The Best Advice I Ever Had

The best economic advice I got was from my pop who said,’Hand to mouth financial plan is your safe bet if your lifestyle is laid back.’
I knew he meant good. But I already had settled on a better course. So I said when he said once too often, ‘
But I found a better one, ’plain living and high thinking’.
I also borrowed part of my pop’s rule.
Now my hand knows at least where it is going. I have grown old on this precept.
My advice for the young is this: ‘
In these cash strapped times you should be developing new skills instead of cursing your luck.’
Set up your own job, capitalize on your plus points so you don’t have to split takings with others.
The fellow who learned carpentry made a door on the excuse,’Who knows when opportunity comes knocking at least my door must warn me instead of my nose being flattened.’
And finally, ‘To thine ownself be true.’
benny

Read Full Post »

A Slice of Life: Life on the Go

I am at a stage life has come to mean something; funny it also means it doesn’t make much difference one way or other.
I can see it as if it is happening to someone who has to live while each day I am on the go under creative urge. I almost wanted to write fire but it sounds a little over the hill.
I sleep soundly and even though shorter duration the moment I open my eyes most of the time my head is clear and it is to write or read as though during the night my filing cabinets have been cleared and rearranged for the day. My memory is as good as ever. It was total recall but now it is downhill. Yes. it is natural.
Curiosity and creative touch is still as though in full flow and ready at the turn of a tap.
Of course there are moments that I feel time’s winged chariot to borrow Andrew Marvell’s expression is getting nearer. Should I really bother? Wisdom of age tells me it doesn’t matter.
I live on the nerves and yet I seem to be teflon coated to get down to the brass tacks when things need to be done and keep my inner poise in tact. Words crowd into my mind and while speaking I am at a total dither since I have to concentrate what I need to say. Sometimes, no often I have made nonsense of what I what I intended to say. I have laughed myself at it. A man of contradictions and yet old age has given an inner resilience to laugh at my own follies and go past them.
My childhood was terrible and yet I could weather it all and be all things to all without giving away myself. My inner life without let up was spent making sense of all I read, heard and outward thing hardly made a dent unless I let. Use of money and fashion didn’t make much claim and yet all that I value, I could indulge in art music books cinema and still they do claim my attention.
From youth up I was at ease with the idea of a loving God and I never let fear ruin my bond. It was an everyday thing. Even now it is thus. I know I am in the plan of God and our relationship is bonded by age.
At a time of my utmost need in the early morning(late 80s) I was woken up by a thought. It was clearly a verse. I took my bible to read. The exact verse was Moses blessing on Benjamin( I was Benjamin to my father) where it is written He shal dwell between his shoulders( Num.33:16). What is between shoulders but the head? I knew what it meant in my case. Five years later I had to step out of nasty relationship and when it came I knew everything shall be Ok. It was so.
So many years in personal and creative life I could not wish more. Now I keep recalling the words of A.C Swinburne a poem that makes more emotional appeal to me.
From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.

I take exception the idea that ‘dead men rise never’ but as poem it takes on meaning and poetry suits my mood to set out passing thoughts. Sometimes droll, foolish wise well all these are part of me. So why complain what is natural?
benny

Read Full Post »

I Can’t Understand…

I can’t understand why no one pulled the rug from under the feet of top investment bankers while they were steadily wrecking the nation’s economic health. No whistleblowers? Not even a twitch in their conscience when they were picking up the scraps thrown to them in fat bonuses and other perks. Is that the cause or greed had struck them into robots?
‘All for me and none for others!’seems to be the watchword in such times.
If only a war brings their conscience twitching it would seem war has a moralizing influence. Don’t you think?
benny

Read Full Post »

Please solve theses riddles for me

If best things in life are free, why we occupy Wall Street or any other?
2.Why kill over religion? Merely because one makes a cut in his penis why demonize the rest of those who do not? Especially considering both parties hide it away for shame?
These riddles are unlike the other sort, solved only when one has thrown off the mortal coils of life. So don’t try it at home. Just file it away for future use.

Read Full Post »

Man is a funny animal

Man is a funny animal. Common sense tells him to mind his step. But his uncommon sense tells him to listen to his inner voice instead.
2.
Common sense tells him to keep his secrets close to the chest but he blabbers it all to some shrink who happens more often than not, a total stranger. He calls it uncommon sense.
3.
Sure his common sense is so common that cannot keep to the beaten tracks well tested. The old adage ‘a bird in hand is worth two in the bush’ will not do for him. He plays at stocks what he cannot afford hoping there is a greater fool out there to save his goose from cooking. He calls that his uncommon sense.
4.
Science gives man How and religion tells Why his universe works in a manner of speaking but his common sense cannot get the point.
What does his uncommon sense say? Perhaps both may work in my case, according to my special needs.
5.
Uncommonsense without some plain commonsense makes a fool; similar man without a touch of feminine qualities makes a brute.Yet we carry on battle of the sexes as though it is a honor or ego thing!

Read Full Post »

Love and Friendship

These days have been trying for me. A good friend of mine of some 50 years standing lost his only son. He was 38 years and suffered from autism, – a severe case at that,and was put in a group home which he seemed to like. Weekends he would come home and splurge on things he had a yen for. I know how his disability put demands on the entire family and my friend was life long concerned for his well being. He is devastated and in this it has affected me as well. I know he shall pull through from his bereavement but till he is able to give a place in his heart for the loss he will have to deal with it as a father losing his only son. Love means the ability to suffer and if it is a good thing or bad thing I do not know. It is a sign of our strength and also our humanity that we are not proof to shocks and taunts of our mortality. Friendship also is bare and vulnerable.
benny

Read Full Post »

Art and Life

It was Oscar Wilde who set out to show purpose of art and life are entirely different things. Art according to him has no moral duty to make life nobler or meaningful anymore than life lived in a certain manner can redeem artists to create masterpieces . Far from art imitating life Wilde holds that art sets the aesthetic principles by which people perceive life. What is found in life and nature is not what is really there, but is that which artists have taught people to find there, through art. “there may have been fogs for centuries in London”, people have only “seen” the “wonderful brown fogs that come creeping down our streets, blurring the gas lamps and turning houses into shadows” because “poets and painters have taught [people] the loveliness of such effects”. “They did not exist”, asserts Wilde, “till Art had invented them.( Decay of Lying )” Do we not conjure up the starry sky of Van Gogh when we see the night sky? Emotional impact of the Dutch artist is a supreme example of art that can extend our vision and for me it is a good thing to accept every day life seen at an altered state, as it were. It does not make my aches and pains any less than that are, a natural ageing body heir to. I can at least console myself that I live among the greatest, the best and loveliest tokens of the feast of life though being dyspeptic I may not touch anything other than dry bread and lentil soup.
This evening I listened to Puccini’s Tosca and I could not help thinking how the music could transport me as easily to an altered state as though I was hearing it for the first time! It is a tale of revenge and lust in which Baron Scarpia lusts for Tosca and in the heart of intrigue is the lover of Tosca who is condemned to die before a firing squad. The hapless man looking at the stars fading off one by one as the dawn breaks, sings an exquisite aria E lustevan stele. It brought me memories of a film Le Jour sa Leve that had moved me intensely. Gabin a working class hero is cornered in his claustrophobic room in which every object takes on a special significance. The cigarette and smoke spiral that goes up is harbinger of doom. It is only matter of hours before the police are going to shoot him dead. Whenever I see it in my mind’s eye I recall the music from opera as though it belongs there.
Aesthetics of art has ability to alter the tenor of life where man’s responses to his environment can be made more intense since his resources are drawn from secret recesses to which reality has no clue whatsoever.
Benny

Read Full Post »

Just One Point

Have you thought what holds up this world in which we have our being? Things move and things grow as a result of billions of people working all across the globe. Their work takes them into the depths and heights of the face of the earth. They work in safe places or dangerous places and wherever they may be and whatever they do their hands work with their common sense so we may be well fed, clothed, helped and kept in certain measure of comfort. They may be engaged thus to make a living but it is what keeps trains run on time and passengers, freights are moved across. In short work of man and woman keeps the civilized world grow to a higher plane. Out of billions who toil thus with not much thought to stop or throw it away they keep their nose to the grindstone of monotony. On the other hand there are also a few who without any sweat live on the work of others. Are they parasites or undeserving rich? It all depends from where they are seen.
benny

Read Full Post »

A Quote

“Making hard choices in life was easy but pity, life offers no alternative than living every moment of it.”
benny

Read Full Post »

A Slice of Life

This day happens to be a special day for me. So many years ago I sent on this day a letter to my pen pal with whom I was corresponding in my school days. In the first instance my pen pal from Netherlands wrote about her country and her friends, farm-life. I wrote about books, films and usual things about my country college life. Soon it progressed from there to speak about personal things- what I want in life; and we soon were talking such things about love and soul. It came to a state I was all eager on the day her letter was due. My days in school or at home for holidays were emotionally built around the day. Postman was our patron saint. During my final year I was thus looking forward to the day I could tear open her letter read or look at the enclosed snapshots- read it all over and over again. My love-sickness must have been so loud and clear that alarmed my mother. Anyway she got the crucial letter in which we had written our plans. Next morning during family prayer my father clearly vetoed my idea of going abroad or meeting my ‘girlfriend.’ In his eyes I was harboring foolish notions!
The upshot of it was that we went separate ways and I made a disastrous marriage with the blessings of my parents. It reached a point I knew it was beyond salvage and I wrote to my pen pal on the address I knew from memory. Some 23 years ago I sent this letter to the winds so to speak. After that I forgot about it. She did send me reply by return post. Her reply was however confiscated by my ex. It looked as though history was repeating itself!
Luckily my pen pal wrote second time, her address and phone and four months later when I came home for lunch I found it on my table. ( Who did it my servants or my daughter or some assistant in the beauty salon ex was running from home. I never tried to find it out.) The same day I sent a letter to my wife who was free for so many years. We could chat for long in long-distance. I got a chance to go to the USA so I made it a point to meet her on my return trip. From the day one it was as though we were meant for each other.
I could turn my life around and make a soul happy and also find happiness.
On thinking back I realized one can never hold back love or happiness. Both were in our hands. My pen pal, wife and companion had matured as I was from experience. Making love in our case was physical as well as each day making love work in so many things. My old age is a dream come true and my childhood not a nightmare-but- somewhat-near-abouts.

benny

Read Full Post »