perhaps

In retirement one is afforded the luxury of thought.

When employed life is filled with the urgency of maintaining the good graces of the employer as well as the need to maintain the health of the body and cleanliness of the homesite, whether it be a one room efficency or a sprawling extravaganza celebrating good fortune.

 

Much can be said about the years spent earning a living and the web it weaves about the individual, Many never see any time for themselves during their pursuit of the dollar and the things it can buy. Many never see enough dollars to buy themselves any free time either while they are employed or to able them to retire. For those individuals their thoughts are more of the present and immediate urgent fight for survivial. for those persons we can wish them the best and hope for them some of the better life while we ponder for a solution to give everyone a better existence.

 

Then for those of us who have fallen into the good fortune of being born in the right place at the right time we have the opportunity to consider the case of humanity. we may choose to accept the way things are or we may choose to search for a way to make things better for everyone including ourselves and those close to us. Not many of us a fortunate or gifted enough to be thinkers, the brains of the outfit. There are not many who truly are problem solvers or great.

 

when considering the entertainment field we see few who have risen to the top, as they say  of the cream, those few who shine above the crowd. the very few who we admire look up to and pay attention to as masters of their craft. there are few very well paid entertainers. of all the people on the planet there are very few who we all know. and it is very amusing that all of us know a very few individuals {that is, individuals with whom we are familiar with as seeing them on the silver screen or hearing them speak or watching them perform}. we all know michael jackson as a master of his craft and celine dion a star in her own right. yet there are hundreds of thousands of faces as backup singers and musicians who are there playing for us every day, and we have no idea who they are.

 

and we, how many people know we exist, and for that matter, how many people care that we exist, yet to us, our existence is of utmost importance. and we live in our little worlds as stars shining forth.

 

odd though, about the superstar, what pivots them into the galaxy of the universe as brilliant beacons, we all search for  the formula, we dream of winning the lottery, we dream of being superstars.

 

religion for some is the solution to all the striving, for few it is reckless abandon and then there are those of us who simply give up.

 

does free will or predestination rule.

 

i have put thee in the center of the universe in order for thee to see better what is there. i did not make thee either a heavenly or an earthly creature, either mortal or immortal; i created thee so as thine own sculptor thou makest thine own features. Thou canst degenerate into an animal: but thou canst also be reborn, through the free will if thine own spirit , into the image of god.

from "oration on the dignity of man" pico della mirandola (1463 -1494)

quoted from, death and westen thought by jacques choron published by the macmillian company 1963

 

wheter free will or predestination, we are included somewhere in the choosing of what happens to us, within the limited framework of what is available to us.

 

we get to be as big as we can be, whether we like it or not.