A magazine's back cover c.1945

Today is my 67^th year here on earth.  The picture is a magazine’s back cover of me, at a lake in Arizona, in my birthday suit⁽¹⁾. From then until today, fate has been fortunate; I should have bitten the dust quite a few times by now. (I wrote about the first time in the blog Suicide Just Doesn’t Work.) As to my health, wealth and family, I couldn’t ask for more. Indeed, there are so many things to be happy for on this birthday, and every day. Don’t worry though, I’ll find a problem somewhere it that. Hmm, let me see…

Most striking too me is how easily we notice and dwell on what is ‘wrong’.  I’d say the cup’s half empty gene is more dominant than the cup’s half full gene. This is one of the more poignant, if not tragic, sides of life, in my view. Of course, Nature can’t abide any other way – we need to see the cup half empty more than the reverse to keep busy at the task of survival. We are but servants of survival.

Being told to smile?

I’ve found the most effective counter measure to this trap is knowing nothing! I guess this corresponds to the  Japanese proverbial ‘three monkeys‘  (三猿) — “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”.  Although, for me knowing Nothing suggests far more.  In my early years I fought ignorance by pursuing knowledge. The road to happiness, I felt, lied in knowing and doing things, the more the better. How else could I keep the half empty cup from draining away entirely.

Through experience I’ve gradually found the opposite to be so. More specifically, thinking that I know will always lead to difficulty. On the other hand, to know yet to think that I do not know is best. In practical terms that means being as hesitant and tentative about certitudes as possible. Patiently keep judgments fuzzy. Does my actively thinking that I don’t know arise out of a deeper knowing that I really don’t know? It is odd; it is ironic.

In papa's arms

It also gives meaning to the view, One who knows does not speak; one who speaks does not know.  Knowing I don’t know is knowing something. Yet saying (or writing) that I don’t know implies I don’t even know that much. It is all a bit confusing. Little wonder we say, to use words but rarely is to be natural. I think it is time for a margarita, with an extra shot of tequila for good measure.

⁽¹⁾ I don’t know what magazine this is from. As my parents were photographers, my brother and I did a lot of ‘modeling’ throughout childhood. The only difficulty I remember  about those years was being asked to “smile for the camera”. It always felt odd and forced. Years ago I did zazen in Japan. Afterwards, they took a group picture, and not a soul smiled for it. Now that’s my kind of photo shoot!

Here is another photo at that lake, and the text on the photo from the magazine:

Let Your Child Go Native

Such moments are rare but when it is possible, let your child come close to nature.

My, what a big head you have

Within a reasonable distance from most people’s homes there is a meadow, or a spot like this where, under supervision, children can open the pores of body and spirit to sun and air.

We can’t know just what it means to a child to feel that he’s on his own, even though you are nearby — and most of all, to feel that the world is his, and he is part of the world. He can’t know, but our common sense tells us it must be good.

Give your child his chance this summer if you can!

Background
Memories become dimmer as the years fly by. Many are even too misty to write down without filling in the voids with poetic license (fiction). Still, I’ve set out to fetch what memories remain before they fade any further. See: The Further One Goes for background on this ‘Times of Yore’ series.