I don’t write in a journal everyday, but I have accumulated many entries over the past 50+ years beginning in 1966. Some items evolved into longer works. Among the leftovers little pieces survived. I thought a collection of these with a piece culled from the same date in a past year would make an interesting yearbook. The consistencies and inconsistencies of mind, skipping back and forth across time, provide varied perspectives. It is difficult to remember the context of the past we’ve lived; we also make suppositions about times that predate ourselves.

The few alterations from original drafts were to improve clarity. The worst of my work is not included. There remains enough mediocrity and immaturity to make me feel humble and you feel smart. There are also moments of accidental insight and incidental humor.

Author Stephen Crane referred to his little pieces as pills…apparently they were small and somewhat hard to swallow, but good for you.


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Tuesday, October 18, 2022

If you work hard at having a peaceful life

 

October 18, 2017  (I was 72)

 

If you work hard at having a peaceful life

work through conflict with compromise

sell at a fair price and buy at the same

give away knowledge for friendship

praise skill wherever you encounter it

try to find comfort in humility

recognize the grief in others’ loss

share what you have before it spoils

make no commitments you cannot keep

fulfill promises with dedicated effort

your life will lack the drama people read about

and you’ll be granted the joys of anonymity

by other anonymous persons

 

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