Slow Thursday

What sounds good right now is a nice, juicy ribeye steak. I love meat. I also love fruit, but it would be brutal for me to be a vegetarian or vegan.

It is a slow Thursday afternoon at the office. I don't even care enough about the NCAA Tournament to keep up to date on the scores to pass time. Instead I read about the latest arrests in Belarus. 4 days to election day... it's not looking very pretty. Neither is the sky outside... looks gray, like possible rain. Things are well with my soul; this application is stretching my brain and making me do some serious introspection, contemplation, and well thought out articulation of my opinions and beliefs. I always thought it was a good exercise to reflect every now and then on how my perspectives have changed over time, what I've realized is important (or unimportant) to me. Sort of like a life's creed. Ever heard of Robert Fulghum? Pretty odd fella he is, and a decent storyteller. I enjoy his quirky anecdotes and essays in his numerous books. He is also the author of a brief creed about life via an analogy, entitled "All I Need to Know About Life I Learned in Kindergarten." And because I scoff in the face of copyright laws, here it is:

All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.

These are the things I learned:
Share everything.
Play fair.
Don't hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Don't take things that aren't yours.
Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Flush.
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
Take a nap every afternoon.
When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.
Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.

Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.

And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

So, I think I can't sit down and write my own thoughtful credo or reflections on changed perspectives or outlooks on life in a mere 15 minutes (when that clock hits 5, I'm outta here), but I hope to return to this soon.