THE STRONGEST VERB

24 April, 2016

Narita, Japan

Darkness is not real - it does not exist.

It is merely the absence of light.

Cold is not real - it does not exist.

It is merely the absence of heat.

Loneliness is not real - it does not exist.

It is merely the absence of love.

Regrets are not real - they do not exist.

They are merely lamentations of one's inactions.

And inactions themselves are not real.

We despise the singing of a mosquito around our ear in the middle of a sultry summer night. 

Is it the eventual sting that bothers us, or that we know the mosquito's INTENT,  and the possibility of the sting that vexes us to the core?

We dwell on past actions, mistakes, and perceived mistakes, yet it is not as much those mistakes that trouble us, as what we might have been able to do at one tiny instant in time, that bothers us. It is not so much the actions that we took, as it is the infinite number of choices in a lifetime we would have made, that we look back upon in the folly known as "regret."

Every language is filled with strong and weak verbs - verbs of movement, of intent, of promise, of love, and of hate - and ten thousand other actions large and small, subtile and obvious.

But I say now, that the strongest verb of all the verbs in all the languages —

is not a verb at all....

It is the word "NOT". 

Errors made, poor choices, accidental happenings, and circumstances change our universe constantly,

and our fate and our lives in the twinkling of an instant, leaving us with a future of consequences, of contentment, pride, wonder, and happiness, and regret, if the outcome of ten quintillion of the seemingly infinite possibilities led to something that later turned out to be not to our liking.

We will remember the things we said today.

Will we ever be able to know the things we did NOT say?

Will we ever be able to know where those other roads not taken would have led to?

What if …? Had we only…?  And the mosquito sings around our ear at night with a single, tiny hum that takes away our strongest of sleep!

"NOT" is the strongest verb, yet it is not real — it doesn't exit.

But, tell me this: Isn't it better to be a "has-been" — than a "never-was"?

"NOT" is the word that, in one tiny instant in time, can send us in a completely different direction in life.

All the actions in the world add up to a finite number - incalculable though that number be.

But "NOT" is infinite, and thus infinitely more powerful.

NOT  cannot be controlled, modified, changed, coaxed back to… 

Nor can NOT be erased — ever!

I should have….  I would have.… I could have.… but I did NOT!

And the mosquito still sings around our ear at night with a single, tiny hum that takes away our strongest of sleep!

In the end, though, each of us walks upon an ever-lengthening, ever-changing series of paths that becomes our very own unique way through life. The important thing is to realize that perhaps some of the best things to happen to us — are the things that did NOT happen to us.

In the end, it is not the end itself that matters at all. The end is merely a period at the final point of a sentence.  What makes up the words of that sentence, is LIFE!

Life is a candle in the darkness.

All the darkness in the universe cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.

And it is also true that life is YOUR candle, so let it burn.

Tend it, and let it shine, with no regrets on what cannot ever be changed.

To be — or NOT to be… the question is at last answered!

NOT may be the strongest of verbs, yet all the "NOT" in the universe will never be able to extinguish even a flicker of your light…

Because you chose LIFE… over "NOT."

Falling Leaves

8 May, 2016 Houston

Our journey through life is one that continuously conducts us forward in time and place —

for that, as far as we are able to tell, is the very nature of time:

Time cannot be halted, or coaxed to stay however briefly. It keeps on moving.

Time cannot be rushed, and it pays no heed whatsoever to our own haste.

Time cannot be coaxed or bribed to go back — to return to any point in its past.

It is a constant, in a universe where everything else is fluid and ever-changing.

As we travel our own paths through time, there is a wind that blows in our faces, and sweeps away whatever we experience, see, do, or say almost the instant we have done it. It blows our life away as an autumn wind whisks away falling leaves from the trees. The leaves that for so long clutched with tenacity onto the branches of mighty trees, and drew their nourishment from those arbors, now, at last, release their grasp from those very branches and let themselves fall free.  

Yes, the leaves drift downward, to be blown away by the gusts into the oblivion that is the past, to return nevermore to the place where they soaked up the warming light of their first morning sun.

This is as it should be. This is the way of the world.

The leaves whirl above our heads, spiraling in rustling eddies, and then they quickly settle to earth, as we trudge ever-onward in our journey. Here and there, a leaf or two may fall upon us, or we may grasp a single falling one in our hand, and examine it, as if it were different from all other of the tens of thousands of leaves that are falling, are or yet to fall in our path.

One day, we find an old box in the recesses of a rarely-used closet, and, in curiosity, open the box. To our delight and surprise, it contains some old photographs, souvenirs, and letters. These things, too, are as fallen leaves - tiny lost pieces of our lives, and of the lives of our loved ones. We hold a picture or letter in our hand and examine it, as if it were different from all other of the tens of thousands of photographs and letters that exist or will exist in our lifetime.

We cherish each object, because of what these things represent. They take us through the mists of time to one specific, nearly-forgotten hour of a nearly-forgotten day that we lived so long ago. Looking at them reminds us of who we were, where we were, and what were doing then, as well as bringing to mind good times that came and went all to quickly — in truth, in the blink of an eye.

Then, the time comes for us to move on, and so we close the box, and that moment, too, is gone. We continue on our journey into our future, as the falling leaves of the past keep drifting by all around us, and now, seeing them fall, we smile.