Still Thinking

Dear Senior Burns, I lost my faith in the power of words a long time ago.  People who play music are allowed to sit on their own porch and enjoy the guitar. Photographers are allowed to take photographs they show nobody. Painters apply to canvas and stash them or give them away fine and willy nilly. But to write words means to make money. Words are not to be enjoyed, they are to be monetized. That's the modern ethos. Words are to be bound and sold. If not, they are worthless. Leaves on autumn grounds to be walked over or thrown away. I've tried to fight this ethos at every bend in the road. And, man, it's an uphill battle. Too few believe in the value of words anymore. Words as morsels of life is a bygone notion.  Would you believe, Senior Burns, that writing this nonsense to you right here actually rekindled my love for words again? More than anything else in years. How silly is that? How small must I be to find pleasure in something so simple? We're not doing anything...

Dear Senior Burns, As my age increases, my hierarchy of needs appears to decrease. The only exceptions to this being length of sleep and tasks for bodily maintenance: this old boat feels brittle at best, chipped and taking on water as the horizon rises evermore above my line of sight. But that's Brother Ass talking.  The body -- its span resembling a singular natural rotation: sun-pulled orbit, lunar year, bloom to bake to bushel and back to barren beds -- rises and sets. We know this, cognitively, but each body shocks to the sensation of its own setting. Perhaps God graces us with contentment for less as our energy also lessens.  Ironically, as my requirements of contentment decrease, curiosity grows. The great curse of youth is its lack of recognition -- youth cannot recognize itself. One can only appreciate certain lights as they fade. So it goes. So it ever shall.  While walking my pugs tonight (a routine I take for granted), I counted the matters that give me the mos...