Surreal Real

 Over my many years, I have written many different blogs and books.  One of them, I recall, was called surreal real.  One of my primary driving things that has been consistent in all of my life has been the.. well.. absolute value .. to use a math term for a non math thing.. of being real.  Good, bad, left, right... whatever.  If it is real to you, it is valuable to me.  The blog was focused a lot on that, as I recall.  I would rather know someone that passionately disagreed with me than someone that agreed only because it was popular.  Trends do not grow me, but someone that passionately disagrees with me is... interesting.  Something is driving that passion, and that makes it worthwhile.

Why?  Because, I've lived the fictions.  I have seen and experienced and learned alot of the patterns of life that, despite the conviction that they are unique by those that do them, are centuries or millenia old and worn truths that often have to be lived rather than be learned by words.  I think we are in the middle of several of those, right now, in fact that I thing will end poorly but saying so will not change anything.  

Indeed... as I have aged, I have learned like most that age that very little changes.  It's funny.  When you are young, you are so offended and set afire by the wrongs that you see in society.  Then, later, you might end up taking an opposite position and being offended in another direction.  However, as you grow you eventually realize that they are the same debates and the same offensive feelings and convictions that have existed for thousands of years.  It's not important than it is happening, so much as important that we still have enough sense to say... what the actual fck, though it does seem that less and less of the younger generations have that sense.

"To thine own self be true," says a character to his son in Shakespeare's Hamlet in his final barrage of wisdom, before his son goes away.  It is good advice.  My life has seen so many changes, but the end is that we often end up back where we began...with ourselves as our final company even if you do everything right.  In my life, I have given up houses for weddings, moved across country for children or given up my money and time to shuttle people around to their needs or spend overtime hours for employers.  Yet, after all that time, I find myself... back with me as my company.  So, if there is anyone that deserves your loyalty, it is yourself.  When all is said and done, it is to yourself that you will answer above all else.

So, live your life, but live it for what you value to be important... including other people that you deem to be important but with the understanding that eventually they, too, will often leave.  Don't miss out on experiencing life, while you live.  I believe that you would give the same advice to your children, and if my children grow up as independent thinkers that can survive and thrive without me, I will have fulfilled my celestial duty to make them.... real.. as well.