• …..there wasn’t much she could do about the shitty situation at hand, so she just started crying. Crying like a fuckin’ big baby, yes, that’s what she did.  Her hands were figuratively tied behind her back and the options she was facing amounted to absolutely nothing—NOTHING, I TELL YA!…..so what else is a sane person supposed to do in an impossible situation such as that?  Huh?!?!  Any suggestions?!?!  C’mon, no better ideas from any of you learned readers?!?!  Well, okay then…..  So, yeah, that’s right, it’s agreed upon…..I guess you just feel sorry for yourself and bawl your lungs out like a fuckin’ baby.  Just feel horribly sorry for yourself and curse the gods above and hope that somebody takes pity on you and maybe offers you an encouraging word and a helping hand to carry you through your time of suffering.  It’s either that or go searching for the nearest gun holding at least one bullet in its chamber, and she wasn’t anywhere near the point of desperation where she felt like doing anything THAT drastic and stupid.  And thus she cried on wailingly, lugubriously—with no end in sight to her abject despair.…..

• The nighttime sky festooned with one million twinkling stars set against an eerily black nothingness that extends forever and ever in every direction one looks and instinctively conjures thoughts of infinity, despite the fact infinity is a concept which is impossible to logically comprehend for mortal beings…..that celestial panorama high overhead inspires raw wonderment and abject loneliness in all but the hopelessly jaded and the hopelessly imbecilic. We of the human species populating planet Earth are inconsequential and constitute nothing against the backdrop of an infinite Universe yet, because of this stark reality, we are EVERYTHING ……

• …..she knew there were 365 days in a year, but the only one she had any interest in was the one sitting before her because she understood—even though a surprising number of people don’t and never will—that it was the only day she could directly influence and wield any authentic control over. The others?  They were just ghostly apparitions, ridiculous IOUs on the future, figments of a gaudily wishful imagination.  She no more owned those entities than she could lay legitimate claim to owning the air we breathe or the four oceans of the world…..

• The future is far more frightening from a distance. Up close—when you’re finally there and caught up in the midst of it and it magically transforms into the present—that big bully off in the distance loses much of his mojo and suddenly appears quite ordinary and vulnerable and ripe for the taking.  Opportunities seem to cryptically manifest where once stood only an endless string of doubts and uncertainties.  Fear subsides and makes a mad dash for cover, while optimism and excitement wed to unbridled anticipation rush in to fill the vacuum it leaves behind.

• Thinking in and of itself is connaturally worthless. Knowing is not.  The word “knowledge” was invented for a reason; no one ever thought to invent the word “thinkledge” because there has never been any value attached to it.  Merely thinking something does not educate or advance a worthy cause.  Knowledge does and frequently will.  Knowing something—Anything!—is important, but simply thinking things has no merit whatsoever.  The bridge separating thought from knowledge may be quite lengthy and is not always the easiest to navigate and ultimately cross over, yet it is essential this bridge be crossed if you desire to be regarded as anything other than a dullard, a dreamer, or a fraud.

• Love should never be characterized as a mere emotion—one amongst many, including pettier ones like jealousy, greed, and sloth. Rather, love constitutes a broad outlook on life itself, an overriding creed, a manner of living…….a transcendent lens through which one should view all of humanity.  Love is not an emotion per se and was never meant to be; it is instead a philosophy on how to best relish life by living it to its absolute fullest.

• Our only responsibility as human beings—yet, believe me, it is awesome and should not be understated—is to be good and mature stewards of the planet we inhabit, together with embodying conscientious caretakers of the present era which every person alive inherited from a long string of predecessors. Nothing else really matters.  No fancy celestial goals.  Nothing especially transcendent or esoteric.  No claims to immortality or bombastic claims against His unquestioned authority.  Just good, conscientious stewards of Earth’s destiny.  Accomplish this, and your stay on Earth should be regarded as worthwhile and fruitful.  But if you opt for more and consequently fail with this basic crusade, your successors will wind up paying a disproportionate price for your selfishness and negligence.

• I have but one moment I can exert some degree of control over, and that moment is NOW. Ominous storm clouds loom on the horizon, the future looks portentous, my stomach roils with anxiety, and I know not which direction to turn for help if any even exists, but those problems—however real—are for another time and another place.  All I have before me is the moment at hand, and I absolutely do not intend to waste it obsessing over a shapeless future that manifests only to those who are inherently lucky and kissed by the gods.

• At the risk of sounding like a curmudgeonly old fogy, why is that good customer service–not great, just good–comes as an utter surprise nowadays, when not that long ago it was expected?   A cheerful smile accompanied by a rudimentary level of competence elicits surprise and wins praise in today’s average world, whereas considerably more than that was needed to engender compliments just a few decades ago.  We live in an average world today, and thus average is the low-bar benchmark we use for measuring anything and everything.  Climb slightly above average, and you are automatically regarded as “good” at what you are doing and feted for that.  Relativity indeed, but surely not as the estimable Einstein theorized the matter a century ago.  Quite a shame when you stop to think about it, but in the big scheme of things culture shapes us; we don’t shape culture.

• ……I was sure he was gonna die last night, but I prayerfully had another whole day with him today. A whole day of companionship.  A whole day of sharing the sublimity of consciousness.  A whole day of co-existing with a creature I love versus the backdrop of an endless Universe with no true beginning and no true end.  That’s worth something, isn’t it?  Actually, it’s worth a lot.  A helluva lot!!!  It means the world to me, just as each successive day that he continues to be alive will mean the world to me as well.  Life is lived in bits and pieces–in tantalizingly small fragments akin to slowly savoring your way through a package of M&Ms–and every additional fragment that I can get with him now and over the next handful of days–however small and however short-lived those turn out to be–will warm my soul and feel like an earthshaking moral victory…..