Naked Hunch

Truth is uncensured when all is said and done.

Under the covers, clothing, excuses and fabrications, there is still a layer of denial.

What of judgement, emotion, fleshy parts we play when we can’t stand it anymore?

We have a lot of pain and suffering to do in this life without the excess brutality, fear, and loathing that accounts for all the problems and mistakes that spice up every life.

At the bottom of all this we peel off layers of ourselves to reveal parts of our past selves:  the me in my 50’s, 40’s, 30’s, 20’s, 10’s, back to the beginning of me.

When I am tired, sick, alone, angry, frustrated, and ready to throw in the towel, there is just enough curiosity left in me to go looking for ‘the truth’.

I am both the proverbial cat and mouse.

I hunt down my pray (the little me or mouse).

I am so curious (cat as the preditor) about who I am.

I am so focused on ‘my truth’ that I am blind to ‘the truth’.

Yet, there it is.  Here I am.  I like to show ‘the truth’.

(The little I see of it.)

(I am only capable of seeing a little ‘truth’.

Solitude

A nature walk by any other name, but I walk the wild alone.

This place I call solitude is both a state of mind and many times I have reached and found peace while in the wild and in the state of solitude.

Like a chemical compound, one without the other are but two separate elements:  solitude plus nature equals peaceful ordinance of different observations on this state of mind.

 

‘I’ happened while running up Grouse Mountain.

Surreal was the steel cable, gondola moving overhead with people as I transfixed in my body, felt my leg being pumped continuously as the terrain seemed to pass swiftly bellow my feet.

I felt/saw an aura around me, nature and the man made gondola with its small crowd being lifted up the side of a mountain.

I felt the cool sweet air as I inhaled and exhaled in the organic way one does when they act whole and unified towards a task or goal:  running up and down Grouse Mountain.

 

On this summer’s morning, over 25 years ago, I still feel the pleasant walk along the cut line, run upon a path, and energy that allowed me to travel ‘there and back again’.

A book title comes to mind, by Isaac Asimov:  The Joy Still Felt.

I love this memory like it is still happening all these years later.

It exemplifies the wealth found in nature and solitude for me.

Solitude With Care And Attention

There are many memories I have about being solitary and yet full of sense and wonder.  I don’t consider it a bad behaviour because I write.  My care and attention to what I read and write extend to the way I live and learn.  I am just rereading Solitude and A Return To The Self.  It is described as an insight to common sense.  And this is my definition of Solitude.  It is all about slowing down to be with yourself and returning to some common sense.  Perhaps, the writing I do needs to be about this topic.  But I can see it encapsulated in books like A Man In Full by Tom Wolfe.  I highly recommend either one of these books as a stepping stone to some good solitude.

Like most people I find little time or desire to ‘gaze at my navel’.  But like most people I tend to spend many hours doing chores that afford me time to notice my personal state of mind and choices and decisions I am making on the day-to-day basis.  I think I read books like the above to add fodder to my actions (be they behaviors, feelings, thoughts, beliefs or other).  I practice using common sense but the outcomes are not always on the mark.  My mistakes are like sign posts that I notice from time to time.  In this way I can work out some of what I need to do.  I want to learn from my errors, but I trip up as much or more than everyone else.