and smooth maneuvers and obedient outcomes. Yet reality conforms to a more varied menu.

We learn to trade the innocence of effort for the masks of appearance. Why is it that during all our errant wandering we remain admirably protected? From what source comes this undeserved nurture?

Book II

My inadequacy is balanced by reality's support. My bitterness is sweetened by others' kindness. Baked in reality's oven I am warmed by the efforts of countless bakers. Rising.

In my youth love was just another tool for getting my share of life's pastry. I nibbled here and there, searching for the perfect cream puff of happiness. I grew fat with self indulgence, passing the time distracted, never quite satiated, coveting what was presented on others' tables. For the moment I had forgotten that the feast would end, the dining hall door would close, my bill would be totaled. Whom would I pay for this banquet? Even with unlimited credit, someday I must consider the tab. And wash a dish or two.

My appetite, too, is a gift from reality. Without hunger there can be no sense of fullness. Without anxiety there can be no relief. Without fear, no solace. Reality teaches me about appetites, desires. It provides feedback about when to act on them, when to hold back. Its lessons come repeatedly, dependably until I learn them. I could have nibbled less and learned more quickly. But I needed the calories, too.

I learned to talk cleverly, smoothly. I learned to pull out words quickly, often as a substitute for action. My teachers guided and praised me. I nibbled at their tables, too. My parents funded much of that feast, though I never thanked them for it.

So I grew to young manhood, nibbling, gorging, tasting a variety of life's flavors. The bills for this buffet I passed along to Mother and Father, for the most part. That was their role: to pave the way and pick up after me. Or so I thought. If I thought about it at all. They paid and paved and picked up as though it were their inherent role. If they thought about it at all. It worked out so nicely for me.

Thus, from my exalted position of dependence I was able to criticize and disdain those parents who had given me life and multiple and varied meals. I could discern their faults so clearly from my vantage point of teenage experience. They were vulnerable because we all agreed on my worth. Rebellion was succulent, savory, sweet.

No one led me astray. I crawled beneath the tables on my own hands and knees. I spilled cups and broke dishes on my own. Sometimes there were companions in my escapades, but they didn't revel and ravage for me. Sometimes there were models and forerunners for my foolishness, but they didn't do my deeds of disorder and destruction. I need not digest what others have eaten. My current gastric spasms are due to my own diet.

Climbing the narrow ladder of scholarship with its closely-spaced rungs I neglected to notice that the ladder was propped against nothing. I felt it teeter, but failed to investigate its footing. Conveniently for me, as long as I was climbing there were no other responsibilities. For a long while I lost my connections, my grounding. The ladder was all there was. And it swayed in the breezes of fashion and funding. I floated on bloated pride and spongy tradition. I learned to learn in order to reach the next rung, to compare my height with those on ladders around me, to cultivate their praise and envy. I was foolishness in a Mensa mask. For many years I failed to discern the truth that we become the ladders we climb.

Eventually I came to consider the source of my energy for climbing, the structure of the ladder, the circumstances in which it fluttered, the lawful constructions of mind. Then, in some moments, the ladder vanished, and I fell or floated or ascended or simply went the way of the ladder.

Joy, delight, excitement, and satisfaction are not the precise words to describe this path. They are words for ladders. Perhaps planted, seasonal, luxuriant, and verdant are more accurate. The latter are words about life foliage, though the words are not alive.

Who knows why we humans fight or sing or hunt or parade ourselves? Who can say why we support or snub or share or scorn? There are socialized fairy tales about our motives. You may believe these myths. Yet for every tiny action there are a thousand legends, a thousand interpretations of the script. No matter how learned and esteemed the storyteller may be, a myth is a myth. That humans fight and sing and hunt and so forth we can all agree. Though that agreement, too, is a level of storytelling. The stories, too, are gifts to help us wander through this maze.

I can't make tomorrow come any sooner. I can't calm a volcano or a rainstorm, a blizzard or a flood, a hurricane or an earthquake. I can't speed the departure of a common cold or escape from death. I can't will belief or confidence or love into existence, or make them go away according to my schedule or convenience. Who can? On what basis do I consider myself in charge of my life? I am lived. On what basis do I consider myself educated? Reality keeps teaching me without letup. Yet so many lessons go unlearned. My unearned, unnoticed privileges abound. What can I call mine?

I am a small plug dangling from reality's outlet, its current passing through. Who pays my electricity bill for me? Even as I ignore my debts I rely on their benefits. Even as I posture mastery I squander the energy lavished on this convergence of vectors called me. There is no escape from this largess, no possible repayment in equal measure. Falling further and further behind I make token payments, never fully appreciating the bill. And, on occasion, I drop an unaddressed thank you note to the power company with its representatives seen and unseen.

So I live with guilt and gratitude, apologies and thanks, for they are the fundamental responses to glances at the overall design. A frontal gaze would sear the eyes, like confronting the sun or a burning bush. I hide in the shade at World Overlook. How easy, then, to don the camouflage of pseudo modesty and self-abasement, thus excusing my faulty behavior: "It's just the way I am." How easy, then, to hide myself in the masses of imperfection about me: "We're all like that." For all my denial and defense and disguise my own personal debt remains. And builds. Frightfully.

Reality wants to be acknowledged. Reality calls to be recognized. Its parts are created to validate the whole. Admitting my balance due is part of the payment. But not the whole of it. Reality's grace; my works.

The oncoming traffic keeps to its lanes. This car responds to my steering. The gasoline energizes. The road supports. The signs direct. The map guides. Traffic signals organize. The windshield wipers and headlights and heater and defroster cooperate. This single trip is sustained by a million hands. Keep life well maintained and in good repair. And thus borrow a million more hands in the process. We must borrow to pay on our debts, you know.

Do we think we can cheat and win this game? Do we expect to take our winnings and run? The more we win, the higher our taxes. And we rarely recognize when we hit the jackpot. There is some delight in looking like a winner. Even then, we depend on spectators. In the long view, however, all our chips are borrowed. They belong to the House. In this sense we are less gamblers than employees.

BOOK III

We fell in love with feelings. We distracted ourselves with carefree romps through the daisies of the mind. Meanwhile our world eroded. The deeper the gullies, the more attractive the flower fields. Until more and more of us had to live in the gullies. Where is the sense of it?

The time has come to rise up from lazing in the sun and go to work. Till the soil and see what a variety of plants emerge from your efforts. Flowers spring forth, too. Thank you, Reality, for soil and seed and season and, of course, for the effort itself.

Beware the fixation on drama that sucks you into unreality reality and grinds you into passive receptivity. Don't neglect your vegetable garden. There is no significant difference between the theater seat and the therapy couch. You always have to walk home when the show is over.

Do you sorrow for your sorrow? Do you grieve for your grief? Search the playbill to discover who is on stage and who is the audience. Consider who benefits from the benefit performance. Then return to the seasonal work of your garden.

Laws grow like weeds choking the garden. Clever words and sharp ploys fertilize the egos of weedmakers. When did justice become a profession? Insufficient punishment is cruel and unjust, too. Rehabilitation isn't painted on with ingenious talk or promoted by poor playacting or bought with fancy programs. Let both weedmakers and weedeaters apologize. What gardener has never been weedmaker or weedeater?

What is the purpose of education? To loll in academic sloth? To roll in business wealth? To gain parental pride? To prove intellectual worth? Learning, too, can be working on one's debt. Rediscover the enormity of the obligation through education. Your life is a multi-year loan with an undetermined payback period. Proper education views the debt from various angles and offers suggestions for creatively financing your payments. Look about you!

Dreams and fantasies offer temporary respite from anxiety. But dream food won't nourish the body and dream earnings won't pay the rent. We must pay the rent--not merely to the landlord, but to the Landlord, Reality. Defaulting on our debt puts us in a self-constructed debtors prison.

Hours of abstracted inattention are deducted from our playing time in the game of life. Suffering is part of the game, welcome or not. Rewards, too, come in exact measure to the players' skills; in fact, rewards are the players' skills. The rules are clear to those who observe the game board and other players. Be alert for new gambits, tactics, and strategies. These observations about the game are not new even though formatted for laser printer output. This commonplace game has been going on for a long time. Each play is infinite despite the running hourglass. Who spins fortune's wheel?

Pay attention! Purposes are multitude, and you know only your own. But some consequences are clear. So learn the rules, do the game well, act realistically, give up on giving up, mold yourself to circumstance. While winning or losing at any point in time, your debt remains.

When asked about this lifeway it may be wise to be foolish. Philosophical debate won't help you live life well. Just talk about what you know, how you live, what is reality-truth right in front of your eyes. There is no need for fine tuning if you don't own a radio. Don't let elegant words and credentials misguide you away from the realistic path. Reality is trustworthy. It is absolute, concrete, specific. Even our most relative, abstract, vague thoughts are absolute, concrete, specific. We are pips on reality's radar.

Overlaying a template of theory on reality allows us to see some parts clearly and other parts not at all. All thoughts are templates. All attention is a template. All of science is a template. Be clear on your templates. Discover those that are useful to you. Remember that as you explore the templates you are overlaying other templates on them simultaneously. Your templates should work well together. Don't neglect the template called "occasion." We all forget sometimes.

The thief hurts victim and self. The rapist violates victim and self. Stupidity is pitiable. Actions produce consequences. No one cheats reality. Whether we are remorseful or defiant gravity performs its function. No one ever got away with murder. Harvests happen.

Lies, too, produce effects. Ads soothe anxious business executives. Proclamations paste public perspectives on poster minds. Hype distracts the bored.

Truth ages well.

Scoff and ignore at your own risk. Embrace and apply at your own risk. You're in this life alone; we're all in this life together--different words, same meaning. There is no hope of becoming special or worthy or perfected or self-sufficient. Ants do ant work. Of course. Just fine. Trees do tree work. This work--here, now. Of course.

Ideas, like chewing gum, harden when left unchewed. Principles petrify when left untested. Confirm reality with action.

Mother, Grandma, Auntie, Dad--someone washed my soiled underwear. Someone reached past my flailing arms to feed me. Someone, unnoticed, covered me in the night. Someone washed my hair and dried between my toes and fed me, grumbling, vegetables. Certainly, I thought, it is natural that someone should take care of this charmed creature. Fifty years later I still think so at times. Taking without thought or thanks I complain when denied a whim or simply when slowed by traffic. Recipient of undeserved, unrecognized, unacknowledged favors I have a recurrent foolish vision deficit.

Appreciation for favors received shows by caring for tools, body, neighbors, environment--all reality's representatives. Picking up trash along the highway. Folding pajamas. Flowers at a grave site. A courteous greeting. A leaky faucet fixed. Bills paid on time. A healthy diet. All these are spiritual practices. Or not.

The subtle flavors of words appear with long simmering. Educate your palate. The starving eater works only at filling the stomach. Become reality's gourmet. We cannot feed those who will not taste our dishes. The life meals remain warm and flavorful. Come, dine.

Book IV

Seeking our own convenience we lose clear sight of others. They became shadow beings functioning only to protect us from the sun's rays. We accept their service, their praise, their prizes. Thus, we too became pale and ephemeral.

Flickers of self-generated light are followed by long basking in the glow of a tenuous aura of excellence. Darkness is blamed on lack of self esteem--how absurd! Who is there to save us? Not multinational CEO's or multidiscipline mind gurus or popular politicos or ecumenical ecclesiastics. We must dig our own shelters when the bombs of ego fall. Even then we dig with borrowed shovels.

The incantations of psyche priests, the pseudo safety of taboos observed, the social sorcery of the law draw us to thoughtless belief that all is well. We'll leave life up to specialists. It's all so complex. Domestication makes us easy, but restless. Don't lose your life by default. Earn your life. The greater the debt, the greater the need to repay. What is written in the genes can be transcribed in an abundance of fonts.

Direct your own movie. You need not conform to someone else's script. Don't aim for stardom, though. Recognize the supporting cast and crew. Master your craft.

My friend and my wife grew to resemble me. My students grew my wrinkles on their faces. I showed them how to squint in the sun. One by one they are lost in the shade. Someday the shade will cover all of them at once. The light from the sun is inexorably private. Pondering such inevitability shadows the world today. I yearn for a world without darkness, but there is light enough for now.

The thunderheads of Great Doubt blow across the sun from time to time. They pass, and the sky brightens. For the sun was there all along. So was the shade. I can see the cool attraction of shade, but, for now, I prefer to sweat in the sun. Thank you, sun, for the option you offer, for the light. Even the sweat is a gift. Ordinary sunsets--what can those words mean?

When did I last grow old? Was it on Wednesday? Was it tomorrow? The body/mind changes imperceptibly, though sometimes I notice later. All together the changes make up what is. And then it is gone, child and grandchild of new changes. We are the offspring of time. Conceived in concepts.

Where is security hiding? What would security be? Whose promise of endless health and material sufficiency and limitless love could ever be delivered? I can count on fresh moments, but not on their contents. Feeling secure happens sometimes, too. I can't ride a butterfly, though butterflies decorate the whole of the garden visible to us. Thank you, garden.

Butterflies are on the move, lively images of living ideas. Watch the butterfly idea flutter through your mind. There is life even in dying. There is life even in the dead. It is new life. Such thinking is new, too, and very old and very alive.

So move about with purpose. You cannot hide from life. It seeks you out from the inside/outside. It regenerates the garden over and over. It flutters you. Feel what you feel, and do what needs doing, in season. The fallen leaves ripen into spring sustenance, life compost. Give up on preserving your leaf identity and enrich the garden soil. You may find that this earthy idea leaves nothing beneath your fingernails. We still have a lot to learn.

Purposes, too, grow in the garden, and sway in the wind on fibrous stalks. Pluck your purposes in full bloom and make of your life a bouquet. Exhibit your arrangement within action's vase. Keep the blossoms watered with reflection. Add your artistry to the garden scene.

Whose approval do you seek? Whose support do you desire? Whose criticism do you avoid? Whose love do you pursue? Whose admiration? Your audience may be wider than you think--everyone who ever lived, and will live. Rate your own show. It's your assessment, your own personal now. In the end truth casts itself over us, the critique of our critique, the Ruler's ruling. No matter what your station in life when you miss the nail you hit your thumb. Ay!

The question is not why we are prone to blunder, it is what to do next. The question is not what causes me to think and act but how best to think and act now. Minds aren't electronic pumpkins.

I've read a lot of books and lived a lot of life. The picture grows; the me-part shrinks. Someday it will shrink to limitless zero. Still, too often, the foreground blocks the panorama. Pumpkin seeds perhaps.

Reality is our teacher. Carefully, thoughtfully, individually, it repeats its lessons. Don't sleep through class.

Rediscovering Fire:
Inspired by the Confessions of St. Augustine
David K. Reynolds, Ph.D.

The following material, inspired by a reading of the Confessions of St. Augustine, is a continuation of the book, Reinventing the Wheel. As in the previous material what follows is not a new translation of St. Augustine's Confessions but a compilation of reflections stimu­lated by that classic text. My reflections on St. Augustine's Confessions are no more Christian than this computer with which I record them. And no less. The following reflections begin with Book V.

Book V

What in the world causes me to write? What foolish arro­gance prompts me to think these words are worth recording? Why does reality want to read more about itself? More word reality; only word reality; drafting the obvious. Reality can't be look­ing for a new angle because the angles are already built right into the system. What can you give Someone who already has everything?

Keeping our awareness open appears to benefit us. We are part of this reality, after all. What is it about noticing, about paying attention, that attracts us and satisfies us? There's no place to hide. Even when we are dazed, drugged, or stupid reality taps us on the shoulder. Wake up!

We remain tiny examples of reality's workmanship, marked by our recognition of some aspects of the whole. Whether we deserve it or not reality plays by the rules. Whether we appreciate it or not reality shows no favorites. However far we explore reality it reveals no boundaries. Tripping over ourselves we blame reality's hurdles, expecting special dispensation and a faster track. When will we rediscover that part and whole are one? When will we learn that "we" is singular?

There is no sense in looking for a whale within a shrimp's eye.

You find a house by looking at a map. You find a map by looking at a map. Look all around you. Discover yourself out­side in and inside out.

How else can you get there from here?

When did you last burn your toast? How clean are your shoes? Are you forgetting appointments? Did you make your bed today? Don't put your head where you can't see your feet. Feet are real, too. It's amazing what you can see when your head is near your feet. Thank you, feet.

Science, relatively speaking, is the new kid in town. This new kid has skills and toys and style worthy of admiration and respect. However, there are some things this new kid doesn't know, some games the kid can't play, some (shall we say?) physi­cal limitations. So if you play with the new kid don't get puffed up and think you have it all. This town has lots of attractions, all kinds of kids.

Counting people and making friends are different enter­prises. Knowing the rules and playing skillfully are different matters. Knowing the rules and locating the rules are different matters. Rules may not be located where you think at first. Put your mental finger on them.

Computers can calculate rapidly but cannot ascribe meaning to the calculations. Assigning meaning and calculating are different processes. Meaningful calculations are better than no calculations at all. Calculations without meaning are useless. Your worth is incalculable. Your value is beyond measure. Who can reckon the meaning of your meanings?

Beware of those who claim supernormal powers, divine inspi­ration, mystical insights. They create categories benefiting themselves primarily. They seek a following of believers. Believe that to which anyone can attest. Your everyday world is marvelous! Your senses and cognition confirm it. No external authority is necessary to validate the marvel of it. There is no need to wait for some perfect future, no need to anticipate tomorrow's savior. The now has come rich with infinite resources and inexplicable sources.

I trip and stagger through word brambles. Nevertheless, my feet return to the firm soil beneath the vining verbiage. Reali­ty's rich soil creates and sustains. It is no wonder that the more basic the sense the closer it is to the ground. Cognition flies. Make sure it nests securely down to earth.

It is fine to be the fool who asks questions. It is a virtue to know that you don't know. It is perspicacious to recognize that your teachers don't know either. Knowledge is porous, a honeycomb flecked with sweet amber. Nevertheless, knowledge is preferable to ignorance about ignorance.

We shall occasionally be disappointed in ourselves and in those we hold up as symbols of perfection. Our disappointment may lead to questioning our own judgment. The questioning may lead to self doubt and despair. Fine! Get out of the self and into reality. Even while we despair reality sustains us. Complacency cannot produce progress. Despair shows us where not to be. What needs doing now?

Harmful actions are their own punishment. All our actions entail some degree of harm. We hurt ourselves and others all day long. Such inevitability is unpleasant to consider. The burden is intolerable. Yet it is legitimate; it must be borne. Strength for bearing this burden comes from efforts to repay reality's representatives--living and non-living representatives. Stagger and serve. Stoop and give. Crawl and assist. Pride is the blindness of those who won't behold truth.

Reality has its own logic. No matter what our predictions and plans we are greeted with surprises. The finer the focus, the greater the unpredictability. Even when all seems to go according to plan there are surprises unseen. Science lies in the mind of the beholder; moreover, science is the mind of the beholder. Beholding is the mind of the beholder.

Feelings are the mind of the beholder, too. Joy is joy; sorrow is sorrow; puzzlement is puzzlement; similarly, recogni­tion is recognition. There are no hidden or unreal feelings.

There are hidden lies, however, and avoidances and flights from here to here.

Illness jerks the reins of reality tight. Mortality looms above, darkening our playfulness. We taste the bitter-sweet potions of helplessness and dependence. We are forced to endure until dis-ease passes and we can forget again. For no one earns succor; no one merits solace. The remedies spring up alongside fevers and malaise.

Book VI

Where did the reality of my past go? Memories are now. They are groomed and redecorated to make a point. So I re-view my past through binoculars backwards, sometimes readjusting the focus. It is so hard to see clearly there. Truth happens now.

Mother had dreams for me, and I had dreams for her. Neither bought into the other's hopes. Dreams look different here on the ground. The scenery changes. Dreams are fine, but they're just dreams. Thanks for wishing your best for me, Mother. Dreams, like advice, are to be appreciated but not necessarily followed.

Doctors don't heal minds or bodies. Medicines don't heal minds or bodies. Whatever it is that heals uses doctors and medicines. Thank you, doctors. Thank you, medicines. Thank you, Whatever. Sick or well know your objectives. Sick or well do what needs doing. Eat everything that reality presents on your tray; then eat the tray.

Don't be foolish; acknowledge the blame you earned. There is no denial of our quarried wrongdoing. Inadequate parents, racial prejudice, social injustice, intellectual paradox, past trauma, political tragedy, collective unrest, economic fluctuation--none of these excuses misbehavior. Violating others is violating ourselves. Transgression dissects us, forcing us to hide our severed limbs from ourselves and others. We don't know everything, but we know enough to wince and apologize and thank. Now what needs doing?

You can't argue people into seeing reality; you can't preach them into utilizing their capacity for sight. Reality presses and presses against eyelids open or closed. Some prefer a form of blindness. So parts of reality go unsighted.

Deeds impress more than words. Words impress more than dreams. Kindness influences more than domination. Good deeds prepare the soil for crops to harvest. Domination prepares the soil for weeds. Others listen to what you do.

Doubt and falter but walk straight ahead. Vacillate and stagger but keep on doing your purpose. Don't wait for absolute certainty. Don't wait for perfect vision. Be the idiot who does life well.

The rules keep changing. The circumstances keep evolving. Wrap yourself in flannel reality, not the gauze of shoulds. Self praise and self pity are distractions. Just keep on. You're not alone. We're all in this flux together. Share a cup of empathy.

Interpretations come from reality. Mistakes can be painfully real. Insight can be off the mark. Who audits the evaluation? I look out over all the me's of yesterday from today's private balcony. I know what they didn't know then. Reborn anew moment by moment, reviewing anew moment by moment, who was I? What does it mean to ask this emanation "Who am I?"

Pick up the tissue. Straighten the carpet. Put away the tools. Pull the weeds. Caulk the tub. Answer the phone. Whoever it is doing that, just do it. Good enough. Reality's hands and voice and legs getting reality's work done. Laugh and cry and tremble. Whoever it is doing that, just do it. Good enough. Reality's weather fronts continue passing through. Become reality's welcoming committee. It isn't necessary to know everything about everything to get your shoelaces tied.

You can't bind reality with concepts. You can only bind your mind, or free it. Peek at tomorrow through the lens of yesterday, but the view is distorted and cannot be fully corrected. Peek at yesterday through the lens of today, but the view is distorted and cannot be fully corrected. Peek at the present through the lens of yesterday, but the view is distorted and cannot be fully corrected. Or view the now with naked eyes.

Assurances are not forthcoming. Complete explanations are impossible. Embrace uncertainty while working probability. Hurting recommends caution. Fear promotes precaution. You cannot prepare for all possibilities, so be reasonable, be scared, be upright, be agile.

You can't make yourself believe something; you don't need to do so. Belief appears. Like joy and intelligence and scrambled eggs, belief is a gift. However, it is possible to work to make belief's appearance more likely and more welcome.

It's easier to believe what is real and true. Belief in the absurd seeps from idleness or desperation or ignorance. So, sometimes, does belief in the real and true. We all skate on a film of belief. For we can't understand everything, even if we believe in understanding.

Even in our ignorance reality doesn't forsake us. Whether we marvel or despair at its mysteries reality keeps tapping at our senses. Though we are bundled in our fashionable garments called success and failure, reality keeps getting through to us. Our designer glosses won't make rain dry or heartache pleasant. Get wet in the shower.

Dying is a fact of life--anticipated, dreaded, reliable. Death, on the other hand, always happens elsewhere, except for those brief moments when we've passed away awareness. And those moments are not so bad, just absences, conversions. All the while reality cradles us.

Living, we desire an end to dying. Success, recognition, respect, contributing, supporting, nurturing are all forms of not-dying. Social dying is no less worrisome than bodily dying. Living fully prevents momentary dying. All the while reality lives us.

You can't compare lives meaningfully. The standard keeps shifting. Are you happier than your friend? Are you smarter than you were? Are you better off than your parents? Do you suffer more than others? Unnecessary comparison distracts from constructive action. This me-moment is unique.

It hurts us when friends are in pain. What is there to do? It hurts us when others despise us. What is there to do? It hurts us when loved ones go away. What is there to do? It hurts us when others shun us. What is there to do? Do what needs doing. Reality takes care of every situation in reality's proper time in reality's proper way.

If I do my job right you will find personal meaning in it. If you do your job right others will find personal meaning in it. Same job, in a way. Just do it. Offering advice is easy; right action is sometimes difficult. If you have time for comparisons like the above, you might wish to invest your time more constructively.

There lies within us the potential for savagery as well as transcendence, sloth as well as productivity. Potential is worthless and ephemeral, like an author's fantasy, until it is actualized in behavior. No one knows what actually directs behavior, but it takes little thought to determine what behavior promotes further behavior. What we do changes who we are. We bounce off the wall reality provides for us.

You can't control what is uncontrollable. Life isn't true to your hopes and ideals. Freedom lies only in what you do. You are totally alone behaviorally and totally immersed existentially. You are absolutely independent behaviorally and absolutely dependent for your existence. Fit yourself to reality.

Pay attention to living the details of life well. Life doesn't come to you in broad generalities. Dress and eat and drive and pay your bills with full attention to detail. Sweep and polish and write and open doors with awareness. Shower and brush and urinate and comb mindfully. Don't lose the moment. Don't be among the dead living.

Purposes pull us. Objectives help us endure. With goals in mind we select friends and work and food and pastimes. A menu of purposes is presented to us. Who presents it? Who selects from the menu? Who cooks what appears on your plate? Taste what is served you. You may reorder.

Book VII

I can't see my teen years any more. They are obscured by my twenties and thirties and forties and yesterday. I have teen-years stories, of course. But they are beveled and trimmed to fit today's fashions. Time can't be wasted, but a life can. What needs doing now? You can't find the same river twice, much less step into it.

Salvation is a gift that is earned. So is damnation. The prize appears each morning, never tomorrow. It is delivered during sleep and reclaimed during the first moments of the night's slumber. Each day the prize is renewed though the value remains the same--beyond worth. You may redeem your prize at any time. You must redeem it in person. No one else may claim it for you.

Don't depend solely on others to teach you the rules of life's lottery. Reality has the rules posted everywhere you turn. Read the fine print. You are eligible to win. You have already entered the contest. You are also a sponsor. Play to win. There is a deadline.

Whatever comes after life comes after this thought of afterlife. There is sweetness in this life now. And purpose, too. Trading sweetness for purpose is trading one treasure for another. To be permitted the trade is a gift. Who trades? Whose gift?

Give up and get real! Break through the fog that surrounds you and walk in the sunlight. You can see for miles what is just in front of your nose.

We desire love and companionship and respect. We hope for security and health and success. We must swallow what comes on the spoon.

Choose your companions wisely. Don't bond by default. Know your purposes in steeping yourself in another. The mind is a lawyer defending the passions. Prosecute the case realistically. Then turn to the next case. Trials never end. Beware that others watch while you make your legal arguments. Let your precedents be worthy and your judgments fair.

Curiosity and desire are natural. Comparing others' plenty with your deficit is unexceptional. How your actions proceed from there is the measure of your depth. For all our desires and comparisons we are responsible for what we do. For all the desires and dreams of others in our behalf we are responsible for what we do. For all the results which lie outside of our control we are responsible for what we do. You cannot determine another's intent, but you can hold to your purpose.

There may be supernormal gifts and powers. There may be some who work wonders and miracles. But we all have to eat to live. Use your ordinary powers to do what needs to be done. With your eyes on the stars don't trip over your own feet. Whatever powers you may possess a large rock in your path will cause a stumble if you are inattentive. Life is lived primarily on the ground. Do your everyday well.

The ways of the world are imperfect. Life isn't always just or fair. Perfection cannot be grasped. Ideals rise unachieved. Debts go unpaid. Potential goes unfulfilled. Promises are broken. Lives end abruptly. Within this melee of frustrating flaws just do what you can. Even your doing is borrowed from the largess of an imperfect world.

Find your best way with other humans. Neither be enslaved by social rules nor dismiss them out of hand. Discover what underlies moral precepts and develop your own precepts for the convenience of others. There is no other-convenience without self-convenience. Nothing we do is without benefit to us. So don't opt for exclusive self-benefit.

Death gets our attention. Yet it need not consume every moment. Don't live with only death in mind. There is life to do now. Fear what is fearful, and go on with living. Life and death are gifts. Noticing this truth is a gift. Acknowledging the noticing is a gift. Attention to gifts need not consume every moment either. Don't live with only gifts in mind. There is life to do now.

We seek protection in absolutes. We seek refuge in perfection. Yet we find ourselves unprotected and imperfect. Perfection is clothed in imperfection; protection is hidden behind fate. Peek-a-boo and hide-and-seek are games for children. Adults accept unforeseen outcomes, and do what comes next.

Of course doubts will enter awareness. Minds seek possibility and order, so minds generate opposition and greater scope and broader paradigms. Doubts, too, are holy, acceptable, pointers at perfection. Doubt and doubt and do what needs doing. Ponder the infinite, if you wish, but keep your shirt buttoned and get to appointments on time. For those acts, too, mark the conceivable margin of infinity.

Sometimes our conclusions are mistaken. Sometimes our premises are untrue. Reality corrects us straightforwardly whenever we seek realistic answers. Convergence and harmony with reality are default settings in living creatures. Mistakes are created and resolved by reading. Misconceptions are created and resolved by pondering. There is no necessary boundary between your wisdom and reality's wisdom. Stay alert for the chance to teach yourself truth. Stay alert for the chance to allow yourself to be taught truth.

Surer than resistance is incorporation. Encompass those who oppose you. However you are hurt your core remains shining and undamaged. You remain reality's representative. Reality absorbs enemy and self. View a larger picture. Then view the detailed brush work. Paint reality as reality paints you. Same thing.

Our eyes and ears and intellect can take in only a limited set of data. Yet we wish to understand everything, explain everything. Such hubris has foolish appeal. Reality surpasses the bounds, extends beyond our frames to the walls and beyond. When you think you have it figured out you are still standing in the gallery. Our images of reality are cartoons. Cartoons are art, too. Renderings of reality. Reality's renderings of itself.

Free will is a word as empty as predetermination. We do what we do. Choice and will and decisions appear as mouse tracks after the mouse has passed. They are not the mouse. Search for the mouse in its lair. Although the nest is infinitely large it still cannot contain the mouse.

We seek perfection, meaning, design. We encounter a jumbled mix of perfection and imperfection, meaning and meaninglessness, design and randomness. Don't reject diverse reality. Don't reject the reality of our search either. Merge yourself with reality.

Who are we to know the whole of it? What foolishness inflates us to aim to encompass it all with our clumsy mental capacity? The variables are beyond count. Make sense of what is sensible. Don't trip on the stairs, for stairs are not only channel but destination.

When your ship drifts, the secure anchor is beneath your feet and before your eyes. Sailing is fine, but check in at a port now and then. Drop anchor. The guidebooks to distant ports may be outdated. Explore the ports of your travels for yourself. Your anchor is trustworthy any time and any place.

Although tides are somewhat predictable, individual wavelets are not. There are so many boats in the harbor. The breeze shifts again and again. Yet the anchor holds steady. Dive into the ripples. Avoid sailors who claim to be anchors themselves. Sail with sailors who point you to the genuine anchor. The words you read now are a map not the whole anchor. Yet the map is wrapped around the anchor inseparably. To read the map properly you must grasp the anchor.

Who calls us to reality? Who sends us packets of stimuli in forms we can assimilate? Who receives those packets? Who ponders these puzzles? The pondering itself is both sent and received, both duty and gift. Pondering the pondering is no less duty and gift. Nevertheless, even while pondering, don't neglect to make your bed and wash your dishes. Sweeping is as important as pondering. Sweeping is a form of pondering. Become pondering.

Thus we discover who we are. Better yet, we discover who we are becoming. The process is ongoing with moment-by-moment changes, continuous renewal. Where do "your" ideas come from?

Life is the way it is. Our surroundings, including us, are the way they are. We baste life with good and bad, desirable and undesirable, progress and decline, success and failure. That basting, too, is the way it is. Furthermore, change happens. Sometimes, something causes us to cause change. Sometimes something causes something else to cause change. Change overlaps change and simmers reality. Life is the way it is stirred.

Surrounded by supporters I clean the monitor. Nestled in assistance I empty the waste basket. Guided by instructors I turn off the lights. Sustained by confederates I sweep the driveway. Thank you, dust cloth, broom, switches, electricity, factories, employees, inventors, readers. Thank you. Something earned you. It wasn't me. I never did a single thing on my own.

Have you ever sensed a pen smiling? "Projection" is a concept "located" in a psychoanalyst's mind. It is neither more nor less real than a pen's smile or an anthropologist's "culture" or a preacher's "sin." Use what is useful. Open the package and examine the contents before you buy.

Stepping in a pile of evil occurs only on certain paths. Wading through rivers of sorrow happens only along certain routes. Keep away from marshes and muck. Thunderstorms happen everywhere however. So bring along boots and an umbrella. There are no free lottery tickets for those who walk bareheaded in the rain unnecessarily. Bring along dancing shoes, as well, and sturdy shoes for working. Travel can be an enlightening experience.

Paying attention turns icons into reality. Reciting a list strings icons on commas. Generalizing rounds up a herd of icons and drives them into an icon corral. Abstracting views icons through a wide angle lens from a distance. Beware of too many vacations in Wordland. Raise some vegetables. You can't eat your own words.

Let reality tell you about itself. There's no need to make up a story about it in your imagination. Your imagination isn't broad or deep enough to encompass or define it. So sit back and take in the show in which you are a key actor. The performances go on simultaneously, though you see them only one at a time according to your own program.

How is it that we sense beauty and ugliness, right and wrong, desirable and undesirable, satisfaction and dissatisfaction? What is it that pulls us to look upward in spite of our imperfection? What pushes us away from reality then draws us back to it?

The whole of reality is an icon representing something that cannot be grasped with the intellect. However, this pen can be grasped with the hand. And the whole of reality lies within this pen for a moment. Oh, here we are again, gently cradled in reality.

Did you know that natural reality never contains falsehood, never contains lies? Only icons contain untruth. Authors and philosophers and psychologists and journalists and lawyers and politicians and preachers all live by icons, so beware their lies. All things considered, trees are more trustworthy. And even floods are honest. Sometimes truth hurts. Icons always come at least shrink-wrapped in deception. The wrapping comes in varying degrees of transparency. What do you see through the wrapping of these icons?

The branches of the Douglas fir bob and sway outside. That is, I assume they are outside. I assume there is a wind to cause them to move. I assume my recognition of tree and analysis of wind causation is correct. I assume that the analysis is MY analysis. I assume my analysis was created inside me inside this room. It all makes ordinary sense, true or not. In any case, the branches of the Douglas fir bob and sway.

Water from the same river refreshes adder and athlete, addict and angel. Rain becomes toadstools and strawberries. Unemployment becomes birthday or deathday. Become the river. Become rain.

Rain gives you the sustenance to become rain. Rain points out where to look to find itself. How can you miss it? The rain continues to pour over you, offering the chance to dissolve yourself. Become rain.

Rain speaks to us about honesty and lies, about good and bad, about right and wrong. It defines beauty and truth for us. Some things you simply KNOW. Academics may tell you that you learned your values from parents and peers, but the values of which they speak are superficial and socially-prescribed. Rain whispers on a level that is almost background noise. Listen for it. It is well worth your while to listen. Rain always whispers reality.

Sometimes we listen, sometimes we forget to listen. We are sometimes wet, sometimes dry, even though the rain keeps falling. We go thirsty while walking in the rain. Our feet are forever wet.

We humans demonstrate perfect imperfection. We are aware of the limits of our abilities and lifespan just as we are aware of the ideal of limitlessness. We conceive perfection without being able to attain it. We suffer in the gap. Realistically, there are only these desires and that ideal and this impossibility of a perfect fit between the two. Whose gap is it? While filled with regret weed your garden. While daydreaming of flawlessness scour your sink. Please drive carefully.

There are no great men or women except as imagination makes them so. We all take more than we give. We all depend on grace for survival. We all fail and despair and hope and succeed, over and over. The greatness lies in something that lives us. Have you met that something? Have you fused with that something, even for a moment? Did you ever let yourself stand out of its way? Did the racquet ever hit the ball by itself? Did the tune ever emerge by itself? Did the precise words ever appear out of nowhere by themselves? Before actions, before words, even before thoughts is something that lives us. Thank you, something. Some people call that something "Word," for words are all we use when speaking or writing. However "Word" is not "a word." "Word" is a verbal place marker for something that isn't confined to place or time. There are many other such place markers from people to people and age to age.

The concept "good" is like icing on a cake. It isn't the cake itself, but it makes the cake look better and taste sweeter. The cake itself is sufficiently tasty. We keep trying to figure out its recipe. The oven is our minds. Note that I do not say that the ovens are our minds.

You need not seek to convince yourself that all is well in the world or that all is not well. You need not decide that all is well with you or that all is not well. Just look. Just listen. Just touch and smell and taste. Reality is trustworthy. Our mental constructs about reality are imperfect, including this one.

We can't stand still; time won't let us. We can't avoid change of some sort. We whirl at the intersection of 4th and Vine while traffic flashes by. It appears that each car is independently aimed toward a private destination. Notice the rules of the road. Someone painted the lane markers. Climb aboard reality's bus. There is only one such bus.

Making sense of this environmind is like sense making sense of itself. It, too, keeps changing. Some interpreters move from paper dolls to wraiths to energies to formulae, but they can't see the backs of their eyes. No description of the mind can be satisfactorily encompassing. Nevertheless, THAT WHICH IS overwhelms and undergirds the mind, a step-down transformer to ground, properly housed in a human casing. Plug into reality.

There will always be whipped cream words and theory desserts. Finish your main course before tasting them. Reality is filling. Sample it with your senses. Eat your fill of the feast spread before you. You may find you have little room left for dessert and little appetite for verbal pastry.

Verbal pastry chefs may be respected and well-paid. The best of them wear sensible shoes and keep their utensils in good repair. Beware the ones with fancy uniforms and secret recipes. It is not only their pastry which is puffed up.

Nourish yourself with reality. The path has many switchbacks as you climb. You need the strength from trustworthy provisions. Don't lose your way. Know your destination. Pick out substantial landmarks. There are limits to your sight, so consult reliable maps and query others along the trail. Some are camped along the trail. Others have given up and headed back down to a life of feasting and starvation. Others are lost, wandering about the mountain. They all have information about the terrain. However, you must consider their information in light of your maps and your own climbing experience. Remember to sight your landmarks from time to time.

How did the mountain and landmarks and trail and climbers come to be? Who constructed and laced our boots for us? The boots are borrowed. We don't deserve them. They keep fitting themselves to our feet. We'll all die with our boots on.

It's one thing to imagine what a peaceful heart would be like and quite another to work with enough attention to lose the image and find the peace. Cleverness is a knife with a blade for a handle. Be careful to wear gloves when cutting with it. Sometimes it's better to cut your meat with a fork.

REDISTRIBUTING WEALTH
REFLECTIONS ON THE CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE:
David K. Reynolds, Ph.D.

Book VIII

I didn't make this world. It came gift-wrapped, the whole set in a single box. A lot of thought went into this gift. I can't imagine a more perfect gift because even my imaginings lie within the box. Beware those who claim to see the outside of the box. They are actually lost in pure white wrapping paper, still within the box. There's a lot of room in here.

Someday, something will remove me from the box, whatever that means. What happens to me then, what happens then to the box or its remaining contents cannot be conceived by a boxed mind such as mine. There are quite a few boxed ideas on this very topic drifting about and devoutly believed by people within this reality-box.

Averages, scales, and confessions are sometimes useful exhibits within glass cases of abstraction in this box we call life. Real life isn't exhibits. The above words are encased in glass.

When your mind is occupied, who occupies your mind?

Truth stands out against a background of falsehood. Watch for foreground truth. It is right before your eyes. It is your eyes and your seeing. Can you see it? Can you see from whence the seeing comes?

Books cannot see for you. This book cannot see for you. The holiness lies in the seeing as well as in the book. Thank you, book. Thank you, mind-behind-the-book. Thank you, mind. Seeing is always a cooperative venture. You have many eyes for seeing. They are all "yours."

Understandings and interpretations shift over time. Pawned ideas are redeemed and loaned out again. Mortgaged theories are paid off and status ransomed. For all our mental finances reality is what it is. For all our economic forecasting death is what it is. Reality can't be bribed.

It is one thing to talk about this path, quite another to walk it. Exhilarated or frightened get those feet moving. Enlightened or dazed step out.

Reality wants to be recognized; it gets our attention one way or another. We want to be recognized, too. We are made in reality's image, after all. We can't be loved and go unrecognized. Love is a baited hook. We hover near the bait hoping to snatch it without mortally impaling ourselves. The highest strategy is to swallow the hook and free the bait. The attached line exists only in the mind. What needs to be done next? Work on the debt.

There's a blizzard of words out there. Some words will freeze you. Some words, however chilly, will melt you. When you walk in a blizzard don't lose sight of the path. Watch your tracks in the snow. Trudge along dressed warmly in natural fabrics. When gales threaten to sweep you off your feet hunker down in the snow and look about you. Keep your bearings; ground yourself in reality.

It isn't sufficient to commit yourself to a purpose with words alone. Casual commitment is no commitment at all. The heart shows in what you do. The heart is what you do. Mind and body are one.

Public pronouncements may strengthen the resolve of speaker and listener. Search out for whose convenience public confession is pronounced. Examine the purposes of public declaration and exhortation. And do what needs doing. We seek confirmation of our path through others' lives, but reality provides a variety of confirming experiences moment by moment. Look and see beyond social support of your path. We cannot avoid walking on the bodies of others, but tread lightly.

Rediscovering this path is coming home from a long, difficult trip. Whatever the reality of the accommodations at home there is relief in encountering the familiar. The furnishings welcome you. You know how to live here. However, there is no inside without an outside. There is no returning without going out. Thanks to the outer circles there is a bullseye. Welcome home.

Without our conscious effort our bodies digest food and warm us and produce new life. Without our gratitude or even noticing them alveoli intake oxygen and lymphocytes defend us. Who can argue we stand alone? Where does our breath begin and end? How much of my body warmth is me? Where does my skin end and dust begin? Waves of breath lap our shores. We are infused with boundlessness.

It is we who create sharp boundaries and levels of status. Royalty is no more blessed with ventricles and cartilage than those in poverty. Executives see the same visual spectrum as janitors. Thoughts appear from the same unknown. Words are given to us.

"You can't take it with you," we are told, so we try to use it up before we go. Power and fame are short-term assets, accumulated for their own sake after a while, then abandoned completely in favor of relief and peace. We each die alone, freed at last from life's stock market.

We are all born with borrowed stocks, deeply in debt. No enterprise succeeds on the entrepreneur's will alone. Even the will itself is on loan, paper money. Competition in the market becomes habit. Victories bring vistas of more areas of combat: leverage on leverage on leverage. Expensive games are still games. Know what you are playing; know why you are playing. Playing well can be a spiritual practice.

What does it mean to fight with myself? Who is struggling with whom? How is it possible to have victory over myself? In such a case who loses? Everywhere I go, there reality is again. It is not so much that sometimes I don't do what I need to do as it is I don't do what needs doing. The proposition arises not from me but from the circumstance. The invitation to act arrives from reality. The message is neither internal nor external but it has the quality of arriving, appearing. I/Reality watches for the appearance. I/Reality watches for the advent.

Then comes action. The action may or may not be what the situation requires to fulfill itself. Upon reflection, I may or may not be satisfied with my response to reality's invitation. Such satisfaction or dissatisfaction, however, is no more than the next response to the next circumstance. What needs doing now?

We, who want to know it all, diligently absorb the news of triviality. Beware the custom of intravenous news consumption, passing it through your system to no purpose except information play. There is real news all about you, news not shredded and bite-sized and served up between shredded and bite-sized advertisements. Give your body and mind a treat; get off the couch and seek reality's news. Now playing.

Travelers bring news, are news. Traveling produces news all at once. There is no need to wait for news to happen. There is no need to wait until you have arrived at your destination. Watch the scenery now as you make your journey. Become news. Become the journey itself.

Travelers may choose to journey with you. Some may stand by the wayside and cheer you on. Some may ridicule your path and recommend other directions. It's all right to give up; just keep walking ahead. Your walking is a mirror for those who watch the news. They discover themselves through your transmission. You are newsworthy.

You cannot travel tomorrow. Your accumulated baggage must accompany you wherever you go. Your trunks are filled with history, both light and heavy. However, you add to your gear daily. Shop wisely. You must carry your luggage alone. Here is a map, but it shows only sizable landmarks and lacks detail.

You exhaust yourself with the trek--searching, contesting, teetering on high-heeled ambivalence. You can't talk yourself clear of climbing hills and pressing through gale winds. You can't figure out all the details of your itinerary. You compare your trip with that of your fellow traveler and wonder who has the best travel agent. Just one foot before the other. Look to your destination now and again, but don't ignore the path beneath your feet. Let the mind sail along on its own, but keep the feet in motion on the trail right to the end.

The intellect may be used to stifle passion. By the time you have fully considered all the angles you wear the angles as chains. I do not propose thoughtless behavior. I warn against clever mind play as a substitute for purposeful action. Too many pseudo-scholars of life see all the obstacles to progress forgetting the goal. The fool sees only the goal ignoring all obstacles. Find your best way.

Gain always implies loss. Observation necessitates something overlooked. Progress accompanies abandonment. Life requires death. Do not be misled! Scrapbooks of smiling photos are assembled because there are negatives with frowns. No negatives, no photos.

Why then do I do what I do? To cite will or decisions or choosing or empowerment or motivation is no explanation. Such words are no more than walking backwards at dusk with closed eyes. To charge devils or illness or society or personality offers no revelation. Such words are mere lenses made of steam. We all tell stories about our doings. Our stories are edited and embellished and fused, again for whatever reasons. We like to think our tales are true; yet we all write fiction. I can say so because I'm just visiting here. In transit. Do you believe it? We are lived.

Some people do good sometimes. That's as good as it gets. Some people do evil sometimes. That's as bad as it gets. What you do now is as important as it gets. Get it?

Doing good pays its own way. Doing evil pays for itself, too. One way or another the medium is the message, the invoice is enclosed in the doing delivery, immediate on-line billing. Watch for hidden charges and penalties with interest over time.

Conflicts happen. We sometimes want two or more things at once. We desire independence and security, freedom and commitment, respect and idleness, love and irresponsibility. The clash is not within us but within us-moments. We are change itself. To enact each whim would be foolish even if it were possible.

Consistent action becomes habit. Habit becomes character. Or so we define such abstractions. The solids called action move, too; but they move with relatively slow pace. Gaseous feelings vibrate uncontrollably. Liquid thoughts overflow their containers. Build the structure of your life on the relative stability of solids.

We want the best for and from ourselves so we criticize, accuse, condemn these imperfect creating creations. We torment ourselves with comparisons and dreams of what we might have been and threats of what we might become. While doing so don't forget to hang up your clothes and heat the meal thoroughly. While your mind drifts with the wind keep your sails trimmed. Ideal breezes and purpose maps are useful only to the degree they are implemented into action. You know that. It's imprinted on all the maps. Stay on course.

New directions lead to unknown destinations. Uncharted waters provoke increased anxiety and attention. The seas are all uncharted, after all; the coastline changes moment by moment. Freezing up with change is selective freezing; there's change all the time. You can't go back to harbor. It's long gone. Sail on.

We can't sail in all directions at once. As some shores approach others grow distant. We must unload to take on new cargo; our ships hold only so much. We grow attached to the familiar and loathe to give it up. The lighter the ship the better the chance of traversing the shallows and surviving the reefs. Yet we wonder whether we can do without that crate, that bundle, that line.

You can't unload excess cargo on your own. Others' hands helped load it; others' hands offload it. See the busy commerce in port--the tugs, the scows, the barges. Notice how the cargo shifts from place to place until warehoused in the past. Sail on.

Did you know that ships can sail for a time on tears? When we cry we sail the ocean filled with the tears of all humans over all history and every culture. All tears are created equal. All tears dry up eventually. All tears contain warmth.

Keep a weather eye out for unexpected breezes and the occasional gale. Alterations in course are inevitable. Navigate diligently. Peruse the charts prepared by reality, and steer accordingly. Doubting, fearful, worried, anxious--return your ship to its proper course. You are only permitted to steer when reality is ready. Be prepared to steer and so make reality ready. Be equally prepared to wait. For waiting is steering, too.

There are no meaningless moments or meaningless words. Meaning may not float on the surface; some diving may be neces­sary. There is no meaningless diving. Those who know diving rejoice in the presence of other divers. Divers are family. There are no meaningless families. Come, join the family. There is no meaningless joining.

Book IX

Like it or not, we are reality's servants. Pride in our independence and self-determination is idiotic. Earthquakes and aging remind us of our subjugation. Childbirth and speaking remind us of reality's largess. We are small potatoes in a large garden longing for more fertilizer and fewer weeds. To be sure, even potatoes have worth. However, no one mistakes a potato for a garden. Keep perspective. Do your part for the garden by weeding yourself at least. You belong to the garden; you are the gardener. Imagine it! A potato gardener!

I steal time and rob others of their dreams. I skim along on the sweat of men and women and children--most of whom I never met. Plants and animals die so that I live. I speak in the language of my convenience. I groom myself to hide the dirt and disfigurement. I am lazy and corrupt. Sometimes. Yet there is no comfort in guessing that you are the same. It is my guilt to which I refer. How generous of reality to keep supporting this imperfection called "me." In spite of my inadequacy I am fed and clothed and sheltered and loved and allowed tools to ply my craft. Others acknowledge my existence when I talk to them with words borrowed from my mother and my teachers. With hands bor­rowed from countless generations of ancestors I use paper gifts to buy luxuries created just for me. I sleep cradled in reality's support and travel surrounded by the handiwork of my fellows even when mistakenly thinking I am alone. I have never been alone, ever. There is no independence or self-sufficiency, only occasional blindness and conceit. Thank you, representatives of reality, for defining and sustaining each moment of my existence. I sink fathoms deep in my debt to you. There is only debt and assisted efforts to make token repayment, thus engendering new debts. Is it possible to kneel while walking?

What joy and relief that reality cares enough about this primitive vortex of self to provide millions of hands to uphold and entertain it. Reality cares for its own. Thank you, Reali­ty. Noticing the debts or not, registering the debts or not, deserving the debts or not, I incur debts to those millions of hands each day. Thank you, hands. With no time to waste I begin to tunnel out from the center of a mountain of bounty while ava lanches of gifts assist and clog my every effort. Yet tunnel I must. What else can I do? Someday I won't be able to tunnel.

Whistle while you work. You are the tunnel and the mountain and the hands.

Enthusiasm, like grief, wanes with time's flow. Bright insight dims with the passage of meals and the washing of hands. Fierce dedication is gentled with indigestion and sleeplessness. Rely on habits of behavior. Build habits of behavior with many repetitions of the right. Doing well is its own reward, twice. Failure to fit behavior to the situation is its own punishment, twice. Character is a word built on habits of doing. Habits are words, too, built on doing. Doing is a word close to the ground. For all your dreams, you are what you do.

Who knows what drives us, what steers us? Bystanders attribute maps and destinations to our driving. We talk about our own driving record. But the vehicle has its own designs, its own controlling system. We talk of adopting newer models, but the engine keeps accumulating miles. We are travelers all, in borrowed rigs on a single highway with one final off ramp and not as many lanes as one might think.

Who cares what others say about you? You do, of course, and the others, too. But your reputation is an amalgam of history and convenience, achievements and fiction, gelatin and fog. For all that others think, you know yourself best. You know your lies, your covetousness, your courageous acts. You know when you put yourself first and when you put the situation first and when there is no distinction between self and situation. You know when you become someone else.

For all the aspirations and commendations and narrations we carry with us as mental wraiths wrapped around our egos we are anchored to reality by our bodies. Illness pulls us up short. Pain gets our drifting attention. The sight of a corpse clips the wings of mental flutter. These same fragile containers permit us the experiencing of pleasure, the gathering of information, and the chance to work on our debt. For all the winters of our minds, spring keeps springing. For all the dread and disaffection, for all the regret and recrimination, reality keeps bounding forth with fresh opportunity and dependable sustenance. I give up with energy borrowed from my surroundings; I trip and tumble thanks to the walking skills taught to me by others, and something eventually lifts me back on my feet. Even failure is possible only on loan from reality. Here comes spring again.

Go for the truth that knocks against bone and rock. There will always be phantoms flitting about you. Traverse them, fight them, observe them, enjoy them, ignore them, mount them but don't altogether lose touch with the rock truth. There is a compass within you that points to True North. It is a trustworthy measuring device. Some say it was a Christmas present, but it comes with the bones and the rocks as part of the package. The studs holding up the walls are made of rock.

Not knowing death, we fear our ideas of it. We fear, too, that we shall be forgotten. Of course we have been forgotten thousands of times already. Even historical figures are merely that, figures. Words may be remembered, but not those living beings pointed to by names. When you are forgotten, reality will continue to emerge. Fit yourself into reality. Find your place in the whole of it. Comfort those who grieve by merging with them and thus linking them to the rest of reality. Reality's representative, you do what emerges that needs doing. Watch and listen; make sensory sense of this, here, now.

Those who search are alive. Seeking generates light, is light. To sit passively in darkness is death by heartbeating. What breathes you? What speaks you? What lives you? Boundaries flutter in the wind and scatter like plum blossoms. Where does the flower end when the petals have dispersed in all directions? Continually rescued by dispersion we keep trying to attach ourselves to the branch with mental glue. Flitter, flutter, flitter, flutter. Tuck your shirt-tail in, but take a walk in the fresh air outside. Lace and tie your shoes but stroll through the forest and become a tree. Penetrate yourself and reveal the world.

All is as it is. The effort, too, is an endowment. The seeking is bestowed on us. The reflection itself is a reflection from reality's mirror. Do you like these words? Go do the dishes. Whatever the task, reality instructs us.

Male and female are complementary, not identical. Between sexes there is more flexibility and less flexibility than many think. The doing will tell you male or female. Feeling anger or pity at the blinders of others we gaze through blinders of our own. Don't allow oughts to narrow your vision. Beyond male or female is human. Beyond human is reality.

Conversing is a risky business. Too often I say what I don't want to say and leave unsaid what I want to say. I hear what I don't want to hear and fail to hear what I want to hear. I gamble that the words will come out grossly right, that my companion will interpret my borrowed words with kindness, that my mouth will close when there is nothing more to say. Writing is only a wee bit better as I obsess over word trivia. What are the best words here to offer you? Who sends out these words, after all? And who receives them? "A crow without a mouth" the Japanese Zen Master Ikkyû called himself. "Caw! Caw!"

Why does it take us so long to acknowledge truth? Why do we seek external salvation while rescue permeates us? Why seek a map for death when we are lost in life? There have been those who installed their lives as road markers for the lost. These human signposts whispered and shouted displaying symbols small and large "This way! This way!" Nevertheless, many chase their shadows in circles as though there were no road signs at all, as though there were no guides within themselves should they trouble themselves to search for direction. This particular journey has both beginning and end; lots of them, in fact. Check out the sights; get your bearings.

It takes time to find our way. Wandering around we encounter distractions. But engrossed in distractions we are no longer distracted. Just this, here, now. Do distractions well, too, for they are on the path, not beside it. The rest stops, too, are part of the path, not beside it. Rest well. Such a narrow, single-file path, yet encompassing such variation!

I am a broker of words, those amorphous wraiths that carry heavy loads. They do their impossible work daily for us all, yet we scarcely recognize their miraculous service. Though I trade in words I am the servant of reality. Who is otherwise?

There is a long history of reality's representatives who recognized their position and communicated it to others. They are our wisest teachers. They, in turn, had teachers and The Teacher, just as we do. Like their teachers our teachers are merged with The Teacher. We begin our learning with our teachers and progress to lessons from The Teacher. Reality is our teach­er, and we are part of the teaching.

Children may be our teachers, too. They look with eyes less channeled by pragmatic custom, and they often act closer to the situated moment than do adults. To some degree we can relearn from them what we unlearned with the fading of our childhood. Teachers teaching the teachers.

There are people who are blinded by reading books. Others are blinded by listening to verbal dust storms. Such blindness can only be cured by touching the precious hem of reality. Miraculous cures are an everyday event. Nothing special. Inhale reality, exhale good deeds.

For it is reality that births us over and over and carries us on its back as a mother bears her child in more than one sense of the word "bear." And as a mother teaches and guides and molds her children with praise and scolding so reality seeks to raise us in its own image. We are reality's offspring, sharing a bloodline that extends neither backward nor forward but one that encompass­es all living and non-living creatures. Can you feel the puls­ing, the heartbeat of your existence?

Be temperate in your consumption of reality's largess. Sip the sparkling water with attention. Greed is a fog that dulls recognition and acknowledgement of the feast before you. The fog arrives at first in small wisps, then it surrounds you so that you cannot see. Keep the air clear with attention. Don't get lost in the crimson mist.

Criticism hurts, particularly when it is on target. What we do with criticism is important. Never criticize your partner in public.

Fit yourself to your partner. Counsel, suggest, advise as you are invited to do so, but adapt yourself to your partner as to another of reality's representatives. To do otherwise is to suffer unnecessarily. Work on being blameless, whether recognized or not, appreciated or not, rewarded or not. Who has moments of spotlessness? We sit caked with mud in a steep canyon in a clear stream wishing others were unsoiled. Even as we wash we pollute the stream. While looking upstream or downstream scrub, scrub, scrub.

What you say about others is information about yourself. Slashing or soothing, hurting or healing, pricking or pacifying, polluting or purifying, your actions cause ripples of you-ness. Others bob in your wake. Keep an eye on your course and an eye on your wake. Steer with attention. Even the maps are gifts.

Freedom is not free, they tell us. Neither is slavery. Life costs us, whatever form it takes. We can't keep up payments on the interest, let alone the loan itself. Debtors all; living above our means; our lives as collateral; withdrawals moment by moment. We accomplish our goals with tools prepared by others. We achieve our successes through their efforts. Discover who got you here. Discover the source of the goals themselves. Formatted in capital letters or small letters the goals keep coming. They spell out your life's purpose. There is reality's work only you can do. Where could you possibly go to forfeit reality's embrace? Reality, too, wants the best from you and for you.

What puts the past behind us? Looking back, is it still there? How did you use those moments? How did those moments use you? Can you step into the instant of timelessness? While the clocks keep running can you see through them? Just here, fresh now. Eternity. Right to the endless end of nows.

For I have been born and I have died a thousand times, today. And so have you. Why weep for tomorrow's deaths? Life keeps coming. Reality-life keeps coming. And going. Where from? Where to? Where else is there but here, now? Unwrap the gift of here-now. What a present!

When we grieve we grieve for ourselves, the living. We mourn our loss, our inconvenience, our own sorrow. The dead don't share our nows. The dead don't taste our grief. We alone sip salt. The living. Now. What needs doing next? Reinvest yourself in the new now. The nows line up awaiting your attention.

When atom bomb victims and movie stars die headlines appear. Numbers make news. But not to the dead. We die one now at a time. Gifts received and gifts returned. Fresh grief emerges, too, one now at a time. Like us, grief ages with each relative appearance. As do tears. But aging in comparison with what? All you are is now.

Consider forgiving others before they die. Forgiving them afterward is forgiving yourself. Forgiving others beforehand is also forgiving yourself, but in a different way.

Prepare yourself for dying by living well. Prepare yourself for living by dying well in anticipation. Make plans in advance and let others know them. Knowing your wishes for after-dying is valuable for others and for yourself. Living in the now doesn't preclude planning and foresight. Stand on tiptoe to watch reality roll by. Then stride forward toward the goal.

EVERY WHICH WAY AND NOW
AN INTERPRETATION OF THE CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE
David K. Reynolds, Ph.D.

Book X

Oh, that I might clothe myself in Reality's perfect fit. May I appreciate the precise tailoring that goes into this clothing. May I model this moment's fashion with graceful awareness.

Reality is trustworthy, like it or not. It is permeated with truth. Our words are artful lies, intended or not. Conscience and aspiration are boundary markers for trespassing. Forgive us our trespasses, we say. Meanwhile, within the mirrored tangle of what ought to be, don't lose sight of what is.

How I snuggle within the cuddling embrace of reality! Half asleep I am rocked in the cradle of existence. Reality displays a variety of smiles to me; whose smiles? Every day is a good day. Those who see frowns are standing on their heads.

Speak and reality hears. Speak through action and reality inexorably replies. Whether we notice it or not, reality replies. The muse called "science" agrees. It practices a formal method for eliciting certain varieties of reality's responses, noticed or not, as though the noticing itself were other than reality's rejoinder. Chuckling to itself, reality moves along, amused.

Here I stand putting change in a verbal vending machine hoping for a selection with flavor. There is no hope of getting the bent coins back. I fear that the machine may be out of order these days. However, with the machine working or not, I must work. Insert here, see what emerges. Whatever I choose, however I pay, the packaged selections that issue forth are gifts. If you understand these words, the understanding is a gift, too, a bonus prize for trying out the device.

There are those people who can't, won't, don't see reality's way. I apologize for my recorded muddling of the clear and self-evident. Words are cuddlesome pets that sometimes bite and estrange. I manage a pet shop part time. It is preferable to tame your own words adopted from the wild.

Why beat your head against the pillar of what is? Use your borrowed tools to chip away at it. Sculpt reality with action. You may tire and grow sore from the exertion; pain may emerge from your efforts; others may disregard or condemn your work of art. Yet all there is is sculpting and death. Dying is a form of sculpting; death is not-sculpting. Carve out the difference in your mind.

We all travel. Where from? Where to? Baggage, encounters, scenery, lodging, schedules, menus, currency, dialects--all part of the trip. There is no way to avoid being "on the go." Though it may appear that we travel in couples or groups, we always travel alone. What is your itinerary?

The good news is that we have been saved over and over again. Not that we deserve salvation or earn it, the joyful tidings are that salvation is thrust upon us each moment. This very breath is a magnificent prize from life's lottery. We are winners all! Look deeply at how the game is played. Discover the source of the jackpots pouring out before you. Be sure you know what a miracle really is. Learn to see with new eyes the bright glory of reality and thus discover that nearsightedness, too, is a variety of gift. Have you phoned your mother lately? Does your bathtub need scrubbing? What have you done for your car this month?

What you received from Mom and Dad is thanks to your parents' parents, and their parents, and so on back into word history. All of these word people carry you on their backs. Now I offer you a word load for your own back: can you see your children's children's children's children? What you do to/for/with your own children you do to/for/with them. We are dots in a line that changes its course depending on what we do. We draw the outlines of our progeny just as we color in the outlines bequeathed to us. To draw without attention to artistic materials is foolish and irresponsible. Study your child and study yourself to produce the finest work of art. It's not how many artistic materials you use, it's how you use the materials at hand.

Habits come from repeated single acts, character comes from habits, a life comes from character over time and circumstance. So the foundation for your life is what you do now. No one is watching except you and everything around you. Reality waits to respond. Sharp, clear lessons await the student of life. Praise, criticism, feelings, and oncoming trucks all contain information. We can't study everything at once, but it's not a good idea to skip class altogether. Whatever the intent of our teachers the lessons are there for the learning.

Marriage partners are teachers, too. A marriage provides a safe place to serve others. It's often harder to serve when you're single. Spouses and children work to round off our fierce, selfish corners. We discover anew our need for others' mercy and forgiveness and patience. We relearn lessons about growing a love. We search our families' eyes to discover ourselves, rather like we did as children. We embed ourselves in purpose. It's good to be home again.

There are degrees of manhood and womanhood. Discover the fundamental differences among us. We are not the same. Yet we are all reality's representatives. We embody the humanly possible, not merely the womanly possible or the manly possible. Become realistic.

No one owns anyone else--not parents or children or wives or husbands or lovers or employees or teachers or students. Nor are there long-term leases. Yet we are indebted to these others. We all live on borrowed time, and borrowed efforts. You see, we're always home (again).

We are papered with labels, posters of others' expectations. But we represent only reality, not motherhood or citizenship or educators or manliness or righteousness, not a family or a neighborhood or a race. There are countless billboards of shows that never play. Just you, here, now.

We shall all die. To say so is not to dilute the truth that I shall die at a different here-now than you. Having experienced so many here-nows, there shall come one yet unexperienced. The DNA strands unwind. The miraculous inner engines shut down one by one. The debts stop accumulating; token repayment ceases. So where is this place? What is it? Fortunately or unfortunately, you can't get there from here. That is not to say you won't arrive there someday. It is just that there is no way to arrive there from here. Life is for the living. Memories and anticipations only occur now. You are always at home for those visitors. Don't pretend otherwise.

So we weep for our losses and exult in our victories; and the present progresses like the cursor on this computer screen, not steadily but in fits and starts. Now, now, now. The jagged edges of memories smooth out. The forebodings of doom are papered over with pleasure. We are left with what was always there for us--this here now. What to do next--it's time to pick up the mail.

We climb over our sorrows, sometimes tripping, but always picking ourselves up and moving on. Others watch our fitful progress and use our examples as ladders or weights in their own climbing. Sadness may be required, climbing is optional. In the climbing, as time passes, new scenery distracts us from our sadness and it becomes nothing more noteworthy than footprints on the trail.

There lies no sin in tears, nor merit either. For tears are borrowed, too. While crying keep climbing. While sobbing drive carefully. Tears are real, worthy of attention, but nothing special. Just this tear, now.

Beware the tears that blur your vision so that tears of others go unseen. Your sorrows are neither especially deep nor especially yours. While wiping away your own tears don't neglect to offer tissues to others. Such acts of kindness reduce salty emissions all around. And even the tissues are borrowed; someone made them for us.

All paths are slippery when wet. All paths have rough spots and dangerous precipices. Compasses and guidebooks are available, but you walk the path alone with only an occasional glimpse of another trekker's course. And, by the way, you ARE the path.

Genuine hope emerges from proper action. Proper action springs from attention to the requirements of situations. Situations emanate from reality. We cannot hide from reality; we cannot deceive it or demand special favors from it. The rules are fixed, and they are not always fair. However, thoughtful play increases our chances of the maximum victories. Victories are gifts, too.

There is a kind of openness and respite that comes from doing what you perceive to be righteous action. Whatever the result, you did what was right. Righteousness, too, is an endowment; it is not YOUR righteousness. We like or dislike ourselves based on what we do. We are what we do.

You can't really know me; nor I, you. We own icons of one another based on what we do, including what we write. Perhaps you have curiosity about how my life works itself out. I am curious about what you do with these words. Do these writings help you understand yourself? Reality has so many vehicles for teaching us about itself/ourselves. Reality never lies, even to itself. We may pretend to fool ourselves about ourselves, but we know what we have done/are doing. Your experience is trustworthy; consider the source.

We keep getting those fresh moments. Whatever our past mistakes, whatever our current weakness, whatever our malevolent plans. Now is the only time. What a chance to set things right! Over and over again...

I am nothing special. I possess no authority or license to teach about living well. I do not live constructively every moment. I fail to notice and too often forget the ongoing support of reality's efforts in my behalf. I, too, am saved by those fresh moments and unnoticed undertakings. I hold no unique capacity to mend a life other than my own. We share, I suspect, common failings, common worries, common dilemmas. And so you see some of me in yourself just as I see some of you in myself. We wish each other well, companions of this moment, reality's children.

For all our understanding of self, for all our understanding of Nature's workings, the unknowns can destroy us. Yet we live. The known and the unknown cooperate in our behalf. Believe it or not. Furthermore, the understanding, too, is a gift. As is the doubting. Whose gift? Whose doubt? Something, sometimes understands.

And something, sometimes remembers. Our pasts are stored away perhaps as analog chemical analogues. We access the data with only a surface scan until circumstances provoke a probe. Then we discover smells and attitudes and people traces like computer mouse tracks long hidden from awareness and now newly constructed and interpreted. What capacities we have for coding and recoding the past! Spinning disks of recollections eager to discharge blocks of data even without a query...

How much money did your parents spend out of pocket for you from the time you were born until you turned twenty one? How much money did you spend on your parents during that period? How much money have you spent on them since then? Many of those details are recorded in memory, but remain unconsidered. Why? Of course, money is not time or love, but money can be counted. It is a good place for you to start formatting the stored pictures of your childhood. See how the pictures in memory have been retouched to fit some proposed standards of self composition. Polish your lenses.

Memories are not things you can hold in your hands. They carry the same vaporous perils as words. But they are as real as feelings. And, like feelings, they bring us meaningful messages. While noting those messages don't neglect the information from the unopened mail and the dirty car and the sink filled with dishes and the sobbing child and the oncoming train.

The feelings you felt in your youth are not the feelings you feel now. Each feeling is a fresh one, though it may remind you of feelings past. Feelings don't burrow and hibernate. They come attached to fresh moments like post-it memos and price tags. Always only this here now. Herein lies hope and uncertainty. Only memories are pushed safely back from the abyss, distanced and oxidized by time. We teeter on the edge of the present.

Memories are nested: memories of memories, memories of forgetting to remember, experiences of coded words of experience. Beware the recoding of memories according to someone else's schemata. You won't fix your life by clearing clogged drains of memory. You won't understand your life by generating scripted memories. Making complete sense of the whole is a pastime for novelists who don't write books. Write the pages of your life line by line. Just this word now.

Do you look back on a happier time of your life? Does doing so make you sad by comparison? Do you wish for a happier future in your life? Does doing so make you sad, by comparison? Those who use this moment well have no attention left over for such imprecise comparisons of reality and fantasy. In our happiest moments we may not notice being happy. Can you believe it? Don't underestimate our desire and capacity for happiness or the variety of ways we seek to achieve it. But happiness and peace of mind and freedom from anxiety and the like are all no more than bright flickers in our life films. Behavior shines steadily, but with varied intensity. Brighten your life with behavior.

Knowing the truth won't always make you happy, but it will make you wiser than before. Reality is truth. Reality is trustworthy. Discover reality by acting on it and experiencing its response. Such is the basis of science and the basis of a sensible life. You cannot verify truth merely by thinking about it. Longings and fears and worries won't make the rain stop or start; they won't even inform you whether it is raining. Sticking your head out the door to determine the truth of weather is more effective than lying in bed pondering what the weather ought to be.

Of course, we cannot walk through the projection screen of consciousness. Whatever we think we know about the "external" world is unquestionably stored "inside," behind plate glass. So invite the outside in or expand your living space out--the effect is the same. Who cares? Really, to WHOM does it matter? Here is a hint: don't search for yourself WITHIN this here now.

It is preferable to make your expectations fit reality than to try to make reality fit your expectations. Ideals are landmarks for building lives, but don't build on unknown terrain. Perfectionism is a kind of blueprint, but don't ignore your building materials. Theories offer building codes, but don't expect them to pound in nails or pour concrete. You rent this life as you go along constructing it. Don't forget from whence comes the rent.

The gap between what I am and what I want to be stirs both promise and despair. I chase a shining shadow. At least it is my own shadow, not one created for me by someone else. Sometimes close at hand, sometimes distant, the shining shadow eludes me. When distant I dread never reaching it; when close by I worry that I shall fall back again. Just like my desires, my ideal keeps spurting ahead of my outstretched hand.

Desires and other feelings fade over time and are reborn again over time. The spotlight of attention moves along illuminating and dismissing. Who controls that spotlight? Who dims it as you drift off to sleep? Dreams are borrowed, too. Watch the shows of the night with attention, and learn from them. You cannot direct them. You cannot select the pages from the script, but you can choose the name of the play at night by directing your performance during the day.

Why do you watch your health? Why do you eat? Why do you wish to live? To what end do you direct all that effort? What do you wish to accomplish with all this borrowed life? Be clear about your objectives. And don't drive into a tree on your way to the carnival.

Some people slosh along depending on chemicals of fun. They are not ill; they are very large, spoiled children. They seek to face life obliquely, without responsibility for their actions. They turn alcohol into suffering, drugs into anguish. They ignore their debts to the world and repeatedly write bad social checks. Sometimes some of them grow up somehow.

Growing up, too, is awarded to us, though the hows and whys are not clearly known. We earn only a small part of it. And even that small part of maturity we earn with borrowed energy, examples, education, and environment.

We have some choices about what goes into and what emerges from our bodies. These bodies are our interface with the rest of the world, necessary for executing proper action. Because that is the case it is wise to pay some attention to keeping our bodies in as good condition as circumstances permit. Maintaining proper diet, exercise, rest, warmth and so forth are straightforward tasks worthy of attention and effort.

In order for me to live some creatures must die--animals, plants, bacteria, viruses. I kill them directly or indirectly. Those living creatures keep sacrificing themselves for my existence. What can I do but apologize and thank them? What can I do but use the life they invested their lives in to do what needs doing? Over and over I devour without noticing, destroy without concern. Then, sometimes, I remember.

Greed and gluttony come from forgetting the abundance of which I already partake. Reality keeps score in the shape of my body, in the fluidity of my movements, in my breathing and heartbeat and liver and kidneys. No one can cheat reality and win consistently.

The eyes give us away. Watch the eyes watching. We sometimes try to fool ourselves. Such a tactic is, after all, the most effective way to lie to others. Listen to what you say. Listen to your voice speaking.

Listen, too, for the sounds of nurturing around you. Hear the clock ticking for you, the car engine starting, the toaster popping, the toilet flushing, the fans and phones and heaters and human voices with their sounds of service. Noticed or unnoticed the sounds mark the tempo of your support, moment by moment. No one is clever enough or deep enough to hear it all; the unheard sounds maintain the beat though we may think the concert is over.

Sometimes my mind sings. Over and over a song runs through it, is it. The song, too, is information. What does it tell me? Why is it me for a while? Anyway, it sings while driving; it sings while digging; it sings while hiking; it sings while gardening. The singing is fine unless I stop doing what needs doing--even then, the singing is fine, but my behavior is not. What needs doing next?

Bright computer screen sucks our attention and time. Safe computer screen actually screens us from precarious interactions with living creatures. Colorful computer screen entertains us without our exertion. Tools are tools, no matter how complex. Beware the electronic zombie. Beware the glazed eye glowing with phosphor pixels. The world is larger than a fifteen inch rectangle. The world is larger than lines of print on a paper page, too. But you knew that. So monitor yourself. Use all of your tools to good purpose.

Sometimes I want to know all there is to know about everything worth knowing. Of course, I know that such knowledge is reserved for gods and rocks. Science speaks in parsed sentences about fixed topics. You cannot construct a grammatically correct sentence about meaning or love or values in scientific language. You can talk about planes and stars and atoms, though; but only temporarily.

Curiosity killed the categories of ignorance, at least some of them. Wondering is natural. Check out reality by your actions, if the cost is not exorbitant. Beware the curiosity that leads you away from what you know needs doing. Novels provide information, too. All actions distract us from other actions and attract us to other actions. "All actions" includes reading these words. Step out; step in; step out; step in--the dance of our lives.

The dance ends with death. Compared with death the bottom line of a financial statement is of no worth. Compared with death fan mail and televised interviews and majority votes and designer bodies and intimate praise are valueless. Authority and adoration and affluence are abrogated. Reality is unyielding. Your mind keeps a running tally of the amount due on your life's credit card. Work to keep the balance down. Don't die an ignorant pauper.

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