Thursday, the day after the first debate in Miami for the Democratic candidates for the Presidency. I did not watch. At this stage it’s a beauty contest. The real game will be between the last man or woman standing and the current occupant of the White House.

Whenever I pause to think about the meaning of my life, what I amount to at this point in time, —  I recall a well known statement by Jean-Paul Sartre.

Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.” “Nothing happens while you live. … Man must create his own essence: it is in throwing himself into the world, suffering there, struggling there, that he gradually defines say what this man is before he dies, or what mankind is before it has disappeared.  

It makes sense to me.  The burden and opportunity of a meaningful life falls on me.  “Falls” is a good verb.  No one chooses to be here.  All of us in this Starbucks at this moment is here, now. Time, the measure of my life is always moving forward, and my response to the given of my circumstances determines the degree of meaning of my life.  There is no point in looking about me, to find someone to blame, or to invite you to join my pity party.  Things just are, and at best, I have influence and nothing more.  Very little if anything is solely up to me. 

Everything is a joint negotiation.  Happy endings, to speak metaphorically, depend upon adaptation, to summoning up the courage to do what is necessary to preserve one’s life and that of others.  The families who place their lives at risk to make the journey from Central America to our southern border do so because that presents the best chance for survival.  So they leave their home village and farms bringing their children with them.  Their wager for survival is strong enough to overcome inner confusion, the specter of failure, to come to a strange country.

Does not my well being depend upon that of others?  Absolutely I need the kindness of others.

A few days ago caught a few lines of a tune that I’d not noticed before.  It is entitled “Dog and Butterfly” written by Ann Wilson of Heart.  These lyrics “knock me out.”  I can imagine a puppy entranced by a butterfly in flight.  The dog chases the butterfly in vain, as the dog will never be able to fly.  The first verse of the tune tells the story as if viewed along side an old man, a person able to have a retrospective upon life. 

The old man says that the whole point of life is not that the dog will never fly, but the laughter that comes in the whole exercise of trying over and over.  Of course the dog does not, and cannot ever know why she cannot fly.  The why does not matter. 

Of course life involves tears, failure, disappointment, loss.

She had to try, she had to try.

Enough said.  Just enjoy!