the future | Tracks In The Dust

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06 Mar 2015

Detachment or Indifference?

No doubt there are many reasons to be concerned about the world’s issues. Throughout history there has been focused attention on the separation of cultures, religious beliefs, power and money. There are many reasons I can say I care, but overall I can say that I have become less interested.

A travesty you say? How can you be so unfeeling? How can you not personally care about the hate,greed and malice of the world around us? People insist that you HAVE to care about the political landscape – you must have an opinion and you better well be landing on the one that whomever you are talking to is passionate about. There is this sense of urgency to be “correct”.

Sorry to disappoint, but I am likely to say that the battle of with cancer has led me to be more detached more than indifferent. .
Many things don’t take the same priority as they it once did.
Oliver Sacks from the New York Times recently said in an article on his diagnosis of terminal cancer at aged 81:”Seeing life from a great altitude. This detachment to things that belong to the future. The future will be left in great hands in some cases.”

Honestly I have gotten much closer to God (perhaps the greater altitude) and the meaning of my future, and that future to me means eternity. But the future here on Earth is going to go on without me. And I have to accept that day will come, as it will for each and every one of us.

So am I indifferent? No. I would like to see more people have peace in their lives, to save their temper for the fight against the deterioration of the human condition. Perhaps that would be worth some passion…

10 Sep 2012

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Reliving the Past

Our pasts are so precious. After all every moment we have lived up to this second is what makes us who we are right now. We have our memories to cherish, we have our experiences to formulate our opinions and shape are personalities. There are plenty of minutes in our lives where not a thing has happened except that we have taken another breath, which we can certainly be thankful for.

We should be proud of who we are- if we can count our accomplishments in a way that has helped others, or we have helped to make shape so many people around us by simple things we may have said or done. In other cases we may have profoundly changed so many lives of those who have since moved on to other circles of friends. But we left our mark on them, we may have ever so slightly changed their course, or perhaps made great changes. But there we were in that past.

But there is one thing that seems to be very true about our pasts, yet so many try to defy it. We cannot relive our past. We can recall it, we may even be able to reenact it in some way. But the ever-changing world does not allow us to go back and relive it just the way it was. Even though some of those moments were profound for you. The birth of your children, the first meeting of a love of your life, the simple victories and celebrations of life, sharing thoughts and philosophies with friends that ultimately indelibly put a new spin on your existence. Or perhaps just that simple clear day where the sky is blue, the sun is shining and you can take a deep breath… Or that day that you made a regrettable mistake that you would rather have not, and would do anything to change it now.

But you cannot go back, just like you cannot predict the future an( see my previous blog). You have to appreciate it, but cannot wallow in it. There is really only the here and now. You have to appreciate the here and now. The moment. And every one after it for as long as you are allowed. A while back I had posted “No Day But Today”. There is only that- only this moment until the next.

So don’t spend your time wishing the past back, it cannot be done. You should not forget it. You should not dismiss it. You cannot relive it.

So now what? What can you do?…. Be the person you have become… through this journey, take the next steps in whatever adventure life allows you ( and then more) and make the day count for something positive, in your life it could be the most significant day ever- but then in some ways they all are.

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