"Nothing, in truth, can ever replace a lost companion. Old comrades cannot be manufactured. There is nothing that can equal the treasure of so many shared memories, so many bad times endured together, so many quarrels, reconciliations, heartfelt impulses. Friendships like that cannot be reconstructed. If you plant an oak, you will hope in vain to sit soon under its shade.
For such is life. We grow rich as we plant through the early years, but then come the years when time undoes our work and cuts down our trees. One by one our comrades deprive us of their shade, and within our mourning we always feel now the secret grief of growing old.
If I search among my memories for those whose taste is lasting, if I write the balance sheet of the moments that truly counted, I surely find those that no fortune could have bought me. You cannot buy the friendship of a companion bound to you forever by ordeals endured together." — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (Wind, Sand and Stars)
For such is life. We grow rich as we plant through the early years, but then come the years when time undoes our work and cuts down our trees. One by one our comrades deprive us of their shade, and within our mourning we always feel now the secret grief of growing old.
If I search among my memories for those whose taste is lasting, if I write the balance sheet of the moments that truly counted, I surely find those that no fortune could have bought me. You cannot buy the friendship of a companion bound to you forever by ordeals endured together." — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (Wind, Sand and Stars)
I'm not saying I know everything in life there is to know and have experienced everything in life there is to experience (I don't and I haven't), but some things I have experienced and know from doing or having happen to me. One big lesson I'm still learning is that life isn't so much a destination to be reached or milestone to be achieved, but more about the actual journey itself and the paths we take and turns we make and twists along the way.
Like a big wheel going around and around life changes, sometimes our way is upward, other times our way is downwards. What and who might be up one day will be down the next. The thing is we all get popped and have to take hits and keep moving forward. Nothing can hit as hard as life and one of the biggest hitters in life are other people.
The way I think and feel about things is that our experiences are what gives us value as people. I don't care who you are or how much money you have in life you really don't own anything unless it is the knowledge in your head and the love you have in your heart. Everything else we really don't own, but just have temporary stewardship of it. In my opinion you don't really own anything that can be taken from you. If it can catch fire and burn, be stolen by thieves, blown away by a tornado or confiscated by a government then you just had possession of it, but not true ownership.
When we die and pass across the great divide to the other side the only things we can truly take with us to the grave are the love we have in our hearts and the knowledge we have in our heads. Everything else we leave behind, so what that says about the stuff that we typically spend so much of our lives trying to obtain and acquire? It’s vanity and vexation of spirit the play things we seek as we trod our way through life.
I also tend to think and feel that the things we have been through have increases our value as friends. I like surrounding myself with people who have been through ordeals. In my opinion you can't build strength until you've had to overcome something. You gain wisdom (hopefully) by the experiences you have, yes this includes our mistakes that we again hopefully learn from.
It is a true mark of manhood and womanhood that we learn our limitations and frailties and can be honest and admit to ourselves and others that we have weakness. We all have them. Only God is perfect, the last perfect human to walk this earth was nailed to a cross for it. (Thank you for your sacrifice master.)
I went through a whole fleet of very bad days when I was in my 30’s. Life in no way was kind to me to say the least. It left me fragmented in so many little pieces. It got so bad a few of the times that I figured that there was nothing in my life to make it worth living any longer. I once even took my pistol, put it up to my head and was pulling the trigger. I just wanted to end it all and to stop hurting from so many quarters.
I like to think it was Divine Intervention, because before I did the deed the phone rang. Something said just answer it, you can go back to doing yourself in later. It was my old best friend calling me totally unexpected. He moved to San Francisco, CA after school (stayed there 16 years before moving back) and we hadn't talked in years. At first I thought he was another bill collector (my ex left me with $30,000 in bills she ran up that I was responsible for paying after she left the state moving to back to her folks in New Jersey and I made a lot less money back then).
Like a big wheel going around and around life changes, sometimes our way is upward, other times our way is downwards. What and who might be up one day will be down the next. The thing is we all get popped and have to take hits and keep moving forward. Nothing can hit as hard as life and one of the biggest hitters in life are other people.
The way I think and feel about things is that our experiences are what gives us value as people. I don't care who you are or how much money you have in life you really don't own anything unless it is the knowledge in your head and the love you have in your heart. Everything else we really don't own, but just have temporary stewardship of it. In my opinion you don't really own anything that can be taken from you. If it can catch fire and burn, be stolen by thieves, blown away by a tornado or confiscated by a government then you just had possession of it, but not true ownership.
When we die and pass across the great divide to the other side the only things we can truly take with us to the grave are the love we have in our hearts and the knowledge we have in our heads. Everything else we leave behind, so what that says about the stuff that we typically spend so much of our lives trying to obtain and acquire? It’s vanity and vexation of spirit the play things we seek as we trod our way through life.
I also tend to think and feel that the things we have been through have increases our value as friends. I like surrounding myself with people who have been through ordeals. In my opinion you can't build strength until you've had to overcome something. You gain wisdom (hopefully) by the experiences you have, yes this includes our mistakes that we again hopefully learn from.
It is a true mark of manhood and womanhood that we learn our limitations and frailties and can be honest and admit to ourselves and others that we have weakness. We all have them. Only God is perfect, the last perfect human to walk this earth was nailed to a cross for it. (Thank you for your sacrifice master.)
I went through a whole fleet of very bad days when I was in my 30’s. Life in no way was kind to me to say the least. It left me fragmented in so many little pieces. It got so bad a few of the times that I figured that there was nothing in my life to make it worth living any longer. I once even took my pistol, put it up to my head and was pulling the trigger. I just wanted to end it all and to stop hurting from so many quarters.
I like to think it was Divine Intervention, because before I did the deed the phone rang. Something said just answer it, you can go back to doing yourself in later. It was my old best friend calling me totally unexpected. He moved to San Francisco, CA after school (stayed there 16 years before moving back) and we hadn't talked in years. At first I thought he was another bill collector (my ex left me with $30,000 in bills she ran up that I was responsible for paying after she left the state moving to back to her folks in New Jersey and I made a lot less money back then).
He used a really formal sounding voice that asked: “Is this McKinley Harris, Jr.” (My full legal name). I replied back “Yes, it’s me, what do I owe you and what kind of payment do I have to send you?” Back during that time the only time my phone rang was a bill collector telling me I owed money. If you've never dealt with bill collectors they can literally and relentlessly hound you to the very gates of hell if you owe their clients any money.
I was surprised when I heard a big laugh and a voice from distant memory say “Mack it’s Twine”. This was the same friend that I met back when we were about 9 years old and we were both in the Cub Scouts. Later we both became Boy Scouts; we went through Junior High and High School together, Jr. High and High School bands (marching, symphonic, pep and jazz bands), took kung-fu lessons together, got shit ripping drunk hanging out and just did a lot of stuff. We talked for three hours about the things that had happened in our lives. I never told him I was right about to kill myself when he called (well, I told him years later).
People tend to think that God only uses winged angels from heaven to accomplish miracles. Over the years I found that to not be true. Yes, for sure He can and does use them, but it’s easier and more efficient to influence and use people. You can be at your wits end and someone can come along and be that hand to hold yours, that shoulder to cry on and lean upon to give you the help you need to get through to survive the hits life smacks us with or obstacles we all have to surmount.
Show me the person that hasn't had to survive or overcome or deal with anything and I'll show you a weak person who has very small strength. I like having people in my life who have experience in dealing with things and surviving crisis and solving problems. This is the same premise behind the “Outward Bound” program. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outward_Bound
http://www.outwardbound.org/
I learned about the history of that program back while I was still in college. Its roots begin back during the days of World War II. German U-boats were sinking many merchant marine boats used to support the ongoing war effort. America back in those days had such a productive capability that we could produce ships fast enough to replace the ones sunk, but like anything else what good is a tool, vehicle, weapon, etc. without a skilled and knowledgeable operator? A sea going merchant vessel is no exception. It takes a particular skill set to be able to safely and successfully navigate, pilot, operate and maintain a ship at sea. You just can't take any one off the street and have them know how.
One thing that became apparent was the critical shortage of trained mariners to operate the ships. There just isn't any way to shorten the learning curve beyond a certain point to make a skilled mariner. Studies were begun at how to increase the survivability of seamen after their ship was sunk. The best in equipment and training only went so far in reducing the loss of life at sea. It was determined next that they needed to look at the human component. A very surprising trend was discovered through the studies: the older seamen were out surviving the younger seamen by a ratio of nearly ten to one.
I was surprised when I heard a big laugh and a voice from distant memory say “Mack it’s Twine”. This was the same friend that I met back when we were about 9 years old and we were both in the Cub Scouts. Later we both became Boy Scouts; we went through Junior High and High School together, Jr. High and High School bands (marching, symphonic, pep and jazz bands), took kung-fu lessons together, got shit ripping drunk hanging out and just did a lot of stuff. We talked for three hours about the things that had happened in our lives. I never told him I was right about to kill myself when he called (well, I told him years later).
People tend to think that God only uses winged angels from heaven to accomplish miracles. Over the years I found that to not be true. Yes, for sure He can and does use them, but it’s easier and more efficient to influence and use people. You can be at your wits end and someone can come along and be that hand to hold yours, that shoulder to cry on and lean upon to give you the help you need to get through to survive the hits life smacks us with or obstacles we all have to surmount.
Show me the person that hasn't had to survive or overcome or deal with anything and I'll show you a weak person who has very small strength. I like having people in my life who have experience in dealing with things and surviving crisis and solving problems. This is the same premise behind the “Outward Bound” program. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outward_Bound
http://www.outwardbound.org/
I learned about the history of that program back while I was still in college. Its roots begin back during the days of World War II. German U-boats were sinking many merchant marine boats used to support the ongoing war effort. America back in those days had such a productive capability that we could produce ships fast enough to replace the ones sunk, but like anything else what good is a tool, vehicle, weapon, etc. without a skilled and knowledgeable operator? A sea going merchant vessel is no exception. It takes a particular skill set to be able to safely and successfully navigate, pilot, operate and maintain a ship at sea. You just can't take any one off the street and have them know how.
One thing that became apparent was the critical shortage of trained mariners to operate the ships. There just isn't any way to shorten the learning curve beyond a certain point to make a skilled mariner. Studies were begun at how to increase the survivability of seamen after their ship was sunk. The best in equipment and training only went so far in reducing the loss of life at sea. It was determined next that they needed to look at the human component. A very surprising trend was discovered through the studies: the older seamen were out surviving the younger seamen by a ratio of nearly ten to one.
It just didn't make sense to the rational mind of the scientist doing the study. The younger men seemingly had every advantage. They typically were in much better physical shape, better muscle tone, cardio-vascular capacity and endurance, higher metabolism, faster reflexes and sharper mental ability. They repeated the study figuring the first results had to be in error or flawed only to reproduce the same results.
Next it was decided that it had to be some psychological factor that caused the older sailors to outlive the younger ones. As it turned out that was it, they conducted many interviews with the survivors of U-boat sinking and discovered that more than anything it was the life’s experiences of the older seamen that was the telling difference in their survival. Having had to face problems in life after coming through various difficulties and tight spots the older sailors had experience in dealing with harsh conditions and adversities that the younger sailors had not had and therefore couldn't rely upon.
The reasoning of the older seamen using their life experience was that if they got through a previous bad situation they could get through facing being alone in the cold darkness of the North Atlantic Ocean. Even though rescue boats from other ships in convoys would be close enough to effect rescue in time they still often times didn't arrive fast enough to save the younger sailors, who never having had faced adversity and difficult times figured that their plight was un-survivable and their situation hopeless. They would simply give up, roll over and let the cold darkness of the night sea take them from this life.
It was decided that as part of their training they would start exposing the seamen to difficult training. A series of obstacle courses and drills were established where they would acquaint the men with some of the things they might face after a ship was sunk. After the training was instituted the survivor ratio jumped and the younger as well as the older mariners started surviving sinking at sea and as we well know American and the Allies went on to victory in large part due to the efforts and diligence of our merchant marine. http://www.wilderdom.com/outwardbound/ob.html
I've experienced hard times, been in difficult spots, survived some things I figure I should have not. I'm not saying it makes me invulnerable, it does not. I do say that it shows me more and more how many things and how much we can survive because of the things we've already made it through. So I say again our value is increased because of what we've been through, know and know how to do and have survived. Being on this side of things looking back can you see now where you know things now that you didn't know back then when you were much younger, at 52 now, I know I can?
Having strength doesn't mean that you never hurt. That is a mistake many folks make when talking about being strong. They figure when you're strong you never hurt. Nothing could be further from the truth. When you're strong you hurt plenty, but somehow, some way you make it through things, you survive, you adapt, you overcome, and you keep moving forward. Even when life has knocked you back a mile and you can only nudge along one inch at a time crawling along belly low to the ground you still keep plodding forward. In my book that’s life and that’s what being a survivor is about, taking the hard hits and keep moving forward, even against all odds, even when no one else believes in you or supports you or helps you or encourages you, you still take the hits and keep moving forward.
Everything that happens to and with us over the years sometimes leaves us feeling useless, unappreciated, unloved and alone. It especially sets in hard as we get older, that right life never gets easy even or especially as we age. Each and every day we have to prove to the world that we have the proven ability to take the hits and keep moving forward. We all fall down or get knocked down, but we don't stay down. We might have to lay there a little while to catch our wind, then stand shakily to get our legs back underneath us, but we stand, shake the dust off and dare step forward again, even jumping into the fray to fight the good fight another day.
I'm not particularly a Barry Manilow fan, but he put out a song a few years back that pretty well resonated with me because of what it means.
Next it was decided that it had to be some psychological factor that caused the older sailors to outlive the younger ones. As it turned out that was it, they conducted many interviews with the survivors of U-boat sinking and discovered that more than anything it was the life’s experiences of the older seamen that was the telling difference in their survival. Having had to face problems in life after coming through various difficulties and tight spots the older sailors had experience in dealing with harsh conditions and adversities that the younger sailors had not had and therefore couldn't rely upon.
The reasoning of the older seamen using their life experience was that if they got through a previous bad situation they could get through facing being alone in the cold darkness of the North Atlantic Ocean. Even though rescue boats from other ships in convoys would be close enough to effect rescue in time they still often times didn't arrive fast enough to save the younger sailors, who never having had faced adversity and difficult times figured that their plight was un-survivable and their situation hopeless. They would simply give up, roll over and let the cold darkness of the night sea take them from this life.
It was decided that as part of their training they would start exposing the seamen to difficult training. A series of obstacle courses and drills were established where they would acquaint the men with some of the things they might face after a ship was sunk. After the training was instituted the survivor ratio jumped and the younger as well as the older mariners started surviving sinking at sea and as we well know American and the Allies went on to victory in large part due to the efforts and diligence of our merchant marine. http://www.wilderdom.com/outwardbound/ob.html
I've experienced hard times, been in difficult spots, survived some things I figure I should have not. I'm not saying it makes me invulnerable, it does not. I do say that it shows me more and more how many things and how much we can survive because of the things we've already made it through. So I say again our value is increased because of what we've been through, know and know how to do and have survived. Being on this side of things looking back can you see now where you know things now that you didn't know back then when you were much younger, at 52 now, I know I can?
Having strength doesn't mean that you never hurt. That is a mistake many folks make when talking about being strong. They figure when you're strong you never hurt. Nothing could be further from the truth. When you're strong you hurt plenty, but somehow, some way you make it through things, you survive, you adapt, you overcome, and you keep moving forward. Even when life has knocked you back a mile and you can only nudge along one inch at a time crawling along belly low to the ground you still keep plodding forward. In my book that’s life and that’s what being a survivor is about, taking the hard hits and keep moving forward, even against all odds, even when no one else believes in you or supports you or helps you or encourages you, you still take the hits and keep moving forward.
Everything that happens to and with us over the years sometimes leaves us feeling useless, unappreciated, unloved and alone. It especially sets in hard as we get older, that right life never gets easy even or especially as we age. Each and every day we have to prove to the world that we have the proven ability to take the hits and keep moving forward. We all fall down or get knocked down, but we don't stay down. We might have to lay there a little while to catch our wind, then stand shakily to get our legs back underneath us, but we stand, shake the dust off and dare step forward again, even jumping into the fray to fight the good fight another day.
I'm not particularly a Barry Manilow fan, but he put out a song a few years back that pretty well resonated with me because of what it means.
I can’t help remembering my friends that have "gone too soon". I don’t feel guilty necessarily, but sometimes feel I’ve let them down by not being there for them when they felt they had no other option, but to take the "easy way out" using a permanent solution to temporary problems. I think it was Zig Zigler that said something to the effect that “tough times don’t last, but tough people do.” I also like his “motivation doesn’t last, neither does bathing, that’s why we do it everyday”.
I still love them all and miss them all. Yes, it still breaks my heart that I wasn't there enough for them. Now they're just "gone too soon". :-(
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