General Quarters

Ancient and aging, how can I keep my life and my blog, what I think, write, say, do, am, -- convey -- from becoming trivia. Detritus. Already no sage by any stretch, how to halt the freefall?

Or does it matter? To whom? If it matters, what matters, persona, or being? Are they the same? They are not the same. An admiral I worked with in Washington, DC when I was thirty and a newly promoted lieutenant commander, which makes it nearly a half-century ago, keeps me mindful of what matters. When he talked with our team, he liked to hold up the notion of image and substance. That either alone is worthless. Both matter, together they are the essence of one’s integrity, what one is.  

Recently, a young man who was in my religion & ethics classes a decade ago told me he had sometimes read my blog. Startled, that caught me by surprise, brought me up short. Frightened me. Upset, disturbed, alarmed me, ding ding ding ding this is not a drill, what did he see? What have I said, disclosed? Someone sixty years younger than I might see who, what I really am? Should I brush up? On what? Intellectualism? Wisdom? don't have it. Folly? already there. Aura? Presentation? Content? What about possible influence? At one time, he looked up to me. What am I revealing about myself as opposed to what people think? And am I willing for that to be known?

These days, I use my daily blog post as my mind’s city dump. Sometimes it's my umbrella to walk in the rain under whatever is hurting, heavily making my way to MLP. Do I convey as raca? What began one evening in hospital alone, soon four years ago, an observer journaling my way to my medically prognosed imminent death from an inoperable heart condition, shifted to a daily public status report. Then, as the medical condition improved, devolved into other. I call it “my nonsense.” I don’t know why anyone reads it; “I certainly don’t,” as I say lightly but more than half serious. Often early mornings after having written, pressing “publish” I think this:

Is it so? Why would anyone read this? They were honoring what they believed about me, that old guy with the black shirt and white collar. How am I doing? Not so pretty good.

TW+