“The world is so full of a number of things, I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.” Robert Louis Stevenson. I swallowed that whole. My father bought me A Child’s Garden of Versus when I was a little girl. He filled my life with books, animals, my own room, clean sheets, a right to roam the woods, walk in the rain and climb trees.
Maybe that’s another reason why I didn’t fall in love with the Great Father in the Sky, I had a perfectly good one right here on earth.
My father taught me to love so many things the list would fill three hundred pages.
Art? I love Georgia O’Keefe. The Impressionists, all of them. Modigliani and the great tragedy in his life has always made me cry while his portraits fill me with great joy.
Music? I sing along with Verdi. Cry with Puccini. Mozart. Sibelius. Loved the Beetles when it came time for that.
Dance? Wow! Ginger Rogers. Fred Astaire. Learned to love ballet later in life. Actually I taught ballet bar and center exercises in Manila and also at Kaneohe Marine base when the troops deployed for Vietnam. Today Billy Eliot is my newest best friend.
Architecture? Frank Lloyd Wright. His Waterfall House sends my heart spinning. My youngest kid is an architect in Honolulu.
Drama? Don’t get me started. I was born an actress. Took to the theater like the moon takes to the sky. I love George Bernard Shaw best. Would love to do Joan but I’m not built for it. She was androgynous, I’m a little too round. Did Eliza Dolittle in a musical skit, not the entire thing. Also Susan B. Anthony. Fell in love with the American feminists, I identify with Alice Paul.
Okay, I’m just a ninny, a beginner, not too deeply involved in any of these grand human gifts, not a connoisseur, but they are there in my store house and-guess what?-they can never be removed.
I love this planet- it sounds so stupid- but I’ve never found a better way to express it. I love it. If there were a god who created it, I could worship him; but another of my loves is mythology, which my father introduced me to early , so I think, if anybody created it, Gaea did. Trees, flowers, the sky, the sea, the grass, the birds….
Fell in love with the philosophers early. Spinoza. Bertrand Russell. Corliss Lamont. Voltaire.
Where am I going with this? Am I just patting myself on the back because I lived a loving and culturally enriched life?
One of the curses laid on my head by the god icons on-line was that I live a hundred years and watch everything I love die.
if everything I loved died, everything on the planet-the planet, too- would die and, if that happened, so would their earthly paradise. The sad part is so many of them pray for this to happen.
I wish I could share all I love with them.
bettejo 
As a matter of fact, everything I love can be loved by any human being on this planet. You can change the architect, the artist, the composer, the playwright, the dancer to suit your own taste, that’s the great part but, I think, if everyone woke up each morning repeating this: “I am a human being,” many of our problems would be solved.
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Indeed, Bettejo!
I too love many of the same things you love.
They are the things universal to the human soul except in those who have had the humanity snuffed out of their souls and, sadly, there are some such sad soulless souls.
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You are correct here, it is sad. I’m the only humanist with a ‘soul’. Go figure. Love you ME
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If we’ve been cut off the discussion site-I tried a moment ago-couldnb’t get through. We can discuss it here. I’ll get the ball rolling every morning. I think this is what they wanted all along. Too much ‘good’-dangerous to them-information being transmitted there. Tell everybody. Peace and love Me
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Well, Bettejo, I will confess that — because I also had a Great Father right here on earth — I did fall for the Great Father in the Sky, because my “Great Father right here on earth” was the one who told me so.
But that Great Father (who has since gone to his place with that mythical Sky Father he worshipped) also instilled in me the gift of critical thinking and introspective (but honest) self reflection, which he believed would lead honest examiners to confirm his myths. Sadly (for him) my critical, honest examination did not confirm his myths, but the opposite. To his credit, although my inquiries led in a whole new direction, we remained close and mutually respectful throughout his entire life.
And my dear Bettejo, you are neither a ninny nor a beginner. While all of us have different styles for examining deep and probing issues, yours is thoughtful, insightful and inspiring, and many of us learn from (and are inspired by) your thoughtful and sometimes fanciful forays into higher and deeper consciousness.
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Holy moly, be careful. “Fanciful forays into higher and deeper consciousness.” It’ll go to my head and my feet will never touch the ground again. If I hae the courage to tell you some real live true mer stories, I’m betting you’ll like them. Some call them flights of fancy, if I didn’t have, in my hands-honest-another story-a legal document that says I am the sanest, most delightful and outgoing lady this shrink ever met I’d think I was nuts.
I think it’s the Irish in me. When the church did in those with other very human mental abilities, they missed a few. Some of the gene pool got away, it almost runs in the famiiy and none of us have ever been diagnosed with mental disorders or diseases or stuff like that.
Once, while in the lotus on a sunny beautiful deck overlooking Kukuiula Harbor, I got into the music channel. Scared my kids, “Hear what, mother?” What I thought was, “Oh, sh*t, I’ve finally done it. Some people hear bells, I hear a whole damn symphony. So beautiful. Made me understand Beethoven. He heard music like we hear words. I’ve never been able to get there again. Bill always said I was ‘fey’.
Somehow I think you’d understand.
Loe’ya, ME
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Oh yes, Bettejo, if you are betting that I’d like your “true mer stories” I think that would be a winning bet. Fights of fantasy? Not necessarily incongruous with fact, reason or having feet solidly planted on the ground (even if head — and free-thinking ideas and ideals — are in the clouds).
As for the Irish in you, if I look over the roster of who is enjoying your “flights of fantasy,” I see more here from the Emerald Isle than just that adorable pixie!
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Me, too. Wonderful world. Pop in to the discussion site this morning. I love PHIL. Even had to agree with STUDIER. Took a very amicable and peaceful shot at the gun slinger. tee hee. Good old Papa. Having fun. That’s true ‘me’ stories. Love you ME
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I just got tuned in to ‘the music of the spheres,” I think. Reminds me of Pencharz and Psych 101. It was there I learned not all people dreamed in color. Holy moly. i just exclaimed out loud in class, “I dream in color.” Got frowned on by everybody. Nobody else in that class dreamed in color? My dreams are technicolor, Dolby sound zillion dollar full on Cleopatra/Elizabeth productions. Love’ya ME
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I’m out there. Goodness help me. Read today’s discussion site. I really tread on tails. I changed my column a little bit. Made it stronger but less personal.I didn’t focus on kauai. I focused on the country. if I live through the night I’ll probably be lucky. Okay, I’m not paranoid. .Love’ya ME
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.What I simply cannot fathom is:
when I google Fellowship Foundation and Gordon Oswald Immediately on AOL page 6 paragraphs down I see Trivani Headquarters-Bill Ganz and Gordon Oswald. That was at 5:48. When I google Fellowship Foundation on Kauai, on AoL page 1, item 4, I read Christian Fellowship. Just below it, curiously, is my blog sending readers to Great Party. I’n not pressing this. I’m just fascinated.
One thing: the hate they pour on me hadn’t better do, as the witch’s curse claims, come back at them X 3 or they’ll all die of the plague. I like the way Gift Two turned out.
Love’ya ME
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Dave, I trred to respond to the discussion site. Could not. think this is maybe what they wanted in the first place. Too much ‘dangerous’ information being passed here. I’ll start the ball rolling every morning. We can continue to talk here. Please tell everyone you can. Peace aand love ME
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Some damn fine philosophers you have cited. Especially love George Bernard Shaw and Bertrand Russell. The latter was a free-thinking mathematician who delved more than successfully into philosophy and is someone I have quoted at length in my own writings. Not only is he a thinker of enormous depth, like you he packages it in a tasty serving of delightful (and sometimes wicked, in every sense of the word) humor.
OK, will also admit to a fondness for Voltaire and a soft spot for Susan Anthony, whose biography I read in the Fifth grade and who inspired an early respect for feminism that especially blossomed during the years I was a single “Mom” raising a daughter alone from infancy until I remarried during her teenage years. It taught me to understand what real single Moms go through, as well as instilling a rabid insistence that no one would ever close doors on my daughter.
Doug / DDWiz
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What Bertran Russell taught me- I don’t think I understood half of what he said-but this I gleaned, “Beware the guy who can’t say it simply, ’cause prob’ly he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” Or something like that. I’m so glad we all found each other. One day I’m going to figure this wordpress thing out and clean up my act .. So many things go I on I don’t understand. I really am a moron when it comes tech stuff. I wanna go back to telephones with a rotating dial. One summer I worked as a telephone operator. Remember switch board? loved it. Love’ya me.
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I tried to get into the discussion site and couldn’t. think maybe that was the idea all along. too much good information passed on there. anyway, If you want to discuss a letter I’ll start the ball rolling ev ery morning. Peace and love Bettejo
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Yes, Bettejo, love Bertrand Russell. Have several of his books including an anthology. None of the math books, though, that’s way beyond me.
And yes, his comments on simplicity are enormously insightful. He had such a deep grasp of complex issues, yet his writings are so readable and so accessible. He followed his own maxim and followed it well.
Well, I do have to admit I love my MacBook laptop and my iPhone, and love being as in-touch as I want to be when I’m out and about (and not shy about turning everything off when I DON’T want to be in touch). Wonder what Bertrand Russell (or Voltaire, or Jesus, or Lao Tse or Gautama Siddhartha Buddha) would do with a laptop or iPhone?
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I wonder what my husband would have thought. I’ll bet he’d go nut with it. We’d each have to have our own computer rooms otherwise we’d probably kill each other.
You’d have really loved him.
He’d have caught the math. He could do everything. I was usually the gopher or the foredeck man. But he thought I was another Dorothy Parker.
We both grew up with Thurber, Benchley, The New Yorker. Remember those days? We both loved fantasy and science fiction. Kurt Vonnegut. Stephen King. I have books we’ve hauled around for almost seventy years. When we traveled, the books and animals went first class. the kids and Bill and me, coach.
Lots of books kind’a bedraggled. The tropics are hard on books, but I hold them together with chewing, paper clips and love. Love you ME.
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I do have to say, though, after reading your “School Days” essay, you might do better with Bertrand Russell’s math books than I would dare consider…
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Nope. I got as far as spherical trig and then said, “Why?” i can balance a check book, manage a house, what do I need that for?
A book I loved was Sense with Dollars. I’ve got it tucked away somewhere. This guy made sense out of simple household economics. He said it simply, surely, and well. Bert would have loved him.
I’ll bet I couldn’t even do a simple Algebra problem if my life depended on it. I guess I could freshen up but, again, why? I loved Geometry best of all.
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