AUTHENTICITY

Authenticity is another one of those hard to define concepts. We come into this world with our own DNA coding, incredibly individualistic, and I believe we come equipped with hard-wiring of the characteristics we need to employ to see us through this earthly voyage. That compact bit of business doesn't last long. The age-old question of nature/nurture impinges on us and in less time than it takes to demonstrate how we feel about sharing our toys, we're on the road to compromise via greed and fear, two agents of ego. Now, how do we return to our original-authentic self? How many of us are annoyed by this factor? How do we strip away years of experiences that have caused us to swerve from our ethos? I'm interested in knowing because I get the feeling that I might really enjoy meeting this authentic me.

GOALS

Entering the second week of January, it ocurred to me that I hadn't made my list of resolutions as yet.
This year I'm going to type them out in some really attractive font, one that won't intimidate me by looking too dogmatic and yet with enough of a look of urgency to spur me on. Motivation is what I need, and unfortunately it all hangs on me.
It's tough being a writer, critic, publisher, and motivator, but that's living in the present moment for me.
I've decided to group my goals in chunks. You know, the way we were trained: short-term/immediate goals; intermediate/not so immediate; and long-term/ will they ever happen goals. Well clunky as it sounds, this works for me.
Short-term: Reading/Study program. Give up writing and simply enjoy reading again. Not for writing purposes, just for pure pleasure. So many books, so little time. Spend some time in my favorite subject, History.
Intermediate: Now, it's time to revise that book I'm so energetically avoiding.
Long-term: Research how and why, what and where of publishing tasks.
Final-goal: Submissions of completed work.
By the end of the year, I hope to look back on this list of resolutions and discover that the list is complete AND I'm having a book published.

CONNECTIONS

Lay down with dogs and you'll wake up with fleas. It's time to look closely at connections made in the past, that continue in the present. We change daily. Hopefully, we are learning and growing in wisdom and maturity. But, sometimes our friends and associates can provide barriers to our creativity and growth.
Some people are extremely impassive when it comes to change. They are stuck in the ruts they have cleaved and in which they feel comfortable.
It's time to look at associations that stifle creativity and progress. It's time to address the issues that are important to you, and not reflected in the others around you.
It's time to recognize that not all your friends have a posotive attitude about life and therefore can be quite a downer to your creative urges.
It's time to wake up and shake off the fleas.

REFLECTION

TMI AND TMTS (too much technical stuff). I can't help feeling sorry for anyone who did not grow up in the forties.
Saddle shoes and bobby-socks. Superman and movie matinees. Radio! Ah, radio:The Shadow, Inner Sanctum, Lux Presents Hollywood, and the yearly Christmas Carol starring Lionel Barrymore as Scrooge.
There was Pearlman's Deli on the corner, where you could buy fresh lox, the greatest Jewish pickles and the best bagles and bialies. And Mr. Pearlman, short, chubby gray haired man with a blissful nature and a way of making each and every one of his customers feel so very important.
On the other corner was Sweeney's Candy Store. Come on; what more does any kid need to complete his idea of the best home in the world? Sweeney was a tall, thin Irishman, with a dour nature. I don't think I ever saw him smile. It was like making a purchase from an automatron. But, Milky Way, Clark bar,and Baby Ruth, products of chocolate delight were there, You didn't need a Red Skelton to take your money and give you your moment of gustatory pleasure, it was all in the product. Plus you could purchase a chocolate covered banana there. I didn't know of any other place where you could get such a sweet nutritional treat.
The kids on the block were always out until sundown. We played Buck-Buck, Box-ball, and Russian, a ballgame that required a totally different movement for each toss of the ball. I think there were ten movements in all. For number seven,you had to bounce the ball and turn your leg around it before the bounce, while you spelled out R-U-S-S-I-A-N. How cool is that?
Every Saturday, the ritualistic gathering of the neighborhood kids took place outside the ticket-window of the local movie houses for the Saturday Matinee, which offered a double feature, a serial, the news, and a cartoon. This weekly social enterprise offered a beneficial respite for parents.
In elementary school, you made fun of all the teachers and dared them to try to teach you something useful or academic. We knew that the real world belonged to the kids.
Incredible though it may seem, major public transportation was necessary to get you to the few supermarkets in the city. Nobody had a car.
No one in our neighborhood was rich and no one was poor. We were served breakfast in the morning, took a brown bag for lunch, had milk and cookies waiting for us after school, and we all ate dinner at the table with our family. Our parents were hard working blue and white collar workers, most of whom took the bus or the trolley to work and allowed us to be "kids". We didn't have to excel at anything, we weren't involved in sports and karate and piano and dancing lessons. They didn't hover over us. They just expected us to respect our elders and behave civilly to everyone else in the neighborhood.
Thank God, I'm a product of the forties.

TACT

"He who is not well-bred, cannot tolerate ill-breeding." Or something like that. I read this on one of those wall-posts in a chiropractor's office many years ago. I meant to have one printed up for me, but I never got around to it.
During the holidays, I heard several tales by different people berating others for not having social grace, or of behaving stupidly. I never did know how to offset these kind of comments. Maybe I should have that saying (although I'm not sure that it is verbatim) printed on little cards that I could hand out in such a situation, but wouldn't that infer that I too was ill-bred.
Actually, it goes beyond tact. Tact is not an innate characteristic. It has to be acquired. Maybe the word should be empathy. Having enough compassion and understanding to allow someone to behave in a manner that we find unsuitable.
My favorite story involving empathy goes like this: At a formal dinner in Hollywood, Ethel Merman was seated opposite Tony Curtis, a newcomer to the town. I may not have this exactly right, but according to my recollection, Tony Curtis clumsily broke a glass or spilled his wine and was horrifickly embarassed by his action. Whereupon, Ethel Merman proceeded to perform the very same action. She not only took the focus away from Mr. Curtis, but perhaps there were some astute people at that gathering who might have learned a valuable lesson from this faux-pas.
We are none of us unblemished by foolish remarks or moments of bad behavior in our own daily dealings. It's incumbent upon us to appreciate the person and overlook the behavior.

INTROSPECTION

The litter boxes are cleaned, the cats are fed; I've put out food for the birds and the squirrels. Now it's time for me to have a bit of breakfast and a cup of tea while I check the media news and listen to the classical music station.
The sun is shining and the weather is finally turning cold. It's good to be indoors and not have to worry about getting ready to go out and face the work-a-day world. I've been retired for two years, and up until now, I've never considered if this is a good place in my life.
Lately, my daughter has been treating me as if I were handicapped, just because stairs give me a problem and I can't open a plastic bag at the produce counter to put my vegetables in. Old age separates us from the vital exchanges of the day.
Is this my life; catering to cats and wildlife? Enui is settling in and I'm not even aware of it! I must sharpen my wit, expose myself to mildly stressful events, and consider myself more importand than the three cats and the wildlife outside the door I seem to be closing.

MEMORY

It's just now caught up with me. There are many levels involved in memory. When I was a child, my memory was almost photographic and I enjoyed instant recall of vast bits of information, catechism, history, geography. This may have done me a dis-service, because as the years wanned, and experiences multiplied, the instant recall became prolonged recall. To combat this traumatic disintegration of a once cherished faculty, I proceeded to try to memorize everything I set out to learn. I have copious notebooks of information that I wrote down (so I could aid my memory at later date, when I neede the information). Fortunately, I had a habit of writing down the reference book and page. My arduous scribblings meant nothing to me. Unfortunately, it takes eons for me to have an "aha" moment. But, "aha", I now write in a key-word and the reference site and date for all the material that I feel is vitally important to me as a writer.
The Epiphany: There's a difference between memory and recall. Synapses do occur and associations are made. And I have to learn to trust the miraculous fact that If I read/view something of importance, some simile of the details will remain somewhere in the cortex AND when I'm writing the great American novel, by some mystical, ethereal manner, events, character, and time specifics will issue forth as prompts that I have heretofore been attributing to muses.
I just have to read/view and absorb, like osmosis, and when I'm scratching for a detail or a phrase it will come to me.
Another New Year's resolution: less time memorizing-- more time writing.