Archive for the tag “Truth”

08 Jul 2012

Tell Me About Yourself Award

I suppose there are a lot of “awards” in the blog-world of WordPress.com and that all of them have the root of being kind and thoughtful to fellow bloggers. It seems like there are a several that are meant to get more visitors, or share more sites or something.

But I am flattered that someone considered by blog worthy of any recognition. Tracksinthedust.com has always meant to be a list of things just put together that I always wanted to tell my kids, but now they are “old enough” that they either have formulated their own opinions of things. Maybe some of these posts are things that I told them before, or meant to tell them, or just never got around to telling them. I get along really well with 3 of the 4 of them, and they are turning out to be pretty good people, despite the fact that their mom and I had no owners manual.

I always wondered about that, you need a licence to drive a car or own a gun- you need to apply for a loan and fill out paperwork to adopt children or even attempt a laboratory version of parenthood (perhaps). But there’s no test for a man and woman having a child. God willing you leave the hospital and its all up to you. So here I am tracks in the dust, that overtime will blow away on our travels on Earth. We make the decision where those tracks take us, we have the opportunity to follow others or make our own tracks.

Tell Me About Yourself Award

1. Thank the person who nominated you: Thank you Miss Audrey (In Wonderland). When I started posting in WordPress, yours was one of the first blogs I began to follow. I am always amazed with your perspective on life, and certainly where you are in your journey in a country I am not very familiar with. You are about the same age as my kids and I find it comforting that even though you are on the entire other side of the world from them- there are a lot of similarities.

2. Tell the world 7 things about yourself that you have not yet shared

1) I love musicals. Hollywood, Broadway, local theater, made for TV. I am a sucker for them. Can’t tell you why, just am.

2) I have a beard that I have only entirely shaved off twice in my life since I was eighteen. Some of my closest friends think I was born with it. I wasn’t.

3) I have always wanted to be an artist. I mean a painter. But I am lousy at it. I have a very famous cousin who has been an artist most of her life I think. Her talent amazes me every time I look at her work.

4) I have written over a 1000 lyrics to songs, spanning over decades of writing. Poems if you want to call them that. Some of them have music with them, others have gotten music written to them by many of my musical friends. Some just are terrible, but that’s inspiration.

5) I was on the radio hosting a public service topical show about JFK’s assassination with a famous authority, when John Lennon was shot and killed. I spent the next 8 hours playing his music and taking calls. It sticks in my memory all these decades later. Imagine.

6) I have always owned practical cars, but just once it would be great to have owned a hot sports car that goes really fast. Priorities are for real.

7) Give me a subject and 48 hours, and I can stand up and speak about it. I wasnt that way when I was younger, but public speaking just became part of what I do.

3. Nominate 7 fellow bloggers and let them know

A great group of beautiful people, beautiful words, amazing pictures and stories… thank you.

http://noblogintended.wordpress.com/

http://istopforsuffering.wordpress.com/

http://findingravity.com/

http://thetruthwarrior.wordpress.com/

http://hopethehappyhugger.wordpress.com/

http://m5son.wordpress.com/

http://starsrainsunmoon.com/

Posted in Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life and tagged Blog, Blog award, Definitions, Happiness, Memories, moments, Reality Check, tracks in the dust, Truth

22 Jun 2012

2 Comments

Being Authentic

I have always hoped that my kids would grow up understanding the importance of being “authentic”. I think that is a word that may have many meanings to depending on your perspective; genuine, not fake or false, an original/not a copy, something has significance perhaps. Authentic shouldn’t be confused with “original” though, since we all are original, no two exactly alike. We are all God’s people because of that difference.

But to me, people who are authentic have conviction to be who they are because they are aware of themselves. Sure, over the years of growing up and even in adulthood we continue to try to emulate others; like our heroes, our parents, our mentors in living and faith, even our closest and dearest friends and lovers. And we should. Like I said in a previous post, I think we are a mosaic of all the people we have had contact with that have influenced us (good or bad). But we get to decide in the final pass what that means. It is our internal psyche that is going to accept or deny the picture of who we are.

But really didn’t want to take scientific route, I am just expecting my children to continue to be authentic. Be aware of others around them, who they are and what might have brought those people to that moment in time to intersect with our lives. But be genuine then. Be right with yourself. I laugh as I remember when they were growing up how they would desperately need to wear clothes and have their hair like their favorite rock stars. They would wear the latest anti-fashions, say words they could only have heard from other places. They would call others “posers”, when in fact they were themselves. But as they got older things changed outwardly, and hair and clothes changed with them. But always as parents we always asked them to remain true to themselves.

So I keep thinking “be authentic”. Start by being real, start by not lying to yourself about things in your life and how you treat others. Start by depending on your spiritual compass to make positive decisions. Kind of like the accountability scale I posted a while back, you have to be able to admit your mistakes, own your own situation. Then treat others that way. The adage “do onto others…” I think means being genuine to yourself first, and then to the people around you. No matter if those people are only a moment in your life as you travel through it, or family, or intended to be a lifelong dear friends… treat them authentically.

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life, Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life and tagged Change, Definitions, friends and lovers, life is precious, Opinion, Reality Check, relationships, Religion and Spirituality, Self-Awareness, Truth, Who Are You

06 Jun 2012

1 Comment

The Music of a Rainy Day

It was a rainy day today. A long rainy day. The kind of rain that paints pictures in your head.

Colors the day.

It makes for a glossy picture that can make somethings seem much smoother and take away the sharp edges. Like a painting from Monet. These kind of days always seem to have a soundtrack with music in my head. There are those days that aren’t so musical, but this was.

I love storms and rain, lightening and rolling thunder that comes with it. Some days anyway. It washes away the dust and dirt (and living in Texas, there’s quite a bit of that). Today I could feel the ozone in the air, the change of weather that feels like electricity in the air. Maybe it is the change in the pressure or something. Maybe it is just what comes with the wind that carries on before it. But it can be good.

So there is this song, really not a rain theme song. But it was spinning around in my head, like the world that spins around and creates the illusion that the sun goes down. Be certain I am not sad, but I am sure that I am in love with my wife, and that I am happy to tell everyone that they should be sure to take every moment as one that they can they cannot get back and cherish it with the grace of God. Don’t waste it because everyone eventually dies, hopefully comes to be in the place that is promised by eternity ahead.

Do You Realize by The Flaming Lips

Do You Realize – that you have the most beautiful face
Do You Realize – we’re floating in space –
Do You Realize – that happiness makes you cry
Do You Realize – that everyone you know someday will die

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes – let them know
You realize that life goes fast
It’s hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn’t go down
It’s just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

Do You Realize – Oh – Oh – Oh
Do You Realize – that everyone you know
Someday will die –

Do You Realize – that you have the most beautiful face
Do You Realize?

Posted in Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life, Life's Sound Track (Music) and tagged cherish, Grace, life is precious, Rain, Rainy Day Music, Slow Down, The Flaming Lips, Truth

30 Apr 2012

4 Comments

Just Because You Can, Doesn’t Mean You Should

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. That’s what my wife has been reflecting on often these past weeks, and it is something seems to apply to so many things in life.

Here in America, perhaps it goes along with being a country full of “consumers”. Mass consumption can get so extreme that creates the notion that getting more of everything that others have, getting the super-sized item or getting the most valuable item means contentment. It’s like the thought is: “after all, if we earned it we should deserve it”. Some see it as being able to do whatever you want and some others doing it in spite of what others want; often without considering any consequences. I have heard it said “If it is not illegal or immoral, just go ahead if you can afford it. “

Sadly it seems there are so many messages in the course of a day that just keep working on influencing our sensibilities. Upgrade your car, your home, your life… or make sure you are always happy. Don’t get left behind and be certain you have the newest! Whatever the message it feels like it is aimed at you to be sure you can measure your value in life somehow. Whether it’s on the media or from the people around you, it can appeal to your peace-of-mind, or the need to be recognized by others.

Sometimes it isn’t as serious as much as it is perhaps ironic. Out shopping at a local large discount store on the weekends, I see people who are wearing clothes that don’t flatter them, really don’t fit them or worse yet make them look like they are wearing someone else’s clothes. Seriously, just because they make those short-shorts in that green glowing color in their size does not mean they should be wearing them! Funny really- not that everyone shouldn’t have a positive body image, but there are times when it is worthy of a chuckle.

In other cases it is so much more subtle. Some divorced friends of mine in the past wrestled for legal custody of their children. It was obvious who would come out on the side of custody, but just because it could be done, didn’t mean it should. The children get the wrong end of the settlement, and the awarded parent just “could” and therefore did.

While yet so many other couples we know, just keep working themselves to death to help pay off their debit because they have bought so much on credit. Just because they could, they did- they bought things and went places- on credit. It made them happy temporarily and then over time, it pushed them into the brink of disaster in their personal lives and their relationship because they realized the things around them did nothing to validate who they really were wanting to be.

It can work that way in life I think. Just because you can own it, doesn’t mean you should. Just because you can take it, doesn’t mean you should. Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you always should. Consuming all you can devour for the sake of doing it… is more than simply self-centered road…it also affects others around you in so many ways.

There are so many better doors to go through, so many more roads to take. So many more reasons to take them… and most of those you can take just because they are there- if you choose to take them…because you can.

Posted in Before and After Things Change and tagged Acceptance, Change, choices, Doubt, Life, Reality Check, Self-Awareness, Slow Down, Truth, Who Are You

29 Feb 2012

From Ditch To Ditch On Your Way To Center

Always working for a center, it seems like we are frequently blind as we move from ditch to ditch. We may not see it when it happens – not immediately anyway. But then looking in the rear-view mirror it seems easier to see. We want to be independant, but we rely on others to validate our value day-to-day. For some of us that means imersion into relationships (friends/lovers) or jobs or school. It can be almost surely a pleasure, but with these earthly things- we can equally be the ditch we are not aware of. Our center is questioned? Do we really need to be there? Can we be what others want us to be and still be at our center?

But being good with yourself as you (as I had said in another post) means understanding who and what YOU want to be. Spiritually is foremost. What defines you? For one of my children it meant voiding everything he had learned for his life before his mid-teen years, and becoming validated by someone who he met online who provided him some kind of answer. Her definition of my son. So many years ago he left our home one day never to return, with someone he met online that helped him to a path ahead that didn’t apear to be his “center”- but another persons idea of what that should be. I haven’t seen my son in 9 years. He is lost in somone elses definition and I pray one day he will find himself and look for a way to remove himself from the ditch he is in.

It happens a lot. A controlling person driving relationships from ditch to ditch.

Friends and lovers, family shouldnt consume you, control you, determine your fate or make you someone that is not you. They can help define you in the world by pointing out the ditches, by helping you keep steering to your middle. You can be left of center/right of center, or dead ahead center… but stay out of the ditches whenever you can. It starts by being true to yourself.