Posted inMeaning of life Personal/Stories

Lessons about thankfulness from our dog

Our oldest dog, ZuZu, died last month. I'm still grieving. So when I looked through my previous Thanksgiving Day blog posts (a holiday here in the United States), it seemed fitting to share a 2013 post, "Our 14 year old dog teaches me about thankfulness." That dog was Serena, shown above in her younger days on a bank of the Metolius River in central Oregon. Here's most of what I said in the blog post I wrote about her when Serena's health was fading. She doesn't look like she did in her younger days. But heck, who does? Surely not me. Being…
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Posted inMeaning of life

If this life is all there is, what should we do during it?

Poet Mary Oliver asked a great question in the last two lines of "The Summer Day." The poem ends with: I don't know exactly what a prayer is.I do know how to pay attention, how to fall downinto the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,which is what I have been doing all day.Tell me, what else should I have done?Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?Tell me, what is it you plan to dowith your one wild and precious life? Obviously the question isn't for others…
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Posted inMeaning of life

Woody Allen talks about the meaning of life, or lack thereof

Thanks to Jen for sharing this Woody Allen video in a comment. Allen says that artists, and I guess we're all artists of life, have to provide reasons for living in a universe that doesn't possess inherent meaning. Meaning is provided by us humans, not by the cosmos. Allen also observes at the end of the video that everybody needs illusions to get us through the harsh realities of life. I agree. But our goal should be to embrace the wisest sorts of illusions. (Defining "wise" in this context is what keeps this blog going, along with almost everything else…
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