Category: On Maturing

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Great Courses – Yoga

Keep moving, no matter what. When you don’t want to workout or exercise, do it as soon as you can. Don’t leave it for months at a time. I have made a point of getting a sweat up for most of my life. I know that sometimes it is difficult to get to a gym or to have exercise equipment in your house, however, it is so worth it.

I just got my blood work back recently. The results are amazing. I have extremely low C-Reactive Protein, >2.90. What that means is very low inflammation going on in my body. Inflammation is the cause of most aging disease. Exercise helps keep that low. I also have hurt myself moving my sister in and out of a car to the point that I could hardly move. Yet, within a few days, I am back up and on the treadmill. And for the record, I am on a testosterone prescription. I can only say that the difference is incredible, for all the right reasons. Strength, stamina, mental attitude – especially, weight control, hair loss, skin dryness.

I decided to start Yoga exercise for when I cannot get to the gym, however, I am already finding that the stress release benefit can be felt every day. I am excited to start a new chapter of exercise that I have always wanted to experience. Through the National Geographic, The Great Courses offer so many courses that I have wanted to learn. Now I can do that from wherever I am in the world. Check out what they offer.

National Geographic –  Great Courses – Yoga

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Secrets of Living Longer

This life is not a dress rehearsal! Make every day count. I read this Time magazine this week and must say that it was a good read. Current information. Steps and examples of what to do to help enjoy a longer, more productive life. Definitely a read.

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Tough Times Never Last, Tough People Do!

The times I am going through right now reminds me of my dad, or pop, as we all called him. As a child, I remember him saying that sometimes you have to be “hard-nosed”. I smile as I realize that I thought the saying had something to do exclusively with his nose. You see, my dad had a real schnoz.

I realize also that his hard nose policy got him through many things in life, including a handicapped child, cancer, divorce at 80 years of age. Whether it worked for him in all life situations is a good question. All I know for sure is that I adopted the same method of dealing with difficult situations.

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What I Expect in a Woman and Partner

I was asked recently what  I expected in a woman and partner. It sent me on a thought provoking mission to gain clarity, which is always good. This is what I came up with so far. And these are what a woman and partner can expect from me.

A person;

  • Who understands that we are not human beings on a spiritual journey, instead, spiritual beings on a human journey,
  • Who knows that commitment means trust and loyalty to protect another person’s back and feelings,
  • Who does not accept me as I am but encourages me to become everything I can and want to be, because they know me that well.
  • Who has experienced enough personal growth to know that change is the only evidence of life,
  • Who has enough positive self-esteem and confidence to be content in themselves.
  • Who wants sensitivity in a man,
  • Who knows that fear is false expectations appearing real,
  • Who wants to be 18 until they die, try anything twice, stay foolish and look for the positive in everything, because their glass is more than half-full and they are looking to fill it to overflow.
  • Who understands that all we have is now, this moment in time, to enjoy and make a difference in this lifetime.
  • Who wants to leave the woodpile a little higher than the way they found it,
  • Who knows that their job is not to change another person, but to hold up a mirror for another to see themselves,
  • Who wants good communication,
  • Who agrees that partners uplift each other in private and in public
  • Who cherishes their mind and body to keep both as healthy as possible,
  • Who understands that self reflection takes times of solitude and contemplation,
  • Who can spend time with themselves without fears of being alone,
  • Who understands that soul mates are truly souls that connect at a deeper level of unspoken consciousness such that when they have not seen each other in years, they can still finish each other’s sentences and start up where they left off as if no time had passed,
  • Who understands that true love, mature love, comes from the soul and cannot be overridden by circumstances of daily existence,
  • Who loves an eternal romantic,
  • Who cherishes that love is a safe place and all we really have to provide is hope.
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Lunch With Aunt Maude

Life is full of chances. Sometimes we just don’t take enough before it’s too late!

I had the greatest opportunity to have lunch with my Aunt Maude. She is turning 98 on December 29th. When I called my cousin to arrange a visit, I suggested that my sister and I would come to the house to see them. My cousin, Ruth, said oh no, she will want to meet you guys half way at a Cracker Barrel. That meant an hour and a half drive for them and us, each way.

When they arrived, I found out that Maude had fallen some six weeks ago and cracked her pelvis, so she was using a walker. This perfect women had left the hospital and come home for no more than a couple of days before she announced, “That’s enough of that”, and got up to get on with her life. How determined is that? She is such a go-getter and so is her daughter, Ruth. Neither of them can sit still very long.

I noticed that she had a smile on her face and was just happy to be alive and kicking. So many elderly people fall and break something and that is it. They become bedridden and get pneumonia and succumb. My sister says that Maude has always been the happiest person. She has always been my favorite aunt, and I told her so. As we were leaving, she said, I am just so happy you came for a visit. Tears, right?

It reinforces my belief that happiness, genuine happiness that comes from the soul, increases longevity. That is just one of the reasons I look for humor and excitement in everyday events, starting from as soon as I wake up and announce that something really wonderfully exciting is going to happen today. It is then that I expect and find wonderfully exciting things happening all day. It is just a great feeling of accomplishment when I can say about something that turns out to be really exciting, “There, I knew something really wonderfully exciting was going to happen today!

Although I recognize that I come from a long living family stock, most of my relatives have become infirmed and passed away at a much younger age than my Aunt Maude. I want to grow up to be just like her!

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Counter Culture on the Eve of Veterans/Remembrance Day

What does it avail a man to gain a fortune and lose his soul?

I am becoming, perpetually, rapidly, a radical thinker again in my life. My meaning is, that when I see injustice, I refrain from shirking my responsibility to nature and mankind. I understand why so many men and women have fallen into a melancholy state of existence due to their beliefs that others just do not see nor heed their intellectual warning of future events.

No matter on what level we see our destiny, it occurs to me that what we currently believe, somehow has a greater impact that we can possibly imagine. Lincoln could only extend his inner most philosophical thinking to written page and what would become merely quotes dictated by Wikipedia. Did he know what impact he would have on future generations? Never, in his wildest conceptions, did he know his likeness would foster change in future generations by adorning US currency.

When I read and re-read history, I am more than astounded by how the populous merely accepts daily events as non-repeatable newspaper, Facebook, and Twitter articles. I was once absconded by a Berlin bus rider when he noticed that I was reading “Mein Kampf”, in German. He asked, indignantly,  why I was reading that? When I replied, in German, because history repeats itself, except for those who internalize the lessons, he gave me a huge gruff and stormed from the bus.

As Bob Dylan once wrote, “The times, they are a-changing”.  I hope so.

When I see an African-American heritage President, declining to preside over the 150 year remembrance of Gettysburg, after passing through Gettysburg on his entering Washington for his inauguration, and standing with his clasps hand across his genitals during a flag salute at Ft. Hood, rather that solute, as Commander-in-Chief, or at least place his hand over his heart, I am drawn to tears at the decay of our heritage.

In today’s colloquial, “What the fuck”. It is enough to draw a patriot to melancholy, without question. Am I at a point of “Give me liberty, or give me death”?

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Cutting Losses is Not Losing!

There are times in life that require new direction to be taken. The reasons can vary, however, I suggest that most will condense to not having fun any more. I have heard it said that laughter is one of the first things couples share. It is also one of the first things to disappear in a failing relationship.

It can happen when one person mentally leaves the relationship for myriad, rational reasons. The challenge in our society, which is based on an aging population, is that mores are changing due to longevity of life. To wed forever makes less sense than it did in the past. Once the offspring are out of the nest, the protective responsibilities are complete.

We become redundant at some point and continue living unfulfilled existence because we can no longer really experience all that life has to offer without sharing it with the same person year after year. I reason that it is better to cut the losses of monotony and spread wings to fly in all new directions.

Today, I was in one of my melancholy moods, thinking about what keeps me hanging around this dimension. It occurred to me that I am still having fun. When the day arrives that I am no longer having fun, then I will make a conscious decision to cut my losses and head into the next existence, willingly, and looking for the WOW factor as is said of Stephen Jobs on his transition bed.

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Don’t Fight for Life, Live It!

Nature abhors balance, sameness, and the return to the way it was. If you think nature wants things to stay the same, watch the heavens where man cannot be blamed. The universe finds balance quite boring and will not tolerate it for very long.

It’s the same fight that has gone on in the universe, beginning with the Big Bang. Entropy wins! It is the second law of Thermodynamics. Order will always give way to disorder. Just experience your Starbucks coffee getting cold before you finish it. That is the way of universal nature.

How grandiose is man to think that he/she can subjugate the forces of nature to be under his/her total control, like the infant that thinks they were the cause of their parent’s illness and the pain of everyday life. Stasis is a myth created by man out of fear of the unknown. Nature could care less about global warming. The planet will survive long after our species has irradicated itself.

Man does have the gift of entropy to harness the energy of disorder to further his experience – beyond that lies only the insanity of doing the same things over and over and expecting the results to change.

The best we can do is tap into disorder to create momentary order. That is our destiny of existence, in my humble opinion. Why use our precious time to fight the inevitable? Rather, to live life as the observer of the universe and be an agent of change.

To get a better understanding of entropy, Watch YouTube.

To all those on Facebook who speak of the daily apocalypse that is being created by our elected officials, Ayn Rand warned of these events nearly 50 years ago. Her warnings fell on deaf ears then, and Facebook dramatizations are like pissing in the wind and trying to avoid the back spray today.