A few minutes ago I was explaining to a friend the nature of my present flow. It's not something I look at much, so it became something interesting to explore. With Social Security I'm able to do nothing when I feel like it, take naps when the need arises, and do what I want to do that doesn't pay anything. Everything I want to do doesn't pay at all. In a time of perpetual war, I have nothing to offer. All I have to offer goes with peace, which is why I am looking more forward to the thousand years of peace, a time when I'll be able to actively contribute in a world that values what I have to offer. So will an awful lot of other people. Now that I don't need a job, I can do things I believe are important instead of keeping at somebody else's business open.
Recalling back when I was new in the mountains, looking back at what I was leaving behind, what it added up to was a life of uncertainty about everything. The city was all about mind. I was wanting to develop heart, so I tried life in the country, the ultimate country, the mountains. It's been here that my heart has grown in influence on my behavior and attitude toward life. It's hard to look at how I've changed as a result of the development of heart. By heart I also mean emotion. I am more able now to give my emotions the right to express. I know I've become tender hearted, because an awful lot can bring tears that I allow to flow. I'm too old to worry about how it looks. I'm just a sappy old curmudgeon turd. I figure half the people I know are ok with it and half are not.
Had a funny moment at the coffee shop yesterday, which amounts to seeing Dudley Carpenter. I've known Dudley probably 8 years. He taught me how to be a dj for the radio show. He did it well. I did with the learning from him the way an artist of any sort must do after learning about one's art form in school and what is right and what is wrong, unlearn everything, start over on your own. Dudley taught me to do a professional hour with perfect timing for commercials, the half hour and the hour, when at WCOK that stuff was nothing but casual. I wanted to do it live, spontaneously with very little planned. I didn't do what he taught me, but used what I learned to inform a more spontaneous way.
Dudley has an attitude toward life that is refreshing. His varieties of art forms that he likes are very, very different from mine. He likes Broadway musical type music, though not exclusively by any means, and choral music. I like mountain music, some rock, reggae, classical, jazz, and so forth. Our circles might intersect at classical music and jazz, which would be about the only place. It's like that with a lot of our likes and tastes, they intersect at one point or two. I think it's sense of humor that bonds us. We are continually cutting up verbally. It's a fun way to talk. We kind of take each other all over the place conceptually. Beats the hell out of bitching and complaining that Sparta isn't what we want it to be. Dudley is an unrepentant nerd, as am I. It's like cousins who haven't been around each other since childhood.
The picture above looks like it could be at a neighborhood bar in some city called Tony's. It's coffee in place of beer at Selma's coffee shop. She took the picture. I asked her to get a picture because my friends are complaining to me about my pictures, Don't you ever smile? After living so long in the mountains among country people, where people who smile all the time look like they're selling something, I too have become suspicious of big smiles. I call it advertisements for self. I'm pleasant, I'm easy to get along with, I'm really nice. Like children in a Chinese children's market, kids eyeballing people with "buy me" eyes. It's like the smiles are announcing, I have a price. Inquire within. I'm not for sale and don't feel a need to advertise myself with blinking lights or sparkling teeth. That's for other people. Anyway, I do have to concede to the culture I live in, at least some of the time. So I asked Selma to get some pictures of me smiling so I could put a smiling picture on facebook. Selma's is where I smile best. This picture of me looks like Lon Chaney as Quasimodo.
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You just look like you are having a pleasant time. A sincere one.
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