Redtree Times

Be Careful What You Wish For — 1996

On the eighth day, the forty-year-old hobo said to Billy: “This ain’t bad. I can be comfortable anywhere.”

“You can?” said Billy.

On the ninth day the hobo died. So it goes. His last words were: “You think this is bad? This ain’t bad.”

― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

This short passage from Slaughterhouse-Five has lived in my head for about 50 years now. I don’t know why it jumped out at me with the impact it did at the time. But it did. And it has always been at the edge of my thinking whenever things haven’t seemed to be going well for me through those many years since I first read those lines.

You think this is bad? This ain’t bad…

I guess it was that I knew that in every case it could be much worse, that there would always be somebody with much greater problems than mine. I suppose that’s why some of those moments I’ve experienced on the downside have induced laughter. Some of the biggest laughs in my life came at such times.

I always figured that at that point if this as bad as it gets, this ain’t that bad.

In fact, another thought often comes to mind at such time: I am such a lucky guy– it could have been worse.

Kind of like the line from the Cormac McCarthy novel No Country for Old Men:

You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.

He’s right. I will never know what my worse luck might look like, but I do seem to understand that it was my good luck that saved me from finding out.

I guess that’s why when I recently wrote about my cancer diagnosis, I felt kind of guilty because, honestly, it could be worse. I know– everybody knows— somebody that is going through much greater challenges than mine. My bad luck might look like paradise to some of those folks who have slid from bad to worse on the luck scale, so why even talk about my piddly misfortunes?

In fact, I feel a bit guilty even writing this.

But I did it anyway.

Like I have pointed out in the recent past, the blog is sort of a diary of how the world at any moment affects my work. I want to see how my work changes in the next couple of years. Or perhaps, how it doesn’t change. Will it reveal something new or will its core be strengthened?

I hope to fund those answers and more. So, I will write about what’s going on with this situation without trying to focus on it too much. No, woe is me stuff, I promise.

I mean, come on. I’m a lucky guy in so many ways so believe me when I say: You think this is bad? This ain’t bad.

Here’s a song for this week’s Sunday Morning Music that fills the bill quite nicely. It’s a John Prine song, How Lucky performed by singer/songwriter Kurt Vile in a duet with John Prine a short time before Prine’s death in 2020. Good stuff.

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Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them.

–-John Updike, Self-Consciousness: Memoirs (1989)

It’s another Small Business Saturday, that Saturday after Thanksgiving when people are urged to go out into their communities and shop in locally owned small businesses. It’s one of the best ways to keep your local community vibrant and alive. The money spent for the most part stays local and multiplies many times as it radiates out into the community.

It can be a huge economic engine for the small businesspeople in your local area.

But it is also something more– it is the sustaining lifeblood for a multitude of dreams. Every local small business represents the fulfillment of a dream of someone in your area. It required that someone believed in an idea or ability that they possessed and then risked something– often everything– in putting themselves out there in front of their friends and neighbors.

It can be a gigantic gamble where failure can sometimes mean financial ruin, public humiliation, and lifelong dreams being forever crushed.

But you can look at that risk as the only chance you might get at following your dreams. A chance to finally be the person you once imagined yourself being. Even the humblest small business is the realization of a dream for someone.

And anyone’s dream is a big deal, in my opinion.

I am an artist and a small businessperson, as is every working artist and artisan. We don’t like to talk about it as a business, of course, but after the making of the art it is that thing that keeps our dreams alive. Our dreams and our livelihoods depend on people dealing with us or the local shops and galleries that carry our work– all small businesses.

Small but consequential.

Every gallery I work with provides income for at least 50-80 artists and artisans. That’s 50-80 dreams fulfilled in each gallery.

And, again, that’s a big deal.

I’ve been extremely fortunate to have my dream kept alive for the past 28 or so years. And I have those dream-enablers at the galleries that represent me as well as the many of you out there who have supported my work to thank for that. As much as I might like to think I achieved anything on my own, my dream has been dependent on so many people.

Like anyone with a dream of following their passion, it has meant the world to me. I would love to see many others achieve their own unique dreams in the same way.

So, help them out if you can. I am not asking you to buy locally as a charitable act. View it as more of an investment in your neighbors and your community and an act of humanity in that you are feeding someone’s dream.

Whatever you might purchase from a small local business — be it a painting, a cup of coffee, a piece of clothing or pottery, a cupcake, or any of the many things made and sold in your area–is your first dividend on that investment. Plus, the profit from that sale almost always goes back into the local economy, nourishing those neighbors who chase their own dreams. It doesn’t get whisked out of the area to some heartless and faceless multinational corporation.

You get to see it in the faces and hearts of your neighbors.

It is money well spent.

And to those of you out there with a dream who have yet to find the nerve to take the leap, I urge you to follow your dreams. Sure, it might be hard and you might fall on your face. That’s a given. But keep in mind that there is always the possibility of achieving your dream only if you take that leap.

You don’t want to be one of those people who go through life saying, “What if?” At least if you fail, you have the chance to chase another dream.

That is, of course, a perfect segue into a song from Bruce Springsteen. In the early 1980’s, Bruce often performed his take on the Elvis Presley title song from his 1962 movie, Follow That Dream. He slowed the tempo and it was barely discernible as the same song. A few years later, he altered it even more, changing the lyrics and chorus to the point that it basically a different song that he still performs occasionally. But in both, he still delivers the same message from the original in a potent way. The rendition below is from a live performance at Wembley Stadium in June of 1981.

FYI: The painting at the top is titled Chasing the Elusive. I think it goes well with today’s subject of following your dreams. It is available at one of my favorite small businesses, the West End Gallery. If you’re in Corning on this Small Business Saturday, please stop in and take a look around. Or if you’re in Old Town Alexandria, stop in at the Principle Gallery.

This dreamer is counting on you!

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Skip the Light Fandango–At Principle Gallery

There are always plenty of rivals to our work. We are always falling in love or quarreling, looking for jobs or fearing to lose them, getting ill and recovering, following public affairs. If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions may never come.

–C.S. Lewis, Learning in War-Time, Oxford sermon (1939)

At the outbreak of World War II in Europe, in October of 1939, C.S. Lewis delivered a sermon at St. Mary the Virgin at Oxford, England. There had been a question at that chaotic time if university education, as well as a number of other normal activities, should be suspended to focus on fighting the war.

Speaking to the Oxford students, Lewis suggested that it was important that their education and normal activities of so many others should not be set aside. He argued that maintaining their education and the everyday work of others was vital to the future of the nation, mankind, and each individual’s eternal soul.

He pointed out that our time here is limited and our meaning and purpose here is based on the limits of that time. War, despite its awful and perilous nature, is a temporary distraction from our greater goals.

Lewis said that the time devoted to our greater goals, which he described as being in the service or as an offering to God, were not only acceptable, but necessary, for our spiritual survival.

He warned the students of the three enemies that distract us from fulfilling our given tasks in our time here. Number one was the excitement of the life events of life that pull at our attention and time, occupying our every thought. Number two was the frustration that comes with the realization that we might not have enough time to finish our given tasks. Third was that old favorite fear that we will fail to achieve our given tasks, that we will let down our own expectations as well as those of our family, friends, nation, and God.

I, of course, am paraphrasing Lewis’ words and most likely distorting much of the meaning in them. And while I don’t come at this from a theological point of view, Lewis’ words speak to my current situation.

I understand the excitement, frustration, and fear of which he warns. The past few months have been occupied by all three, resulting in the creative paralysis I have described here in recent posts.

I describe it as a logjam.

My great-grandfather was a pioneer of the early Adirondack logging industry and in reading about the annual river dives in those days before trucking and railroad access were available. They floated their annual crop of logs down the swollen rivers each spring. The words excitement, frustration and fear, certainly apply to these drives. It was wild ride– excitement!— and often the logs would jam at points in the journey– frustration!— causing the log drivers to have to make risky moves or even resort to dynamite– fear!— in order to break up the logjams.

I am in one of those logjams at the moment.

It sometimes feels like the logs are shifting and might break free on their own and I’ll be floating free on that river once more. But every day finds that another log has come along to jam my path forward again.

Reading Lewis’ words reminds me of lessons that I already know, from my own experience and the experience and words of other artists; that one must set aside the distractions of the moment and focus on getting to one’s real work, that which gives your life meaning and purpose.

Work begets work. Work begets inspiration. Inspiration begets more work.

The perpetual engine of creativity.

My hope is that just being reminded of this simple truth and writing of it this morning is a small charge of dynamite, enough to break up the logjam in my mind and get me back to work. At least back to work enough to free me from those three enemies for a bit.

We will see. Hopefully sooner than later.

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We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures; for our hearts are not strong enough to love every moment.

― Thornton Wilder, The Woman of Andros (1930)

Hope you’re feeling alive today and fully conscious of the treasures that you possess that can’t be measured in dollars and cents. 

The sort of wealth that can’t be bought or sold. 

Love. Friendship. Belonging. Contentment. 

Those priceless jewels in our lives.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Here’s a favorite song, the 70’s soul classic Be Thankful For What You Got, from William DeVaughn that I have shared a number of times here. Thought I’d play a cover of the song from the LA-based group Orgōne. It’s a faithful cover with the same vibe and just a few small additions to distinguish it.

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Universal Symbol for Empathy

Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the wrong. Sometime in life you will have been all of these.

― George Washington Carver

Let’s continue this Thanksgiving week’s stream of virtues with a biggie: empathy. The ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes or see through their eyes. To feel their emotions, to try to perceive the circumstances of their life.

As Walt Whitman put it in the immortal Song of Myself, describing his time as a hospital aide during the Civil War when he nursed severely wounded Union soldiers:

I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person.

It seems like a simple thing, a natural reaction for most decent people. But it is, unfortunately, becoming a more and more scarce entity. It sometimes feels like there is a total absence of empathy in this world with some folks. Or maybe it’s that they have managed to lop their empathy into smaller bits, reserving it only for people who look and speak and think like themselves.

Empathy is sometimes even mocked these days, derided as a symptom of weakness or softness, something to be exploited. My persona view on this is that empathy is actually a strength, something that allows you to feel compassion with those in need while at the same time giving you the ability to understand and perhaps predict how your adversaries might act.

In this case, a lack of empathy is actually a hinderance to those with less than honorable intentions.This thought takes me back to the words of Gustav Gilbert who was the psychologist at Spandau Prison where the Nazi war crimes defendants were held in 1945:

I told you once that I was searching for the nature of evil. I think I’ve come close to defining it: a lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants. A genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.

Conversely, goodness would include the presence of empathy.

Most of you out there reading this are empathetic folks. If not, you most likely wouldn’t have read this far or be following this blog. So, this is just preaching to the choir. But can you make others feel empathy or, at least, more empathetic to a wider range of others?

I would guess that this can only occur through a willingness to display your own empathy with patience and grace. Much like the words of advice at the top from George Washington Carver.

Do I know this for sure?

No. But who or what can it hurt?

It can only help in some way or another. Try it…

I most likely start the first part of the treatment for my prostate cancer later this morning, so I am a little distracted this morning. But I thought this post from several years back fit nicely with this week devoted to giving thanks.

One benefit from the display of cruelty and hatred on display from the current administration is that their obvious lack of compassion and empathy is so egregious that even those of us who might not have had an awareness of our own empathy in the past are now paying a bit more attention to how they treat and interact with others.

I might be mistaken with that observation, but I hope not. For one thing, I would so love the irony that those who have waged a war on “woke” might have actually awakened that very reaction in the many folks who have allowed their native empathy to lag in recent years.

But more importantly, I would love to live in a world filled with empathy, compassion, and generosity. A world where greed, bigotry, and cruelty are driven back into the dark corners where they belong, not parading proudly down Main Street.

Give me beauty over ugliness any day of the week.

Maybe that’s asking too much but I don’t think it is.

I am adding a song that I have shared a few times over the years, Try a Little Tenderness. I have always shared the Otis Redding version which for me is the absolute gold standard. I have known and loved that version for almost sixty years but didn’t know that it was written in 1932 by Jimmy Campbell, Reg Connelly, and Harry Woods. Or that it has been recorded by a huge number of singers over the many years, many before and after Otis. Bing Crosby first recorded it in 1933 and Frank Sinatra in 1946. I thought I’d share the Sinatra version here this morning. This version is from 1960 with an arrangement from Nelson Riddle. Different than Otis but lovely.

Be kind out there, Try a little tenderness.

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As life becomes harder and more threatening, it also becomes richer, because the fewer expectations we have, the more good things of life become unexpected gifts that we accept with gratitude.

–Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943

The post below ran here last year at this time. I don’t like replaying a post so soon but felt that the wisdom in the words of Etty Hillesum warranted it, especially in a year like this one that seems to hold a variety of challenges for us all. I’ve added a few short passages from her diaries below that spoke to me. In this week of giving thanks, I am grateful to have come across the words expressing this young woman’s inner world.

I was looking for something to share about gratitude since this is the week of Thanksgiving. I came across the quote above from a name that I didn’t recognize, Etty Hillesum. I loved the sentiment she expressed but wondered who she was.

Turns out she was young Dutch Jewish woman born in 1914 who chronicled her spiritual growth in her diaries and letters until her murder at the hands of the Nazis in the Auschwitz concentration camp in late November of 1943. She was only 29 years old, a mere 81 years ago.

Her writings had been turned over to a friend before her internment so that they might someday be published. Though many attempts were made, it wasn’t until 1979 that they finally found their way into print as the book An Interrupted Life. In 2006, the Etty Hillesum Research Centre was founded in the Dutch city of Ghent to research and promote her writings.

As I pointed out, Etty Hillesum is new to me so I can’t speak with any authority on her writings. However, many of the passages I have read exhibit great depth. Some of my favorites thus far:

Suffering has always been with us, does it really matter in what form it comes? All that matters is how we bear it and how we fit it into our lives.

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But I do believe it is possible to create, even without ever writing a word or painting a picture, by simply moulding one’s inner life. And that too is a deed.

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Never give up, never escape, take everything in, and perhaps suffer, that’s not too awful either, but never, never give up.

Many of her observations, especially about how suffering plays a large role in one’s meaning of life, echo those of Viktor Frankl, a psychoanalyst and survivor of Auschwitz who wrote Man’s Search for Meaning. And that second one here, about the creation of an inner life adding to the meaning of one’s life, is something I believe all too many of us overlook in our own lives.

Inner creation is as important as any outward creation. Maybe more so. This inner creation is the core of the self and serves as an anchor which you can hold to when the outer world is spinning out of control.

Anyway, let’s kick off this week of being grateful with a nod of gratitude to Etty Hillesum for sharing the wisdom she uncovered in her brief stay here. Her life’s search for meaning adds to our own.

And that is indeed a great gift.

A few more passages from An Interrupted Life: The Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943:

Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world.

Life may be brimming over with experiences, but somewhere, deep inside, all of us carry a vast and fruitful loneliness wherever we go. And sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths, or the turning inwards in prayer for five short minutes.

Each of us must turn inward and destroy in himself all that he thinks he ought to destroy in others.

We human beings cause monstrous conditions, but precisely because we cause them we soon learn to adapt ourselves to them. Only if we become such that we can no longer adapt ourselves, only if, deep inside, we rebel against every kind of evil, will we be able to put a stop to it.

Most people write off their longing for friends and family as so many losses in their lives, when they should count the fact that their heart is able to long so hard and to love so much as among their greatest blessings.

I don’t want to be anything special. I only want to try to be true to that in me which seeks to fulfill its promise.

There are moments when I feel like giving up or giving in, but I soon rally again and do my duty as I see it: to keep the spark of life inside me ablaze.

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Serene Gratitude— At West End Gallery

To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
All pray in their distress;
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.

–William Blake, The Divine Image in Songs of Innocence (1790)

It’s Thanksgiving Week. As in the past, I am going to focus on gratitude this week.

And why not? As the orator Cicero famously proclaimed that “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.“

Who am I to argue with that?

I might be wrong here but one thing I have observed is the relativity of one’s gratitude to the hardships endured. It seems that it is ‘the greater the woes the greater the thanks.‘

It sure feels that way for me this particular year. This year has been one in which not a lot has gone the way I had hoped in so many ways. Even so, I feel extremely thankful for so many things and people.

Maybe more so than in those years when everything has gone my way.

I think in the better years, we tend to overlook the importance of the part that others play in our lives. It’s easier then to see ourselves as being solely self-reliant and independent entities.

But when times are a bit tougher and things seem to be going awry, we recognize how dependent we truly are on the assistance and support of others.

In seeing others reach out in hard times, willing to take on some of that hardship in order to give aid and comfort, it becomes clear that the triumphs that we once felt were ours alone were always the result of the aid from others.

In good times, we are lifted up by others. In bad times, we are pulled up by others.

And, man, am I grateful for both.

Now get the hell out of here before I change my mind.

Sorry– I couldn’t resist that exit line.

As they say: A leopard doesn’t change its spots.

Even a grateful leopard.

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the heart warms

The Heart Warms— Now at Principle Gallery, Alexandria

I’m the wounded bird, I’m the screaming hawk
I’m the one who can’t be counted out
I’m the dove thrown into battle
I can roll and shake and rattle mm-hmm, hmm

I’m the moon’s dark side, I’m the solar flare
The child of the earth, the child of the air
I am the mother of the evening star
I am the love that conquers all

Yeah, I’m a midnight rider
Stone bonafide night flyer
I’m an angel of the morning too
The promise that the dawn will bring you

—Nightflyer, Allison Russell (2021)

AS we come into the week of Thanksgiving, I thought I’d end this past week with a brief update. I had a consultation with a Medical Oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering in NYC on Tuesday and one with my local Radiologic Oncologist on Wednesday. Not much changed nor were there any great revelations with either consultation.

As I wrote in the past week or so, in the preceding several months it often felt as we had been dropped into forest wilderness without a compass or a guide, left to fend for ourselves in place with which we had no knowledge and little experience. We always felt like we were feeling our way through the trees of that wilderness, never sure if our steps were moving us closer or further from whatever path might take us out.

But after this past week, we now feel like we have a path that will lead us to a better place. Both consultations brought us a greater peace of mind and a feeling that we had some clarity in the way forward with my treatment. There is now great assurance for us that the cancer, though it can’t be cured, can be controlled. The cancer, along with its treatment, is most likely something I will be dealing with for the rest of my life.

Just the fact that I have a rest of my life, one that appears should not end as soon as we had once feared, is a good thing. I’ve come to like this place and had plans to be around for a while. I still believe some of my best work is yet to come.

I will have more clarity this coming Wednesday when I meet with the Medical Oncologist who will put forward the plan for my treatment. For my part, I am trying to up my fitness levels with intensified workouts every day that might both dampen the side effects of the drugs and the radiation as well as assist in fighting the cancer.  I think I may have mentioned that there is clinical evidence of more positive outcomes for patients who follow an intense interval training in the leadup and during their treatment. Plus, there’s just the upside in simply getting more fit in general as well as feeling, that by doing so, I am actively fighting the cancer.

Whatever it takes.

This peace of mind finally allowed me to get a couple of decent nights of sleep and has me thinking that the coming weeks will finally be productive in the studio. The paralysis that comes in not knowing seems to be easing and I am finally getting small things done. Not much but enough to spark me a bit and feel once more like myself.

And that’s a good thing.

Here’s song for this week’s Sunday Morning Music from singer/songwriter Allsion Russell. This song, Nightflyer, is from her acclaimed 2021 debut album. Ouside Child. Both the album and this song were nominated for Grammy Awards in the Americana category. Her work is autobiographical, reflecting the traumas she suffered in her childhood at the hands of an abusive stepfather as well as the triumph that came in overcoming it. I came across a quote from an interview with her that resonated with me:

‘I’ve come to understand that my path as an artist is to build empathy and to delve deeply into the truths, feelings and experiences that scare me the most in order to be a small part of leaving the world better than I found it. Silence is deadly.’

To use a doctor’s term, I concur.

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“Why do you pray?” he asked me, after a moment.

Why did I pray? A strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe?

“I don’t know why,” I said, even more disturbed and ill at ease. “I don’t know why.”

After that day I saw him often. He explained to me with great insistence that every question possessed a power that did not lie in the answer. “Man raises himself toward God by the questions he asks Him,” he was fond of repeating. “That is the true dialogue. Man questions God and God answers. But we don’t understand His answers. We can’t understand them. Because they come from the depths of the soul, and they stay there until death. You will find the true answers, Eliezer, only within yourself!”

“And why do you pray, Moshe?” I asked him. “I pray to the God within me that He will give me the strength to ask Him the right questions.”

― Elie Wiesel, Night

The passage above from Night, the memoir of the Holocaust from the late Nobel Laureate and survivor Elie Wiesel, has stuck in my mind for a long time. Decades. It has informed my life and outlook as well as my work.

Life comes down to being a matter of not what we know but rather a matter of what we want to know.

A matter of the quality of our questions and how willing we are to accept the answers, even when the truth in them disappoints us. 

I think, as Moshe says above, that the true answers are only found within us. And while we can’t always understand the answers to our questions, we sometimes refuse to accept those answers we do comprehend because they reveal us to be less than we hope.

They are not the answers we wish to receive.

But these may be the most important answers we ever receive because to fully know yourself you have to be able to recognize and acknowledge every aspect of your being.

Both good and bad. Light and dark. Weakness and strength.

After all, each day contains about the same amount of darkness as it does light. You can’t know a day without knowing that there is both.

Hmm…

Things to do this morning so I am replaying a post that I like from a few years back, especially the passage from Night. What it said was a big part of some of my new work this year, such as the painting at the top, The Answering Light. So often the answers we seek are answered yet we are not able to recognize or understand them. It is only when we find them within ourselves that these answers become apparent. 

Sometimes we find those answers, sometimes we don’t. 

I’ve added a song from the Moody Blues that deals with the frustration that comes with seeking answers to difficult questions, answers that sometimes do not come. This was written and released in 1970 and primarily deals with the frustration of the younger generation and the anti-war movement of that time in getting real answers to their pleas. This is Question.

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Running the Moons— At Principle Gallery

As one studies these preconditions, one becomes saddened by the ease with which human potentiality can be destroyed or repressed, so that a fully-human person can seem like a miracle, so improbable a happening as to be awe-inspiring. And simultaneously one is heartened by the fact that self-actualizing persons do in fact exist, that they are therefore possible, that the gauntlet of dangers can be run, that the finish line can be crossed.

–Abraham Maslow, Motivation and Personality (1954)

I’ve been thinking in recent days about my recent paintings and the meaning I take from them. My perception of them has changed from the first time one of these paintings appeared. At first, it felt more like a simple design choice, added elements to provide balance and contrast. But as a few more showed up the moons took on different aspects, beyond mere design and deeper in meaning. I found that they were excellent reflectors (that is one purpose of a moon, after all) of my emotions and concerns at the time.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this small painting, Running the Moons, 6″ by 12″ on canvas at the Principle Gallery, in conjunction with the passage above from influential psychologist Abraham Maslow. Maslow, who died in 1970, is famous for his hierarchy of needs, which is presented as pyramid of basic human needs that must be met leading up to the pyramid’s topmost point, which is a state self-actualization.

This is basically a state of being a total human being once one has fulfilled their basic physical needs, has been made to feel safe and secure in their life and livelihood, has established loving and meaningful relationships, and has found respect for themself as well as for and from others. At this topmost point, they have reached their potential and can then live their most meaningful, creative, and productive life.

This is, of course, a gross and lacking simplification of Maslow’s theory but I think you get the idea. If you’re not familiar with his theories, it’s an interesting subject to explore on your own.

In this painting, I see the moons as being the different phases of ourselves as we maneuver a sometimes-turbulent sea on our hoped for destination of understanding, fulfillment, and, hopefully, self-actualization. These phases can correlate to our basic needs. One might represent our most basic needs– food and shelter. Another might represent our need to love and be loved. Another might represent our realization and acceptance of who and what we are.

And on and on. You get the picture.

As I said, it’s a simplified and most likely incomplete representation of Maslow’s thoughts. But a childlike naivete is sometimes an aspect of the self-actualized according to Maslow.

I’d like to think that’s true in this case, but it might just be that I’m naive and childlike sometimes. Often, actually.

Either way, it works for me this morning and gives me something to chew on for the rest of the day as I try to guide my boat through my own gauntlet of moons. I don’t know which moons are in my wake or exactly where I am in my journey.

The fact that I am still afloat and there is wind filling my sails is good enough this morning.

What more can you ask?

Here’s a song, Ship of Fools, from Robert Plant from 1988. While I hope my ship is not one of fools, this might kind of be about the same thing, Or not. Doesn’t matter.

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