Thoughts on the coming Autumn

Overlook at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park, Traverse City, Michigan.

Summer has ended and Autumn is upon us.  More so than the Winter, I become more pensive, introverted, and perhaps... regretful.  I regret the passing of the seasons.  It's a reminder that most of what I wanted to accomplish in the warmth of the sun went undone.  We traveled, yes.  We worked and played and had our long days and warm nights, but there is always more to be done and the hard realization comes like an old ache, I am letting life pass me by all too easily.  The river of time becomes like a lullaby, drifting from dream to dream, filling us with a drowsy pleasurable feeling that lets us forget that sooner than we think, the river will dry up and the race will be run.  My passive nature, my lack of ambition, comes glaring into focus during the changing seasons.  With the cold coming in, the memories of spring and summer still alight, I see myself on a couch, wasting such precious time, wasting my mind away, living a vicarious life, letting myself get bored and loathing the ennui.  I feel like I've been quite properly subjugated!

Seek the beauty, not the truth

Changes are coming soon.  I am too much of a dreamer.  I've let my muscles atrophy and the world has grown into this burning Giant, seething with energy while I admire it from the distant hills.  This path that I'm on, this path of acquiescence, leads to only one destination... Cynicism.  And I hate cynics.  The cynic is the apathetic among us.  The cynic is a person who cannot find any redeeming qualities in the world of men - he hates!  He is the one who has bought the myth of Eden hook and line, who knows the world was better before, worse now, and doomed eventually.  Will he offer his mentorship?  Will he affect change? No.  He will sit in his unhealthy chair and await a miserable end.  And I will not let that be me.  It's the world I love.  It's this grand river!  Optimism is the righteous reward for keeping a free mind and an open heart.  I wish... I wish I wish I wish... I could get back all those wasted minutes, but this life is a miracle, our consciousness is a gift, and our minds can change without any pain.  So the lessons of time are very harsh, and age comes creeping like carrying a water urn that fills drip by drip, until the burden becomes too heavy.  But I must endure, because there is a happiness to be found by living a true and full life.  I've made such bad choices in my life, I've avoided trying anything because it's much easier to just float along.  I can see now that we are all born to strive- to walk forward.  So I will stop this meaningless pursuit of lost minutes, and instead lean into the wind.