Frankl's Search for Meaning - A Whale of a Tail

    Most psychoanalysts and psychotherapists are pretty good. They help us heal, or deal and cope with mental and emotional issues that can pester or plague us.

    Reading this book, "Man's Search for Meaning", has been good for me. It has been good for millions of others, including my daughter, who recommended that I read it. Finally. I first would hear about it in talks at church growing up, perhaps referred to over the pulpit dozens of times over the years and decades. Maybe Oprah on TV and others have praised it as well. Movies, speakers, radio folks... Perhaps.

    This book, this man, this thinker, this survivor, is well worth listening to. Ponder and follow his advice, his counsel and therapy. His words are edifying, and MEANINGFUL.

    I could say more.

    I will hold off now. I wish to see references to him in LDS (Church of Jesus Christ) General Conference talks.

    Peace, and RIP Mr. Frankl.

 People in Uniform are Supposed to Help

    This thought occurred to me a few days ago. Or a week ago, same difference. There are complaints about some who wear various uniforms, be they police or military, doctors or nurses. All types of uniforms.

    A friend and client, if you will, used to come to our old house, on our smaller cul-de-sac not too far away, and pick up his son; sometimes I saw him wearing a collar shirt with his company logo on it. A uniform, conveying the message of his company and business, yes?

    Now we have all types of delivery service folks, starting with the U.S. postal service, to UPS (United Parcel Service), to Amazon Prime, which delivered a healing device to our home the other day, to others... FedEx, sure. A multiplicity of others. All competing for that business. In uniform.

    There are public servants in uniform, but there are privateers as well. The privateers of yesteryear are no longer called so. When did that go out of style? Now, do we call them contractors? Or sub-contractor? Almost like the guy who gets on a fishing vessel for the summer in Alaska? Is that the modern day privateer?

    Commercial fisherman where a sort of uniform, but perhaps not as rigidly uniform as other companies and organizations. It depends, I suppose, on the vision and protocols of the group. Some commercial fleets likely have their sailors and boat crews wear uniforms..

    How many people work on the seas?

    How many, or what percentage, wear uniforms? 

    And, what of these police that roam our streets and by ways? And what of the National Guard soldiers, now walking and talking in the streets of our capital, who look to go into the dangerous parts of Chicago, where murder is a norm, even to a bigger degree than D.C.?

    How do uniforms affect society? They should help, yes? Of course.

    The Israeli Defense Forces of the Holy Land are not helpful to many Palestinians. Of which, not just non-uniformed militants of Hamas, but nurses and doctors and emergency response workers who normally wear uniforms, even dozens upon dozens of journalists, who likely have a type of clothed or gear uniformity, are being killed by the other side.

    People in uniform kill other people in uniform. That is called war, typically. Like Russia and Ukraine. But plenty of civilians are dying too, which is sometimes an accident, and sometimes shamefully purposeful.

    And on that note, there are violent protests in Nepal because some videos were seen of some of them living opulently, so the normal poor folk went out to demand their taxes back.

    The uniforms versus the non-uniforms.

    Who is wrong and right?

    We cannot always say.

 A Million Coal Miners Died for You and Me

    They worked the black seam, together, as Sting sang in his first solo album.

    Some might say they were working for their own self interest, for their own selfish desires of putting food on their plates. But in the bigger sense, they were mining the black pits and holes of England or elsewhere for energy that pushed and built up the infrastructure of our world, from London to Surrey (wherever that is), to Brighton, the beach where my son was watching feats of parkour type display, to Birmingham and Leeds and other industrial spots and centers, over to the Low Countries where the Dutch and the Belge (sp.?) made their iron works and smelted fires, to help build up the earth through ships and machines and edifices, surely.

    All of the ants of the earth, from the United States to Brazil to Russia and Japan, sacrificed their lungs and souls to extract this pollutable (not a word, but should be) rock, possibly bituminous, to feed the engines of our planet to get where we are today.

    My UCLA professor Bell wondered how much of the wealth of Britain came from the back sweat (my word) of the Latinos and Caribbean  peoples over the centuries. Yeah, sure.

    "Your economic theories make no sense." Quotes Sting. Gordan Sumner, is that his real name?

    What is your real name? It is real, surely.

    Like the words I type now.

    I type, virtually.

    So, what of those coal miners. (?) Some lived to be old. Others died prematurely. They all worked for the greater good. Do we believe that, from Adam Smith to Karl Marx?

    Discuss.

    "Power was to become cheap and clean." Goes the song.

    We all pay today, everyday. More and more energy and power. Some of us profit from it. We gas up our vehicles, we run all the devices and motors in our homes, such as air for the outside and the coolers of the refrigerators. The ovens, both convection and microwave. I used my printer a few times yesterday. The tone ink is getting low, it says.

    Thanks, coal miners. For finding and moving the energy towards us. The consumers.

    We, the ones living cancer-free in 2025, basking in electricity that comes from our wall sockets, as the car powered by a chord I saw under the late summer moon last night, walking with my wife in the cool suburban streets.

    Less fossil, more clean.

    As I play another round of chess with a random player from... Ghana.

    All this energy. Millions had to suffer and die, (okay, they did not have to, but it happened), to get to where we are today.

    So, thank you coal workers. All energy workers, everywhere. The engineers, the scientists, the laborers.

    We all have amounted to something.

    Do  you think?

    

 It Happened Before

    Just because something has happened before, does it make it more likely to happen again?

    Falling in love, falling out. It can happen once. Or twice.

    It can happen again.

    We are merely mortal and human.

    When I was 22. When I was 25. 

    Not great feelings. 28 was different, the feelings were different.

    

    Who are we, in the end? Do we learn, do we grow?  We must.

    We must.

 What to Do?

    What to do

    

    What to say

    What to think

    What to pray

    

    How we think

    What we say

    How we dance

    How we pray

    How did I find you?

    How did I whoo you?

    How did I lose you?

    How can I win you?

    Have I lost?

    Are we adrift?

    What have I done?

    What have I missed?

    Alas. I must continue to seek you.

    Love.

 Another Song About You

    I heard so many of those songs all my life

    I did not memorize many

    But the themes and the tunes became part of my heart

    My soul

    I knew some people, here and there, from far and wide.

    Years of knowing, smiling, sharing, imparting, 

    Then, I met you.

    Did I know at that time that all the songs had you in it?

    How was I to know?

    The ecstatic love, the bluesy days, and the long lonely nights?

    The jealous lover, the rejected pretender, the down on his luck anti-hero?

    The rager, the rocker, the notes taker,

    The monster, the rake, the heart breaker.

    All of them you.

    With me.

    Or without me.

    Like Bono sings with U2.

    Or Carly Simon, or James Taylor, or Cat Stephens.

    Billy Joel and Elton John.

    The illustrious Beatles.

    Prince, Michael Jackson, the Marvelous Mighty Supremes.

    Every genre, even the classical and baroque.

    

    I cannot escape it.

    I suffer from accumulation disease.

    The experiences and memories pile up

    The good and the bad

    The ridiculous and sublime

    The awful and awesome

    The sweet and the sour

    Those crazy tunes we heard once

    The favorite ballad we heard hundreds of times

    The Piano Man

    And on

    The raps (okay, not a ton of them), the country twangs and longings,

    The romantic Latin love songs

    All the time-worn rock ballads

    Folk song nostalgia 

    Since there was you...

    Here is another.

    Like the one you dedicated to me after I returned

    From the war zone.

    All our kids in tow.

    That song was you.

    Perhaps some people disassociate all the music that they know from the people that they have known.

    I cannot.

    They are inextricably, irrevocably, unabashedly intertwined.

    The music is you.

 Believing in God in Our Trials

    Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph. They made it through huge challenges and trials. With their wives and their families.

    Moses and the Twelve Tribes went through generations of sore and hard trials, but they still worshipped God and eventually were blessed. Servitude and bondage are unimaginably hard trials, for a whole people! They had to wander and then battle for the lands of their inheritance.

    David and his son Solomon wrote most of the Proverbs and Psalms. Adages and songs praising God and looking to Him as a source of strength and wisdom, peace and hope.

    Others of the scriptures do the same, as of course the Greatest One, Jesus Christ.

    Then we should do so, too.

    We must continue to believe and act in faith and hope. Not be extreme, as some close family warns against. Being extreme makes others feel awkward or shamed, or perhaps that overall vibe is not conducive to how Jesus Himself would be. 

    What would Jesus do? How can we know? We have to do our best, and much of it is intuition and making our best choices. Of course we come up short, none of us are the best. 

    We try. We try staying steadfast (a word that the Pastor Geovanni used when preaching from James 1: 1-12 last Sunday at the Baptist Church in Leesburg) in our faith and commitment to our Lord.

    He rules and reigns, therefore we can and should put our faith in Him.

    We all have trials. Some of them are emotional, some are spiritual, some are financial and professional. We see cases where political and military, and of course weather events can greatly influence and be detrimental to peace and calm. On individual and collective levels we pass through trials.

    Sickness, death, money issues, work problems, neighbors or strangers that might hurt us, cause us harm. Do bosses, political leaders, those in power do us wrong sometimes? Co-workers and colleagues, family and friends can throw us off.

    All of the above people and things may offend us. We have to stay focused on faith and love, forbearance and strength. We have to forgive and receive forgiveness, be forgiven.

    Faith in the higher power, faith in the system of God and His creations. His plan.

    Plans for us. You and me.

    Our children and our children's children.

    We have come from a history of trials; we will go on engaging and overcoming.

    Is it through Christ? Is it by other means that we advance and conquer?

    We must decide and act accordingly. 

    Have faith in the greater power. Greater Power.

    The Lord of the Universe.

    Does He have a body? Does He have parts and passions?

    To most Jewish, Christians, and Muslims, whether He has one form or another is not the point, as it may be a sticking point for some, but that God is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving, all-merciful.

    He has a plan or plans for His creations. Which is us.

    Plans for you and me.

    Do you believe? Can you believe? Will you act with faith to do what is right, and fulfill His will?

    What does he want? He wants us all to be joyful and prosper. Yet, there will be setbacks and injuries.

    I choose to believe. And act. May God permit me to accept and do His will.