Bird Droppings April 19, 2021
I detest shopping, but I really like Kroger

About five years back I spent nearly a week of using ice packs as heat extractors for my computer until getting the fan fixed. It was interesting I had two thoughts while similar that came to me this morning as I started the day out. One I heard on the radio going to Kroger to get groceries and get gas for my wife’s car a line from a Tom Petty song, and the other thought is from the Harry Potter books and movies. All of this and almost ten years ago today a new Kroger opened near our house. What a glorious day that was as I found another place where happiness abounds. I think it is mainly the store was closer and huge and always has good produce and I really like to cook so it was nirvana for me. 

“I’m learning to fly but I ain’t got wings. Coming down is the hardest thing. Well, some say life will beat you down. Break your heart, steal your crown. So, I’ve started out for God knows where. I guess I’ll know when I get there.” Tom Petty  

“It is not our abilities that show what we truly are. It is our choices.” Professor Dumbledore to Harry in “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,” by J.K. Rowling

John Dewy advocated for learning through experience and building on past experiences to build for future experiences. I can almost apply Petty’s lyrics to education and how we have so standardized and bastardized learning teaching to the test. In politics the focus on war efforts and the constant accumulation of things/wealth seems more important than doing any sort of good. Of course, the philosophy of the ends justifies the means could possibly be applied. That was sort of the approach when the last passenger pigeon died in the Cincinnati zoo and some people had the attitude well it’s only a pigeon. Sadly, once there were billions of passenger pigeons flying over the forests of the east coast, and yes, it is only a pigeon except we can never at this time replicate that one, it is gone. I was in this discussion a week or so ago with a former student. Where does it end?

The Alaska wilderness when it is gone is gone and can never be replicated as well but if the end justifies it many people see no problem. About a quarter of the known musk oxen survive in the Alaska wilderness sanctuary. However, as I sat this morning, perhaps a better brighter thought from J.K. Rowling thorough the character of Dumbledore “it is our choices that show who we really our”. I wonder how soon Harry Potter books will be classics and teachers will be analyzing the plots and developing theories as to why Rowling characterized Harry as a boy or teenager and why an owl as his companion versus a weasel or pygmy shrew.

I recall eleventh or twelfth grade English and Ms. Stern and the classic novel “Moby Dick”, according to her the ship represented the world and Ishmael well he got stuck on that ship. What was Melville really telling us I always thought it was a great story and history of New England’s whaling industry? I really enjoyed the story but not the analysis and when I wrote my opinion about it being historical in reference I was told in large red letters it was wrong according to Ms. Stern. Many years ago, thinking back, the choices we made not our abilities was the credo. Actually, I still think the same of the book and believe Ms. Stern was wrong.

” Ability is of little account without opportunity.” Napoleon Bonaparte

“The first requisite for success is the ability to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem incessantly without growing weary.” Thomas A. Edison

It is about being at the right place at the right time or is it the choice we make. It is also about applying and choosing when opportunity provides a window and then plot thickens.

“It is a fine thing to have ability, but the ability to discover ability in others is the true test.” Elbert Hubbard

Humility is an added aspect of today’s search seeing in others that ability almost an intuitive aspect of humanity.

“The world cares very little about what a man or woman knows; it is what a man or woman is able to do that counts.” Booker T. Washington

This morning as I got up checking on my wife who was working on her computer and fixed her breakfast and curled up on the recliner. The grand babies had not gotten up yet and I would be making breakfast shortly. So, I am catching up, I read several emails posted some baby pictures and went for a short drive after they left, so now computer work. One former student who emailed me spoke of realizing school was nearing the end and graduation was only a few weeks ahead and now they would have to make a way in life. In that same email concern for a friend stationed in the Middle East. Watching the news doesn’t give justice to friends and families with loved ones overseas in harm’s way, as I think again choices we have made. I received an email from my son reminding me to review some emails to remind my wife to read over and proof his essays. Three emails of the seventy that truly caught my attention.

I started with a Petty quote and maybe that applies to a graduate and a job search as well. So many of the following what we do with our lives is our choice how the world will see that choice is dependent upon the direction and choices we make. It is not the ability that you will be known for or how great an actor or musician or football player but what you do with your talent is what is seen. Family is so crucial and friends equally as well and always seek to learn to know more reading, writing, thinking and reflecting.

“If there were no writers there will be no readers” unknown source

“Choose wisely”, it has been said and, in the end, some do and some will not. So today take stock of where you are and look at the road ahead and pick that path way that will direct you where you need to be.

“Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought.” Basho

In today’s hectic world we all look for quick solutions, five-minute abs, six minutes to wisdom, and a one-minute egg. Wisdom is not on the stock exchange, it is not a brokered commodity. It is more here now within, and it is a journey. The journey is not an easy one and to be involved in finding wisdom only those who actually travel that road will truly become wise.

“True wisdom lies in gathering the precious things out of each day as it goes by.” E. S. Bouton

Several nights ago, I was bored Justified seemed to missing and I found, Darby O’Gill and the Little people and Star Trek of all things, “Star Trek Insurrection”. The plot revolves around a planet where all is at peace. The few residents, all 600 have forsaken technology for art, or literature, for the aesthetics in life and for all that they can make of themselves. Interestingly a weaver studies 40 years to become an apprentice and apprentice another 40 to become a master weaver of rugs and tapestries. These people live on a planet whose innate radiation prolongs life and rejuvenates them cellular so they have time to accomplish what it is inside them. It sounds so easy when the time allows it.

Daniel Day Lewis, actor and now cobbler took a five-year hiatus from movies to study cobbling, (shoe making) in Europe from the masters. As the Star Trek movie progressed a comment was made about a perfect moment, a special moment that stands out above all else. Captain Pickard mentioned seeing earth from space for the first time, many astronauts recall that moment. For me it was a sunrise over the Atlantic one morning on Cumberland Island with the waves splashing about and the most brilliant reds and oranges I have ever seen. A shrimp boat slowly moved through this picture yet in its awesomeness the boat was insignificant.

As Pickard spoke with this woman on this planet of a perfect moment she then offered now to learn to make every moment prefect and the movie continued and soon he was seeing a hummingbird flit to a flower or pollen blown from a flower.

“Wisdom is like electricity. There is no permanently wise man, but men capable of wisdom, who, being put into certain company, or other favorable conditions, become wise for a short time, as glasses rubbed acquire electric power for a while.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

I am intrigued as I read various thoughts on wisdom and for some reason I am always drawn to Emerson. He was controversial yet perhaps one of the greatest thinkers as well as poet of his time. He was alluding to wisdom as a temporary entity in his statement. The next quote is an interesting statement from a President often misunderstood

“Wisdom often times consists of knowing what to do next.” Herbert Hoover

“Wisdom begins at the end.” Daniel Webster

So often we spend time simply doing, not seeking, we spend time worrying about which path to travel or preparing our needs for the journey and worrying about the destination. We forget to go and there we are no better and no worse, only we are where we were to start still. Somewhere in among all things is the destination but the destination is not necessarily the end but a point B of a line AB and still out there is C and D and E and much more. Please keep all in harm’s way on your mind and in your thoughts and always give thanks namaste.

My family and friends I do not say this lightly,
Mitakuye Oyasin
(We are all related)
bird