Category: Philosophy

Friday Morning FYI – 6/5/2015

Ron Delaney JrLeave a comment

Welcome to your Friday Morning FYI, my chance to share observations/wisdom/rants in short, easily consumed form.

This week’s FYI is a little ranty, and about the words others put right in our earholes, but we don’t hear:

How often we ignore what others tell us about themselves. I’m not talking about body language, tone, or any of that. I mean the WORDS that come out of people’s mouths. We hear but don’t accept, and then react like we’ve been slighted – angrily casting blame. We paint Rockwellian pictures, script elaborate scenes and monologues, and erect statuesque pedestals – all outside of someone’s confessed reality – and then cry like children burned by touching a scolding oven we were warned was hot.

If a serpent tells you it bites, it goddamn bites. Don’t cuddle with it thinking it lied about biting, or just doesn’t know itself, or won’t bite YOU. Leave it the hell alone.

 

Thanks for reading,

{RDj}

If a tree can grow under a city train station

Ron Delaney JrLeave a comment

Philosophical treatise on trees, life, and self-limitation in 3… 2… 1…

 

Tree under a train station

 

I’d just hopped off my train at Newark Penn Station and was walking along Platform A toward the far stairs – the recently rediscovered crooning of Alanis Morissette occupying my headspace. I happened to glance to my left and spotted, of all things, a tree.

Gorgeous, delicate bubblegum blossoms, gently-waving against the glowing yellow of abused safety rails and the broken reds of rusted tracks. And leaves, like green rips of skin, scattered across the mammoth gray spine of the station.

I kept walking, subconsciously aware of the crashing human wave rolling behind me – everyone rushing to get wherever their watches commanded them to be – but also reached for my phone. And then it was too late and I was in the stairwell, headed down to the marble shoebox that is the concourse, to go right back up to Platform 1 and the Path.

But I didn’t catch the Path. Not right away. I didn’t even try. I hopped the turnstile (because you’re locked-in once on the Path Platforms, apparently) over to Platform B, hustled back down to the concourse and back up to the now-deserted Platform A.

I took my phone out and took the above shot. And below shot. And several other shots, too. This was a few days ago. I needed time to think about why the tree effected me the way it did, calling me back to chronicle that moment rather than sleepwalking into my day. Here’s what I came up with:

Simply put, if a tree can grow under a city train station, what else is possible?

 

Tree under a train station - wide

 

Or perhaps the question really is, what do I believe is possible?

We spend so much time limiting ourselves. “I can’t.” “I’ll never.” “There’s no way I could.” Tree seeds don’t believe that. They just know to grow – to flourish, even under the worst circumstances. Life doesn’t believe that, either. Where there’s even the smallest patch of earth, life is. And persists. And endures, without doubt or complaint. Like that stunning tree reaching toward the sky from beneath a smothering cage of iron and concrete.

If life, of which we’re all atoms, doesn’t believe in limitation, why should we?

Go be a tree.

 

Thanks for reading.

{RDj}

In the Times Which Try a Man

Ron Delaney JrLeave a comment

I read ‘Invictus’ at least once a day. I find it motivating on good days, and comforting on not-as-good days. Today, for reasons only the Universe knows, I found it inspiring – as in, ‘Go write a thing,’ inspiring. So I wrote a thing.

Here’s the thing.

 

In the Times Which Try a Man

In the times which try a man,
His courage and his soul,
Shall he fail or shall he stand
To face the night alone?

Shall he bend his neck to fate,
A conquered, broken beast?
Or march bravely to the gate
And claim his honored seat?

Oh my heart and all I am,
From gods born unto earth,
Beat the song and dance the dance,
So I may prove my worth.

Bring me all wisdom can show,
And to my brothers, too.
Bring us the unburdened souls
Of men who know the truth.

 

Thanks for reading,

{RDj}

A brief observation on tree climbing and Isaac Newton

Ron Delaney JrLeave a comment

Well lookie here, a post not-about writing. Weird, I know, but I’m feeling a little philosophical today, and don’t want to wait until the next Friday Morning FYI. Warning: this may be a little unorganized. Stream of consciousness, and all that. Indulge me 🙂

During a recent conversation, a friend mentioned tree climbing, and it’s been stuck in the back of my mind ever since – leaning back with it’s arm folded and feet on the coffee table, grinning mockingly, waiting for me to figure out why it struck a cord.

It’s not because an adult talking about climbing trees is odd to me (just the opposite – I was glad to hear it). It’s not because it was a strange thing for that friend to say. It fit her perfectly. So why?

And then, on the train this morning, with innumerable trees swinging and dancing past my window, it hit me: Newton’s Third Law: For every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction.

At this point, the tree climbing idea nodded and winked at me. Enigmatic little devil.

See, I’ve recently been doing a lot of research on different physics topics for my WIP, so Newton’s Third Law (which tells us that when you push against something, it pushes back) was itching at the edge of my memory, too. Apparently it and the tree climbing idea wanted to hang out and play Trivia Crack, or something.

So what’s the connection? Think about this: if something pushes back when you push it, that means when you climb into a tree, the tree responds by lifting you. Like it wants you to go higher. Like it enjoys you being with it, in it.

I. Love. That. So. Much. (and kind of hate myself for not seeing it before)

Oh, look. Now I’m feeling a bit poetic. Hmm.

Oh, blessed inspiration – from words to heart to words. Now I just need to find a strong tree to climb and sit in and write.

 

Thanks for reading,

{RDj}