Thoughts, perceptions, and how our world changes through them.

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I think, from time to time, about what I used to think about. Sometimes I can put myself into those moments and think the same thoughts, sometimes I can only view the memories vividly without being able to become the remembered thinker, explorer, or such. Some of those thoughts from memory seem so foreign. I wonder at how I could have believed that the government would help everybody and be good by it’s own nature, I cannot be sure. Perhaps I had mistakenly thought of the government as a person at a time when I believed in people for their own sakes. Perhaps I had just been told that by all of the Democrats around me. Or, maybe, it was too uncomfortable to think that my government could be bad, being as small, weak, and powerless as I was. But this is just an example of many such thoughts.

I see through my ages that I have discovered, accepted, reconsidered, and abandoned a host of thoughts regarding every subject under the sun and many which are beyond the realm of even the universe as we know it. I have struggled, wrestling with notions of self, others, right, wrong, and the rest. I have always been certain that there is a better way, a meaning to goodness, and the existence of evil. But I have never been able to find a perfect or absolute notion of reality. And, at each age, my notions have changed, in what I hope has been the magic of growth created by a concentrated and unflinching search for truth.

In remembering these things I have no option but to be patient where I can be. Some evil must be thwarted, with my life, if necessary. And yet, poor decisions and thinking by others must be borne, to some degree, in the hope that they too will find their way. I cannot, in most cases, remain quiet when asked or confronted. What I can do is use prudence to offer possibilities, to plant seeds which might mature into something greater, and to gently offer what I am more sure of or the sources of my surety, as so many have done for me.

I have so much more growth potential. I am still small and weak, at times. And no matter how well I gain a footing, I know I am an amateur in navigating life and I will remain so until my death. I will never reach the goal. If I can learn how to most properly use the crutches around me, knowing when and how to use those tools to get what needs to be done completed in their times, that will be as good as it gets. All of those strange or still familiar thoughts and perceptions of the world around me have lead me not to greatness, power, and wealth, but to a humility of living that I feel graced to know.

It has been a wonderful life. I have met and love so many people, and have been so many people. I see that in the eyes of many, though not all, around me. Within each person is a thousand people they were and a million people they could have become. But also, before me, each time, is one special being. A man or woman, unlike any animal, who has become something unique and perhaps special through a thousand, perhaps a thousand thousand, sets of thoughts, decisions, and hope. Not only is it a grace to exist and to be who I am, it is often even more of a grace to touch the lives of those around me.

Doh! Reading her makes me do this! Though some of you all reach in and rend writing, thought, and considerations from me. Your sentiments and sensibilities are not lost here, on me, even if we disagree… mostly. :p