50 Years and Up

“There have always been a limited amount of human beings.”

(A quote by the Native Indian Chief spoken to his adopted grandson, played by Dustin Hoffman, in the great western classic, ‘Little Big Man.’ This is a film you must see!)

Abraham Maslow coined the term the ‘Self Actualized.’

Abraham Maslow found in his research in the 1950’s and 60’s that self-actualized happy, creative type people represent only 3% of the population. See Maslow’s book, “Towards a Psychology of Being,” first published in 1962.

Age fifty, or anywhere near it, is a great place to be in life. By then you’ve had some real-life experiences. You’ve been able to shirk off, caterpillar-like, some of that bulky ‘stuff’ your parents and schools forced upon you, and maybe, if you were blessed, you had the rare opportunity to become one of Maslow’s ‘Self-Actualized’ people.

Even rarer still, if you were super blessed, somehow the father of modern poetry, Charles Pierre Baudelaire, found you in his one line, “be drunk with wine, virtue or poetry, whatever you please, but throw off the chains and martyrdom of time and be free.” Become a part of your personality also. If you were like most of us with career, marriage, kids, failures and successes, and maybe a few mentors, it surely was not a cakewalk.

But perhaps now, around the age of fifty, the chance is upon you. One employee of mine, who had two teenage children and a wife at the time, told me that 1% of the week was fun for him. Yes, only 1%. My God, I truly felt sorry for him and hope he got out of it without suffering a heart attack.

Perhaps now it is your time to bloom by finally getting your long awaited wish of getting laid in the back seat of a car; or buying that Mustang convertible you’ve been dreaming about for decades; or moving, yes moving, but where to go?

How about moving to a place that has golf, tennis, pickle-ball, fishing, yoga, swimming pools, bars, restaurants, archery, boccie ball, libraries, high- and low-end shopping, all kinds of social, religious, dance and learning opportunities? These amenities are just moments from your home or condo by golf cart, bicycle, car, or short walks. There is also music playing in restaurants and town squares daily, concerts by Andrea Bocelli and other superstars, as well as off-campus vacations around the world. ‘The Villages,’ located in Central Florida between Tampa and St. Augustine, with new construction, offers what was described above. I call it ‘The Club Med for Adults.’ You can obtain information from Google or at ‘The Villages.com.’ You can also rent a villa for a long weekend or for a week at a very reasonable rate to try out this lifestyle.

Enjoy! Become like Maslow, self-actualized, or like Baudelaire, be free! Do this for at least one week. You deserve it!

ATONEMENT

Ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny
wave particle as one
I am you, you are me, we are one
together
together
time past
time future
all now
ageless wisdom
from those who came to visit
to share
for us to know
what we always knew
for us to understand
what they came to know

what they came for
to remember for us all
for us to remember also.
What shall we do with this? Wrap it in a box?
Hide it in a closet? Put it in the attic or
cellar or throw it out with the garbage?
And is it possible for us to have it
if we do not take some time to receive it
if we do not give ourselves the benefit of the doubt.
What is the meaning of this
(if it contains any meaning at all)
of this we take a New York Minute
for perhaps an ah, ah moment.
****
Round about
1905
radical newness emerging

E=MC SQUARED

Einstein laying the wiring then of our cell phone now

THAT COUCH

Freud showing us why we know not what we do

A NUDE DESCENDING A STAIRCASE

Abstract Expressionism drawing us inward
beyond paint and canvas
All these presents of the present
under the Holy Holiday Tree.
Remember the joy you had when you were
two years old
when you were three and four
remember
remember
for there was a joy in coming to being
oh, there was joy
and....and

then what happened
what happened?
A glitch
a glitch in the matrix
as usual
too much awareness
too much light at once
we needed to shut our eyes from the brightness
we needed a coffee break
the switch was turned on without enough warning
and we did
we needed to at the time
we needed to shut our eyes for a moment only
a siesta moment, and we did.
To what?
(oh my friend, how can we put this answer to words)
we can’t
nightmares always remain impressions

death is always abstract
(until perhaps our own)
we can’t
we can’t.
The impossible always remains the impossible
no matter how hard we try.
it was a time
a time that made all other times seem not so bad
a time when God blinked, and we were blinded.
World War I
Depression
World War II
The Holocaust
Nagasaki and Hiroshima
9-11
and much more
oh much, much, more

Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Ukraine
we all came of age with them
we left our innocence behind with them.
Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot and all the others
we skinned our knee on the sidewalk
we fell off the bicycle
the training wheels came loose
we fell down
we split our fragile arm.
They split the atom
the genie’s bottle broken
not for the restoration of life
but for the burning of a Japanese infant
coming forth
halfway out the womb
umbilical cord still attached
we fused that infant into lava rock.
it happened to each of us

universally
we all received this totally
a third chromosome.
****
Envisioning alternatives
let’s let our imagination soar
Shakespeare did, Einstein did, eagles do it
so could we
we could have refused IBM and Mercedes and all
the rest
we could have said no to this profit option
to Wall Street & London
we could have said hell no
and because we didn’t
we got hell in return.
For who can kill without a bullet
who can incinerate without a systems program

who could bomb without the oil to fly.
I don’t recall the Nazis having any oil of their own.
Do you?
A collective-unconscious-mind-set-software-
program-of-miscreating.
An ancient archetypal pattern that fosters a thought
that begins an action
(for the thought is indeed father of the deed)
and all based on one insane acceptance
only one
that anyone wins in war
that anyone wins by war!
* * * *
The Jews (the ones who are left)
got some of their art back
(and good on them).

I want .001% of the profits of BP oil from those wars
and you deserve .001% also
we all do I say, and why?
For stealing our birthright of joy
joy to the world.
Can joy and war exist together?
Can they?
(and don’t mention the after-quake)
They stole our joy!
And in its place, they gave us a tsunami of insanity.
Let’s reconvene the world court.
Let’s have some real justice for once.
Let’s invite God/Goddess to be the judge.
Let’s let those eleven million, and the innocents
of Nagasaki and Hiroshima be the jury.
Let’s give the past some restitution.

Baptism for soul.
Confirmation of love.
To show us another way,
a better option.
****
Round about
1960
a Renaissance for our time
an Enlightenment
and still going on.
Yes, some books will still be burned
some will perish prematurely
but nothing major.
For what is God/Goddess
if not instant communication
of truth unfolding

within the internet
molecularly flowing in social media
(yes, most of it hidden, but still there)
(for those who want to see)
(for those who traded ‘sight’ for ‘vision’)
(for those with courageous balls).
What else need be said than
we have nothing to fear but fear itself,
ask not what your country can do for you
but what you can do,
I have a dream,
and
all that need happen for evil to come about
is that good men and women do nothing,
and
forgive your brother 7 x’s 70 x’s 700.
What else need be said my friend?
Quantum bells ring softly for all

and though only few choose to hear
all are called
all will eventually hear
all are called
to stem cell research curing every disease
(weren’t we all called to a polio vaccine)
to cell phones leaving no one isolated
to blogs and podcasts saying to international media
(you guys missed this story, again).
Gee whiz GE & ABC
who’s holding you accountable, gee whiz.
All are called
eventually
all will hear.
Black slaves heard it, repressed women heard it,
closeted gays heard it.
mothers of school children heard it,

and Thank God/Goddess they acted on it!
The perfect melody of that chord of 1905
becoming symphonic in the 1960s
our very own Renaissance.
And even now
(though dams are being attempted to shut the flow)
we need only know
(as they know)
as ideology is chosen over truth,
that ‘that’ is the center that will not hold.
Water and air will gently flow for grass to grow
for minds to imagine
for hearts to beat one passion
for spirit to awaken to
at-one-with-my
rich/poor/ignorant/genius/holy/insane/dis-eased
brother and sister, and you and me.

For all of us to not only imagine
but to know
to act
to act with only
‘at-one-with’
in mind.
****
How do we accomplish this?
As they who knew implored us to know.
To forgive.
Forgive who?
Everyone!
Especially ourselves.
especially ourselves.
For what?
For what we thought silently about
for what we always knew, but never said.

Listen to this article

ATONEMENT

E=MC SQUARED

THAT COUCH

A NUDE DESCENDING A STAIRCASE

What did this idea move in you?