Les McElroy told me just before hanging up the phone, “Mind your own business!”

This is the best advice I have ever been given.

Later, the addendum was, “And get to know what your business is…”

Your circle can get small when you mind your own business. You stop trying to save the world. You become smaller to right sized.

I watch these justice warriors today and wonder whether they will ever be told or how long their careers will be, and then I remember…

It’s none of my business.

I was broke at the beginning.

In the middle was just bent.

On the horizon is the ending.

And the kid was heaven sent.

All tallied, I owe nothing.

There are demons at the door.

And I sleep with peace descending.

No regrets or want for more.

I left the road for; I don’t know…

I just can’t remember what.

There was something about a bungalow.

Where all doors were sealed shut.

Saw some things you can’t unsee.

Still, others’ beauty froze.

The businessmen were gripped by need.

Put the profits up their nose.

Down trodden are filled with sorrow.

Don’t know which wolf to feed.

To survive? Beg, steal, or borrow.

Some say love is all you need.

I fell out of love by mid-day.

The snow was white and fast.

There was crunching in the footsteps.

All the praise for cold had passed.

I was huddled with my cafe cream.

I was braced at distant storm.

Then I remembered that you weren’t here.

Once again, my heart did warm.

The lessons aren’t as frequent now. However, when they come, they really break through…

This one is about embracing one’s fate with grace. It seems strange at first, but this is no longer new; I am old.

This is not about dying or death for me. It’s  about living with the shame of not being young or beautiful. It’s not my shame. It’s my child’s shame. How quickly I’ve gone from being the cool artistic writer filmmaker Dad to, “I’m ashamed of you!” All stemming from that well of adolescent peer shaming bullying that the liberals have failed to eradicate from the schools, despite the glossy brochures to the contrary.

Fredrick N. said amor fati; or love your fate. Drax said in Guardian of the Galaxy: “When you’re ugly and people love you, you know it’s real. Beautiful people never know who to trust.”

Finally, the 2 great philosophers of our time in 1 sentence; Nietzsche and Drax the Destroyer!

My fate is that I love my child despite the fact that she is ashamed of me. I never saw that one coming. The laughs just keep on coming!

Life is great like that! Full of surprises.

I thought I would make a difference.

Ah! The follies of youth and ideology.

Now I see my irrelevance.

Powerless perpetuity.

I don’t fight this urge to matter anymore.

I have a new urge.

To experience life with total awareness and zero need to influence anyone.

I will just watch and write.

It has come to this.

Being alone

Is like nothing else

Incompatible…

You discover things there.

That you couldn’t possibly know in any other universe.

Posers lack that desire.

I say, “I don’t care bout the little things.” But mostly, it’s what I do.

I try hard not to say too much. Because really, not much of it is true.

Damaged from pain, hard living.  So much is rotten to the core.

If I cared about the little things. Then you’d be knocking at my door.

There’s no hope, no silver linings. There’s no possibility for truths.

I was taught by all those scallywags. Changing costumes in phonebooths.

There are lessons in the darkness. There are rules no one adheres.

We don’t care about the little things. We smile brightly, don’t talk of fears.

The last drink I don’t remember.

It was twenty years ago.

I marked the date, the first of September.

Where when who? I don’t know.

The last drink it was a blessing.

Many truths I had to face.

There was no knowing only guessing.

Did the future have a place.

For me and my uncertainties.

For me and mine and yours.

Apparently, in the land and seas.

There are ways and even cures.

The last drink I used to speak of.

In the meetings in the pain.

Between whispers and the search for love.

There’s no going back again.

I think that there are reasons.

And much that I don’t know.

I have this thing this fear of God.

In this story, tell, don’t show.