Author: itoccurstocp

Sentiment and photo from a recent fishing trip on this Galveston pier. Or as I have heard — The fishin’ is good, it’s the catching that is the problem.

Another great line from James Taylor’s song, Secret O’ Life:

“Nobody knows how we got to the top of the hill.  But since we’re on our way down, we might as well enjoy the ride.”

I am capable of believing, convincing myself, that my presence on the hillat “the top of the hill” is a function of my own efforts, though anyone with half (or less of) a brain can recognize that belief as pure folly.  Whatever my position may be on the slope of the hill, it is at least half chance, with much debt to others.  But that only support’s the point – “since we’re on our way down,” and we are all on our way down, “we might as well enjoy the ride” Indeed! Ang songs like this provide a good background playlist.

The Secret O’ Life

Though released by James Taylor in 1977, this song was well beyond drinking age before I “discovered” it and put it on my playlist.  Such a great song.  I stumbled on this recent concert version and fell in love with the song again.  Taylor’s voice ain’t what it used to be, what is, but if anything that adds to the message.

“The secret o’ life IS enjoying the passage of time.”

The haiku is a paraphrase of one of my favorite quotes. The original is from Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter and is incorporated in an opinion he wrote:

“Wisdom too often never comes, and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late.”

…when I stare at the screen with good intentions. Words come, but never really settle in. This is (so far) one of those days. What comes to mind is a haiku jotted down some time ago:

when you desire more

you can go searching for more

or just desire less

One of the beauties of quiet time in the morning is its meandering nature.  If I have the sense to allow it, I end up in places I could never had otherwise gotten.  Today, through a long chain I won’t recount, I ended up at this, from Mississippi John Hurt, which gently settled in:

I shall not be moved.

Like a tree, planted by the water, I shall not be moved.

The vaguely familiar song is presumably derived from Psalms 1:3

“He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, That brings forth its fruit in its season, Whose leaf also shall not wither; And whatever he does shall prosper.”

This house under construction in Galveston caught my eye. It is a small as it looks, a two-story “tiny house” that looked to be one room wide, two rooms deep.

Quote from a TED talk featuring Dan Gilbert. His primary point is that we consistently underestimate changes we will experience in our lives. To finish his thought: “Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished. The person you are right now is as transient, as fleeting and as temporary as all the people you have ever been. The one constant in life is change.”

Given past experiences, one would think we’d have figured that out by now. But…

The runner up text was the opening line from Roger Miller’s great song — Husbands and Wives:

“Two broken hearts, lonely, lookin’ like houses, where nobody lives.” But that seemed like too much of a bummer today.

Photo taken on a recent early morning in Galveston. Thought came through an Anthony DeMello reading.

As an aside — damn, it is difficult to catch lightning in a photo. It helps one appreciate the phrase “catch lightning in a bottle.”

From Howard Thurman today, this reminder:

“It does not require the expert knowledge of the psychologist to discover that we live daily under conditions that undermine whatever tendencies there are in the human spirit that make for a relaxed way of life.  Everyone is in a hurry.”

The solution – duh!  Slow down.  Or as Thurman puts it –

“All travelers, somewhere along the way, find it necessary to check their course, to see how they are doing.”

And I so love Thurman’s simple (?simple?) solution:

“Cultivate the mood to linger…  Who knows?  God may whisper to you in the quietness what He has been trying to say to you, oh, for so long a time.”

Photo taken on a beach in Galveston. Text based on a recently read article about how much more we learn from our setbacks than we do from our victories — Damn It!