Category Archives: Life

A-Z Challenge: O is for Options

Posted on April 17, 2013 by Raymond Alexander Kukkee
© by Raymond Alexander Kukkee [caption id="attachment_1285" align="aligncenter" width="771"]gt Triumph Model H c. 1914 with Wicker Sidecar Triumph Model H   circa 1914 with Wicker Sidecar  [/caption] O is for Options As human beings, we are offered options in life, with minor and major choices to be made, but do you cleverly and consistently choose the best ones?  Why are options so important? Perhaps your options become apparent best,  first thing in the morning. Let's call the boss and tell him we quit.   It's a sunny day.  Get it?  Too nice to be in a stuffy office.  Oops, Perhaps you are now no longer employed, having  exercised the option to take the rest of your life off,  awaken the mind and quit the skull-grinder of a job.  You now have the option of schmoozing all day instead, getting creative,  going back to bed, or heading off into the sunrise on the old Harley  Triumph with your trusty pooch and that  beautiful, red-hot mama in the sidecar.

Destinations are Options

Let's choose California. Destinations are always options.   Take lunch.  That's always an option too.  Camping gear.  No wonder we like camping better.  You're in control now, having chosen an option.  On this exciting day, maybe you'll be driving the sidecar eyes wide shut  in white-knuckle fear, or  catching Z's  instead, depending on the exciting ride and options the better half offers you as she pushes your Harley Triumph down the Interstate toward fame and fortune, speedometer  at the max.  The option to get famous  fast is one of the best parts of life,  isn't it? As writers we can choose to write haiku,   A to Z bits,  nursery rhymes, children's books,  commercial copy,  custom niche articles, poetry that fails to rhyme or not,- or we can exercise the option to write the Great American novel.  Canadian, that is, as identified  on  my options list. Might that be a bucket list?  We may choose to write lists  too. We have options which make life interesting --and  are life itself. No matter. We have the wind at our our backs. It seems we've chosen  A -Z  temporarily. Riding the sidecar with the eyes and mouth  shut. Avoiding bugs.  Maybe daydreaming, a basket case.  The muse riding in a speeding hand-basket to hell?   No matter. The whole day will be a Triumph. hm.... Better than any old Harley.     It's a great day regardless.  The tires on the bike are round, 'O'  is a nice round letter,  and what goes 'round' comes 'round'.    "Triumphantly".....  We announce to the world, we're up next;   options ride  with us.  That's why "O" is for Options. Is that Incoming I hear?   photo credit: A.R. Pingstone  Wikimedia Commons +
Posted in Life, Reflections, Writing Life | 6 Comments

A-Z Challenge: N is for Nostalgia

Posted on April 16, 2013 by Raymond Alexander Kukkee
© 2013  Raymond Alexander Kukkee [caption id="attachment_1010" align="alignleft" width="300"]Briton Riviere 'The Old Gardener' Briton Riviere 'The Old Gardener'[/caption] N is for Nostalgia.   The good old days. Times past.  " Back in the old days we..." How many times have you reflected, remembered better days, happier times? Nostalgia offers the poignant remembrance that social values appear to have changed. "Society is different. Civilization and humanity itself has somehow changed."

Changed for the Better? Is It Changed at All?

Today it is easy to sit back in sorrow, listening to tragic events unwinding in appalling news, -and dwell in the confines of nostalgia.   It is easy to conclude that yes, life seemed better 'in the old days', life was 'safer', and  more 'family-oriented'. People seemed more kind and more helpful to one another, society seemed gentler. White picket fences. Mom & Pop corner stores.  Happy children. Afternoon matinees with popcorn and  a soda at the ice cream shop. The illusion of 'the good life'  lived on happily-perhaps dangerously and naively  so. World War II was finished and life was 'peaceful'.   Is nostalgia itself deceiving us?

Yes, Nostalgia is Easy-But  It is also Easy to be Disillusioned and  Wrong.

Life was easy and  better then.    Easy right into into Korea.  Vietnam.  Somalia. Easing right into  Bosnia, the Gulf Wars, 9/11,  terrorism,  Iraq.  Afghanistan. Close your eyes, ignore reality, flash forward, to  better times and let's just skip those endless, terrible events.  'Life's better now."    Right. In today's world  Iran is threatening peace in the Middle East, secular unrest everywhere is rampant and unpredictable,  and North Korea's bluster  is threatening nuclear annihilation of the USA. Horrific terrorist acts by fanatics with their own deadly agenda, like yesterday's insanity of bombing of innocents at the Boston Marathon Bombing, madmen shooting children at Sandy Hook,  and Columbine, --and endless other venues keep happening. It is incredibly sad to hear of beloved, 8-year-old children being victims of fanatic terrorists in any venue.   Death, mayhem and destruction today may suddenly make the past appear more peaceful, --but in reality it was not. These cowardly and inexcusable incidents and attacks upon the innocent are unbelievably sad, terribly tragic to families of those lost, maimed and  injured--and frightening to the ever more wary, scared, and nervous public.  Our hearts and prayers go out to our American neighbours.  These incidents will never be forgotten-they are printed indelibly on the minds of children and adults alike--worldwide, all of humanity. Senseless acts such as these, regardless of venue and detail, are rooted in evil and madness. We poignantly wish to somehow distance our minds from the pain and evil of today, and slip into nostalgia, the "perfect peace of older times". We willingly disillusion ourselves. If one questions the reality that is the imaginary past --so easily contrived with the art of nostalgia --was civilization any better?  No. Is this time in history really changed for the 'better' --or worse --if at all ? No. We think not. The same elements of collective human insanity exist. Genocide, murder, war, bombings, rape, and the warmonger's disruption of peace. The venues may change but  the foolishness,  violence and insanity of humanity does not.  The same insatiable greed, stupidity, and foolishness exists.  Social problems continue to receive the same unacceptable lip service. The same brutality, animalistic behaviour, pervasive hate and racism are 'alive and well'.   Wars and mind-chilling rumors of the ultimate war persist.  The grip of perpetual and progressively worse fear is endlessly encouraged to invade the psyche, encouraging the belief that the events of today are somehow so much  worse than the past.  Instil more fear. Frightened people are easier to control by power-hungry governments.  There is nothing new under the sun. We must come to understand . Only the names of the victims change.  A quantum leap in the way society thinks and develops is required. As an aside, it seems to me that one fact of nostalgia itself remains constant.           In reality, the victims of  nostalgia are all of us. Collectively.   That is why N is for nostalgia.   Is that Incoming I hear/ Photo credit:   Briton Riviere: 'The old gardener'    Wikimedia commons +  
Posted in Humanity, Life, Major Issues, Reflections, The Unknown | Tagged , , , | 9 Comments