My Duty and My Desire for 2019

The rare and provocative poet and novelist, Charles Bukowski, once wrote, “If something burns your soul with purpose and desire, it’s your duty to be reduced to ashes by it. Any other form of existence will be yet another dull book in the library of life.”

That is a challenge I take for the New Year. I want my soul burning with purpose and desire. I want to be to be crispy by the end of 2019. I want to be the ashes of my longings fulfilled, my passions spent.

I want to know my efforts were all out, that I left nothing in the pursuit of what I love that was not exhausted.

I want to find ways to love new people and I want to find ways to better love the people I already know and cherish.

I want my horizons expanded, stretched to new sights, beyond old borders of comfort and ease. Let there be places in my journey, where, like the ocean, on a clear day you can see forever, and the end of the water’s edge disappears in the blue sky of wonder. I want that.

Let there be more books to read, more knowledge to learn, more ideas to explore, more love to share.

The world seems to be wobbling beneath volcanic eruptions of violence, political insanity, economic disaster, voracious greed, crippling poverty, and a deeper and more profound lack of respect for human life.

Can I help bring more balance? I don’t know, but I want to try. In my own small part of the world, I want to be a stabilizing influence.

That is my duty. And I accept it.

And yet, I have no desire to be played by pretenders and counterfeits. I have lived long enough now to finally accept that not all people are who they claim to be or even appear to be. Though we all have our frailties, our faults and our failures, and none of us will ever get anywhere near complete, there are still those whose dishonesty and dysfunction I do not have the expertise or the energy to play nice with.

I will remain alert and refuse to be swayed by exploiters. Nor will I stand aside and passively allow those with mean streaks and without conscience dominate my thought processes and spoil the beauty inside myself and that exists in others.

The news is saturated with these kinds of people. They will not consume me.

The arena of corrupted politicians, unprincipled corporate leaders, dirty cops, devious priests and preachers, is not the only playing field in life. There is a broader more open field where ethics are practiced and values are lived and humanity is treated with dignity. And that is where I will stay anchored.

Poet T.S. Eliot guides me when he wrote, “For last year’s words belong to last year’s language, and next year’s words await another voice.”

I want to be one of those voices.

Not a false voice. Not a sanctimonious or self-righteous voice. Not a know it all voice. But a human voice speaking and writing for humanity in the small arena of my world, in the library of my life.

If I had five minutes to evacuate--what would I take with me?

If I was told there was a bomb in my building and I had five minutes to evacuate my apartment I’d grab a grocery bag and quickly toss these items into it: 1. A photo of my grandparents, Mom and Pop and me, when I was 15 years old. I learned what love is made of from them. I learned what it is to be kissed on and hugged in arms so tender they felt like God’s arms. I discovered self worth from those two angels in human flesh. Of all the people in my life, they were the ones who made me feel I counted. Honestly, whatever capacity I have to love others came from them. 2. A sentimental, dog-eared, stars in the margin copy of Pat Conroy’s, “The Prince of Tides.” It is a book I have read three times and often return to for its wisdom. It is a harsh, profoundly tragic novel, the story of a family so broken and tortured by such flawed and wounded people that it is sometimes difficult to turn the next page. And yet it is the story of such Herculean courage and endurance that you want...

A Losing Strategy

OPINION PAGE (c) 2024 Timothy Moody The Republican strategy to mock and judge others has passed into some form of insatiable, all-devouring nastiness. It is so poisonous and contemptuous that it is now just evil. Republican Governor of Arkansas, Sara Huckabee Sanders, suggested to a crowd of Trump supporters Tuesday night that Kamala Harris can't be humble because she doesn't have any children of her own. When will Americans decide they don't want government leaders who are so arrogantly insensitive, as Sanders was, that they offend everyone? This crude, villainous rhetoric transcends political partisanship. It’s evil, dangerous, and insulting. The poet Ezra Pound’s brief lines are appropriate here, “Pull down your vanity, How mean your hates” To suggest that someone cannot be humble because they don't have children is not just a cheap political comment. It's an attack on a person’s humanity and worth. And that is now, and has been fo...

OPINION PAGE:

OPINION PAGE © 2024 Timothy Moody The apparent assassination attempt against Donald Trump last Sunday afternoon at his Trump International Golf Club was foiled by the Secret Service. Details are still coming in about it, and it's not yet known why the suspect, Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, apparently wanted to shoot Trump. The botched attempt was amateurish in every way, just as the one in July was by a kid 150 yards from Trump. Conspiracy theorists are having a field day. The former President is, of all things, blaming these attempts on his life with what he called the “violent rhetoric” of President Biden and VP Harris. Of course, that is absurd, especially coming from Trump, who has consistently been guilty of that very thing since he became president in 2016 and even before. His speeches, X posts, and comments on his Truth Social platform have been endlessly filled with threatening language and incitement to violence. He suggested those protest...

The Unclad Soul

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