Tecumseh's Wisdom

Live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart.

Trouble no one about his religion.

Respect others in their views and demand that they respect yours.

Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life.

Seek to make your life long and of service to your people.

Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.

Always give a word or sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, or even a stranger, if in a lonely place.

Show respect to all people, but grovel to none.

When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength.

Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living.

If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.

Touch not the poisonous firewater that makes wise ones turn to fools and robs the spirit of its vision.

When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way.

Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home. -- The Teaching of Tecumseh

This is verse which I feel is wisdom embodied. I believe that much of what is wrong with the world could be remedied with a bit of review when we turn the mirror toward ourselves and look deeply at what we see. Look deeply at how we act. How we live.

Live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart.

The fear of death is universal. But you can face this inevitable conclusion of our body’s earthly existence fearlessly by pushing it from your heart. If the heart is filled with hopes, there is no room for fears.

Trouble no one about his religion.

This is one of the most difficult concepts for me to grasp. There is rarely a belief system out there that is totally inclusive of others. We tend to be so often the sheep depicted in the Christian Bible that endlessly wander without guiding principles and leaders. But look closely at those principles and leaders and dissect them to find if the core of the essence is one of inclusivity or exclusivity. The golden rule of “Do unto others…”, apply it to your life! 

Respect others in their views and demand that they respect yours.

I have always thought everyone is entitled to their own opinions. Differing viewpoints cannot be viewed as negative viewpoints. Learn from differing and opposing opinions. Do not judge that I think you are wrong because I don’t agree. And I will not think you wrong to bring your own opinions to the table. I will not assume anything.

Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life.

Your life doesn’t have to be perfect but it is the only one that we get to do anything with. Make those anything’s everything and make sure that there is a shine to them.

Seek to make your life long and of service to your people.

Who needs you more than others? The family, friends and strangers in need all benefit when you are able to open your life to them. I often hear that the ones with the most at the end win. But what will the ones left behind remember you for. Your sacrifice, your devotion to others, your money?

Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.

Let your death song be your life. Let others remember the composition of your existence.

Always give a word or sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, or even a stranger, if in a lonely place.

I joke with a friend that when we fall on bad times, we both know that at least one of us will always wave as we go by the other pushing a shopping cart down by the riverfront. But I know it is more than that. It is the universal recognition of humanity and our ultimate connection to it that gives us Mother Teresa’s, Martin Luther King and the scarred and wounded soldiers that served their country. Remember that we know not what form that our God may walk in.

Show respect to all people, but grovel to none.

We all deserve our dignity and should strive to build a place where all can find a safe haven to discover theirs. 

When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength.

Be glad you woke up on the right side of the sod each day. The obituaries are filled with those that crossed over from living to death.

Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living.

This is an under-appreciated joy in America. We have such a plentiful food supply and the riches to obtain it that we end up taking it for granted. My own wife still has to remind me often to slow down and be mindful of my eating. To taste the food that goes in my mouth, and will energize my body.

If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.

Think about what you were last grateful about. Now think about the last time you thought about what you were grateful about. It has been a while I would bet. And don’t think that there are only big things to be grateful for. How about the fact that you are loved by someone for no other reason thab you are you?

Touch not the poisonous firewater that makes wise ones turn to fools and robs the spirit of its vision.

Alcohol is not firewater. Firewater is a fuel that destroys and is more a misuse of a substance than being a specific substance. Firewater can be alcohol, but it could be violent video games, drugs or physical violence. Are we doing things that rob our spirit of joy?

When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way.

Look back without regrets. Seek out what fascinated your life and tie a flag to it so when times get tough and you feel lost, you may draw strength from seeing it blown about by the wind of your life force. Let those you will be leaving do the weeping for it is their place to mourn. The day you die should be truly “A good day to die.”

Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.

Your death song could be your life. Write that song now.

Mistakes Will Be Made.

"Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life." ~Sophia Loren

I leaned over the side of the boat to wash the fish slime off my hands only to be greeted with “Kerplunk!” My Ray Bans slipped from their perch on the brim of my hat and traveled directly to the bottom of South Manistee Lake. Ohw! That hurt, on so many levels. That undersize largemouth bass I had released moments before was the last thing on my mind.

I felt sick even though I was trying to tell myself that they were just a dumb pair of sunglasses. But my relentlessly unforgiving brain kept up taunting me. “Yeah, just sunglasses. $300 sunglasses. Prescription sunglasses. Only 6 months old. How dumb can you be to place them on top of the brim of your hat to be able to get the hook out of the fish? See, you do so need the bifocals the eye doctor was pushing you to consider. And why no safety strap?”

No, that last thought was a gently echoing message that my wife and fishing partner had moments before delivered to me to consider. In fact it was her bass I had just released that got my hands slimy.

“Why didn’t you have a strap on them like mine have?” she said, “You put this one on my sunglasses for me.”

She was of course right about that. I had spent time rigging a strap for her sunglasses so that just this sort of thing would not happen to her while she was fishing or kayaking. Did I somehow think I was immune to this happening to me?

My point of all this came to me later. After the mosquito repellant dissolving part of my kayak seat later, which after seeing what OFF does to plastic I am having a troubling time thinking about ever spraying it on my skin again. That point is that I am always going to be a victim to doing dumb things. It seems to be a profound part of my nature. Thus far they have not been overly damaging but have been nonetheless annoyingly frequent. Not happening more frequently but kind of consistently constant. Something I am going to have to budget for. Part of the household budget. Mitch’s stupid blunders line item.

Visions Limits

“Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world.” –Arthur Schopenhauer

Tunnel vision. Narrow vision. No vision. Broad Vision. Television. I often wonder what the world around me truly looks like. I know what I see, but is it what others see. I know it isn’t color blind like I see. Red/green colors cause me problems personally so I know the spectrum varies. Maybe to not be red/green color blind is the defect? So the rest of you who see red/green colors are abnormal.

But do people see the same thing when they look at it or do they use their eyes and mind to form the shape, color and movement of the existence they dwell in. Does the mind decide whether it likes something or not, then allow the picture to reflect that prejudice?
The quote from Schopenhauer is actually talking about a different definition of vision. That definition (in my humble opinion) is more in how far or how little we can stretch our minds around new technologies, new ideologies and new futures. And these are amazing leaps of vision that are driving us forward. Often times they are dragging me forward against my will.

I probably look at the time before computers took over the world (yes, they have) and remember the simpler life. Much like my parents remember the time before television. My grandparents generation would have reflected on the time before the telephone, the horseless carriage and expressways.

I try to embrace the new, regardless of how it often makes my skin itch and crawl. At the same time I long for what I grew comfortable with. I wish I could look under the hood of a car and recognize some of the parts. The dipstick for the oil is about the only thing that hasn’t changed in about 50 years.

So I hold onto the simple things that don’t have to be updated by Microsoft and doesn’t require a mouse click or a touch screen. I adapt and utilize those modern technologies and other mechanical things but they don’t give me comfort. Not like my old lawn tractor, acoustic guitar or the pencil that I first wrote this blog with.

Let It Lie

"It's not a lie if you believe it." -- George to Jerry in a classic line from a Seinfeld TV episode

Never would I have believed this till I experienced for myself officiating on the sidelines at a youth football game.

Following a pass play down the sidelines, I suddenly encountered a sudden impact on my shoulder. It was a face. A coach's face. A coach's face where the face of a coach shouldn't have been during a live part of a football game. Ouch. That would be him as I was relatively unfazed by the contact. He, on the other hand, stood stooped over clutching his lower jaw looking as if he may begin to start spitting out teeth. I noted this as the play ended and was returning to my position on the line after the incomplete pass. And by rule as I passed him, threw a penalty flag at his feet. "That will cost you 15 yards for contacting an official," I verbalized to his.

"Whaath!" he exclaimed, as I proceeded to report the infraction to my referee for the enforcement.

And this is where it got interesting or disturbing, you can choose.

The referee decided to explain the penalty to the coach. What a sight as he tried to generate sympathy by remaining stooped over and clutching at the offended part of his face. And streaming out the denial that I did this intentionally and he was where he was supposed to be and it was my fault.

Referee then returns to center of field, yours truly returns to his post on the sidelines, now noticeably clear of coaches standing where they weren't supposed to be.

And then he did it. He couldn't keep his mouth shut, even as he still was holding it with his hand like it was a baby bird.

"I wath where I wath thuppothed thu be and you hith me," came from his lips.

I saw red.

I turned and said, "Excuse me."

"I wath where I wath thuppothed thu be and you hith me, ran righht intho me."

Somewhat shocked, and gazing not only at him but the 5th graders and assistant coaches looking at me as well awaiting my response, I lost my temper.

"You mean to tell me you are going to stand there and LIE to me in front of these kids and your coaches about where you were standing to make it seem that I am the bad guy. Despicable. You are supposed to be a mentor and a teacher and you are going to LIE to me. I know where you were standing. I hit you. If you were standing where you say you were standing I would have run into about 10 of your players or coaches and would have run down my chain crew as well before I ever even got to hitting you. I don't seem to remember hitting anyone but you. That's because they were where they were supposed to be and you weren't. Now are you going to keep trying to lie to me? Because if you are I am going to throw another flag on you as well as toss you out of here and you can watch the rest of this game from the parking lot. Well?"

He backed into the coaches box where he faithfully remained for the rest of the game.

And I hope by those that witnessed me standing against the lie, they may have learned a bit about personal responsibility and integrity.

A few plays later, the guy on the down-box indicator said that he thought I gave the guy a bit of a forearm shiv as I ran into him. Then he smiled and laughed.

Maybe I did and maybe I didn't. An official has to protect himself out there.

"By a lie, a man... annihilates his dignity as a man." -- Immanuel Kant

Autumn Ramblings

A wind has blown the rain away and blown the sky away and all the leaves away, and the trees stand. I think, I too, have known autumn too long. -- E. E. Cummings

So the end of the fall season is streaking at me like arrow shot from a bow.

Sometimes this has me as the deer and sometimes the hunter.

Thwack!

That could be the sound of this time of year. It makes me strangely melancholy and reflective as I watch the leaves fall to the ground and turn from reds and oranges and yellows to the shades of brown and rot. The trees that once stood so vibrant now cast grim silhouettes against the more-ever grayish sky. The night sky even seems to be heavier above me, cold and darkest gray with it's stars that struggle to shine through the gloom.

I actually begin to feel the energy and vitality begin to seep from my body. My wife starts to show signs of hibernation as the days grow short and light is rationed by the sun in our part of the hemisphere.

It is no wonder that Halloween relates perfectly to the glum season that it dwells in. You can almost seem to hear all the different parts of the natural world start to form a scream. Damp, dark, frosty, decomposing. Surrounding almost everything but the brave mums of the gardens.

I think that there is more to fear about autumn that is beyond my understanding. And I wonder if I have not known autumn for too long.

I wish for Persephone to remain, to keep summer's dance alive. But alas, she returns each year through the cleft in the earth. Abandons us to face the approaching winter with windblown rains and tumbling skies. We are left armed only with jackets and shovels and hope. A hope that we will witness the rebirth of another spring.

Autumn wins you best by this, its mute appeal to sympathy for its decay. -- Robert Browning

The Voice In My Head May Just Be My Wife

“Why don't you write books people can read?” -– Nora Joyce to her husband James (1882-1941)

Nora Joyce's quote really popped out to me especially after I attempted to read her husband James Joyce's book, "Ulysses." This particular book shows up on lists of must read books all the time so I naturally assumed it was going to be good. Wrong! I found it unreadable at it's best. If I hadn't picked it up at a thrift store I would have returned it. Though it was big and heavy enough it may make a literary-statement of my good taste as a doorstop.

But the real wisdom of the quote is the fact that Joyce didn't know how to listen to his wife. Not only was she smart enough to recognize a rambling, disjointed, incoherent, trivial and confusing piece of writing, she spoke up and told her husband so. My guess is he ignored her as he went ahead and published it. All 265,000 plus words.

The people who rave about this book and it's stream-of-thought style must not experience that type of thinking or they would have a different opinion of this type of writing. I actually like to read to reign in that way of thinking.

Now I have had moments where stream-of-thought process takes place in my head and if I was to try and write it down it too would be mostly incoherent. I have a very scrambled brain as far as it staying on task when it is in a problem solving mode. And the older I get the more that stream leads to the thought "Just throw it out!" My wife actually called me a hoarder today when I asked where I got all the tubes of chap stick that are crowding my top dresser drawer.

Following is a launch into the stream of thought of my brain.

"I don't hoard chap stick, I just never seem to have a tube on me when I need it and then I stop and buy one tube and when it is no longer needed because my lips are no longer chapped I put it in the drawer with all the others that are in there along with the ones that I have never even opened and I have no idea where they came from or why I purchased them when I already have a supply in my top drawer..."

Thus begins my stream of thought which would eventually end many, many words later with something altogether unrelated to chap stick--like motorcycles or earthworms.

"Just put a tube in the car," I was told.

But they melt when it gets too warm.

I think I will start with throwing out the extra, open chap sticks.

And why do I have 3 mini-flashlights in this top drawer? I don't think I want to ask my wife that question. She'll just tell me what I don't want to hear.

To Believe in Time, or Not to Believe in Time

"I confess, I do not believe in time". -- Vladimir Nabokov

I am beginning to believe that Nabokov was right when he confessed that he does not believe in time. Even though I feel it passing, like some kind of constant breeze, I still have trouble relating it to myself. I am still a mind that feels ageless in some ways. Almost trapped I would say. So as my physical being moves through time and space, my mind and my spirit seem not to be moving in step.
And that is where belief resides…inside oneself.

But all around me I am faced with the consequences of the passage of time. I am faced with the changing seasons, with the loss of hair, children becoming adults and these markers go on and on and on. It is such a bewildering world and everything, and I do mean everything , seem to be measured with a yardstick of time. Some physicists even look to time as some sort of matter. Solid. Something with measurable mass.

A butterfly is the result of a egg being laid and then hatching after a certain passage of time followed by its emergence as a caterpillar. But wait, the caterpillar then spends some “time” chomping its way through its preferred foliage until it turns into a pupae. Again, after a passage of time, that pupate will emerge as the butterfly we see flickering across the back yard or attempting to cross the road only to end up imbedded in a passing car’s radiator. End of time for the butterfly? Perhaps.

Perhaps not. What part of time really stopped for the butterfly? What part of time stopped for the person behind the automobiles steering wheel?

Maybe we spend too much time trying to gauge the movement of time. It is if you look at it with some open-minded perspective, a solid entity. It is glacial in a sense. The actual passage is slow but the speed is measured by those outside it. A fruit fly is but a brief parallel along the path being carved by time. A butterfly, a bit longer. A dog or a Man, longer. A jellyfish, longer yet.

For me, my calendar is starting to become my enemy. It throws those dates with those things written to do and stands there with so much power. It is like a bully standing over me but in this case I seem to be bullying myself.

So you can maybe see why I wishfully am starting to be a disbeliever in time. To believe is to enslave. I wish to be free of time so I can live.