Month: December 2024

Past, Present, and Future

Read if you will. Or just accept my wishes that you have had a good holiday season, and for a happy, healthy new year!

This contemplative message comes to you as we transition from religious and national holidays of the season to celebrating the beginning of a new year. I am unsure of its edifying value. Mostly I muse and wander, skirting around feelings that have emerged as another post-Pam holiday season approached. Read if you will. Or just accept my wishes that you have had a good holiday season, and for a happy, healthy new year!

Past
Present
Future
Living in the Past, Present, and Future

Past

Youth have no past of their own. Few, if any, memories to dwell on. They learn of their past from those within their circles. Family, family friends, school, religious affiliations. Youth develop a past as they age. They typically become aware in their teens. And while learning their past, they start to question. Some learn life’s lessons early through both happy and tragic experiences.

Adults carry their past with them as they bound along life’s highways and byways. All the while adding to the volume and depth of past experiences. The past molds their outlook on life. It impacts their decisions. It is integral to their thought processes. Their past is both a blessing and a curse.

Later in life our early past often lies latent. Only surfacing when reminded. More recent past begins to emerge as repeat experiences. Sometimes melding and becoming confused as intermingling fibers of new and well-worn clothing. The past continues to guide us. And yet we have forgotten so much!

The past is both a teacher and a burden to the aged. Wisdom comes from how we reconcile the past. Yet its weight is always upon us as we navigate what’s left of our lives.

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Present

We live in the present. Or do we? We meet each day anew. Yesterday is in the past. Tomorrow is unknown.

Youth experience each day with little expectation. Their limited past is of little help for the day. They rely on their wits and those whom they accept as having wisdom enough to guide them. Parents, siblings, peers. At the end of the day, they have added good and/or ill experiences to their past. Youth have yet to deeply contemplate the future.

Adults navigate life’s trials and tribulations. Relationships, work, family, social interactions. Though somewhat guided by the past, they are enough to fill the day. The past can straighten life’s paths or obscure roads from vision. The past can lift up or bring down. It does both from time to time. Each day’s decisions are based on past experience and hopes and dreams of the future.

The past envelops us as a binding or a blanket as it becomes the greater part of our life span. More of the day is spent remembering. We can be suffocated by it. We can embrace it. But we can’t escape it. Days are filled with memories. We remember past hopes and dreams for the future. We are on a destiny train to the future.

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Future

Youth do not understand the future. They have no experience to lead them on. Their concept of the future is forever. Their view of the future is couched in their learned past. They start to look to the future as they gather past experience. They develop a concept of what life will bring.

Adults look to the future from instinct. The drive to survive presses notions of sustenance, shelter, procreation. Adults develop plans. Some detail their every move while others press on with vague notions of direction. Aspirations. Hopes. Goals. Wishes. All are looking to the future.

Aging changes future perspective. The future is shorter. It is finite. Aspirations, hopes, goals, and wishes are either fulfilled or lost in the past. The future looks more toward legacy. What will be left behind to lend wisdom to others’ pasts? There is both fulfillment and emptiness as we contemplate Days of Future Past 1.

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Living in the Past, Present, and Future

Personally, this year’s season is a true mixture of the past, present, and future. I am aware of the weight and the wisdom of my past. Memories of holidays from my youth and adulthood mingle with my recent past. They include loved ones who are either gone or far away. We can no longer celebrate as once we did. Decorations, cards, and gifts now recall those memories. Memories of what was and is no more.

At the same time I feel excitement and contentment for what is now my life. New love, new friends, new surroundings add to the joy of being closer to family. Each day is new unto itself. Retirement affords me to choose to do, or not do, the daily tasks before me – within reason. I am thankful for the day.

As in the past, my present hope for your future is a happy, healthy new year!

Past
Present
Future
Living in the Past, Present, and Future

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  1. Album by the Moody Blues ↩︎

More Musings…

Word of the Week – Confabulate
Music – The Other Non-addictive, Mood-altering, Non-substance

Word of the Week – Confabulate

Let me first say that I tried to guess the meaning of confabulate before looking it up. I thought it meant something along the lines of blowing something way out of proportion. I thought my definition was a stretch. The “con” part seemed contradictory to making more out of something. But I took a shot. I wasn’t close!

According to Merriam Webster, confabulate is “to exchange viewpoints or seek advice for the purpose of finding a solution to a problem.” Synonyms include consult, confer, discuss, talk. It’s so common it seems we do it all the time!

Some confabulation is short. Like attempts to bring someone’s words to the surface – like an emotional response. Other confabulations, it seems, try to help develop a theme or a plot, or even a memory.

I can relate to confabulation with my age peers. Like me, they are having difficulty with recall of names, places, and people. We laugh at the effort it takes two or more people to remember any particular thing. We laugh to mask the fear that we are no longer at the top of our game. The reality of the effects of aging.

We often confabulate about where to go or what to eat. We confabulate to figure out how to deal with the weather. I am particularly honored when I get a text or a call from a friend or relative asking for my opinion or to help work through a difficult decision.

But I think I’m making light of the term. Webster’s explains the use of confabulate in much more serious context. Go there to find in-depth understanding. I just like the word as either a verb (confabulate) or a noun (confabulation). And thus ends the discourse on The Word of the Week.

Music – The Other Non-Addictive, Mood-altering, Non-substance

This image arrived in my text threads this week:

I take issue with the first descriptor in the above list. I believe I am addicted to music! Not just making it. Also listening. Music is so ingrained in me. Typically, I am silently (or not so silently) humming or singing a tune in my head. I wonder how I would get along without music!

Lyrics constantly pop into my head as I am listening and talking with others. Sometimes they are completely out of context. The topic of the song and our discussion are not close to the same. I blare out the lyrics in tune. Often they become a play on words. This also leads to research and confabulation to figure out the title and/or artist.

Music is definitely mood-altering. Again I say, “I wonder how I would get along without” it! Religious music had an early influence on my life. That influence changed with the works of Bob Dylan. The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, The Moody Blues, and many more also shaped it. It is often the music of my teens and twenties that come to mind in any given situation. Music of the 80’s and 90’s bounce around in my brain. Though I am less influenced by their genres.

Where would I be without my music?! I wrote my earliest, simplistic song while still in high school. I’ve written for and about women. I’ve written about family and friends. I’ve written about dreams and real experiences. Writing and playing my lyrical and/or instrumental music is cathartic! Music has seen me through some of my most difficult times. Aided my recovery. Given me purpose. It is a non-drug medicine!

Common side effects include but are not limited to uncontrolled head bobbing, toe tapping, finger snapping, selective hearing impairment and persistent melody flashbacks

I may have already covered “persistent melody flashbacks.” The rest is soooooo true! You know it is. Sing along. Even out of tune. Out of range. Out of time. You know you do it. It can’t be helped. Music is likely the most potent, readily available panacea for emotional injury. It requires no prescription. You need no insurance. If you are like me, you might not even need a fix. It’s just there!

I’ve done my share of drugs, drunk my share of spirits. Now I do yoga from time to time. I exercise often. Music may be addictive, mood-altering, and sometimes without physical form. But it is clearly one of the most valuable manifestations of human endeavors. If by some chance you are not hooked, I urge you to listen. Take it in. Let it flow through your veins. I doubt you will be disappointed. It may help you heal.

Word of the Week – Confabulate
Music – The Other Non-addictive, Mood-altering, Non-substance

In My Dreams

Old Abodes and Broken Highways tells the story of a recurring dream mixed with real experience. I find myself in a low-rent tenement area of some unknown yet large city. I don’t know how I got there. I fear unfamiliar and antagonistic people. The area is under the complicated structure of a highway mix master. This structure includes elevated, unfinished highways. High up in the air, they simply stop. They evoke an image of cars driving off the end. I have seen such highways in the Dallas Texas area. They are familiar. That angst is real.

Other recurring dreams find me trying to get somewhere, probably home. Sometimes I’m traveling across multiple states on unknown highways trying to figure out the map or GPS. Other times I try to find the right bridge. I need to get onto it and then off to reach the parking lot at an airport. Often those include images of waiting anxiously for flights that don’t take off. Or, worse yet, I am trapped inside. The prop-jet climbs from the terminal. We are in the midst of giant jets that nearly knock us out of the sky.

I am not alone. Sometimes I recognize people around me. Often I talk with people I don’t know. In living rooms, lobbies, terminals. All strange and uncomfortable.

In this particular dream, the discourse turns philosophical as I share my thoughts with a total stranger. “What if we lived forever? Would it not be better to be completely open with everyone we meet? Should we keep our innermost secrets to ourselves for eternity? Or would we all be better off just being real?”

“On the other hand”, said the stranger. “Would it not be better to keep those very personal thoughts to yourself? Everyone would see you differently with the knowledge.”

“Think of it like heaven”, I said. “In heaven, we are told, there is no fear, no anger. There are no tears. There is only happiness, peace, and joy. How can it be that we hold secrets from each other? Should they, would they, not be known?

“Would we even have dark thoughts? Things we want to hide or not share? Why must we wait for heaven to be real, to be whole, to love unconditionally?”

Waking up, I could not shake these thoughts. Surely, I am not alone in keeping thoughts to myself. It’s not that I have bad thoughts to hide. Though sometimes I am less than kind in my view of others. Often I feel that I would hurt this or that person by sharing what I am thinking. “If you can’t say anything nice, then don’t say anything at all.” My parents used to say.

But we spend so much energy trying to say the right thing. In fact, our whole society has devolved into forming our discourse to avoid any potential criticism, abuse, or defamation. I certainly don’t want to offend, just as I don’t like others’ offensive characterizations.

Obviously, this is only a mind exercise brought on by an unreal dream. Yet it does make me ponder life better lived if we just accept each other as we are. Surely someone will say, “In your dreams!”

Columns

I have a renewed appreciation for those who write newspaper or magazine columns. Especially those who must meet a daily deadline! I won’t distinguish between print and online versions. Here it is Friday morning and I am challenged with choosing a topic. So much so that I am writing about that.

Each day I get up thinking of what to write about. Sometimes it is something someone says. Other times an experience while on an outing or fulfilling my daily routine. Then I try to figure out an angle, a hook that captures the reader’s attention.

That’s where the trouble begins. What’s the title? Which direction shall I go? Is it worth anyone’s time to read? Will you continue reading this!?

Granted, most columnists have a plethora of current topics from which to choose. Politics is always a choice, as is the weather, social events, cosmetics. You get the picture. It depends on the general purpose for the column at all.

But what about the musings of a wandering mind (look below “Wut Javia”)? I have no edict, lest it be self-imposed. Staying away from politics and religion does limit one’s musing potential. Thus, here we are. I am writing a blog post about what to write about, and you are still reading it. What does that indicate “in a wiser world of bigger motor cars”1?

Well, anyway… Other thoughts of columns surfaced as I considered this message. Specifically, spreadsheet columns and columns holding up structures. All different. Are there even any similarities? Maybe the spreadsheets. I wonder.

Seriously, though. I am aware that some of you are writers. You can probably relate to the challenge. It would be good to establish a consistent theme say, travel, birds, weather, etc. But such would belie the wandering mind concept of this site. Interest. Relevance. Emotion. Comedy. Maybe even excitement. These words express my wish for this blog’s content. Rest assured I will strive to evoke them in the coming weeks, months, and years.

Meanwhile, I appreciate that you read this entire rant of insignificant fodder. I feel a responsibility to you all. Thank you for being here.

Just a bit more before I go. I continue to work on my music. Much of my practice time is spent on playing guitars and not so much on words. It is satisfying to try new riffs and “perfect” strumming and finger picking of established songs. New songs are coming to me. Lyrics and music alike. I have yet to figure out how to record them for publication. Hopefully, that will come along soon so I can share with you.

And… I always type my lyrics two columns to a page. Go figure!

I hope you all have a good week!

1From the album Thick as a Brick by Jethro Tull. A subset of the lyrics printed below:

You put your bet on number one and it comes up every time
The other kids have all backed down and they put you first in line
And so you finally ask yourself just how big you are
And you take your place in a wiser world of bigger motor cars
And you wonder who to call on

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