H is for HOW as in ... HOW is the word that HAUNTS HUMANITY

 

D.G. Hudson is interviewing me in Meilori's this Monday!

http://dghudson-rainwriting.blogspot.com/

 

 

"There are only two or three human stories,

and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before,

like the larks that have been singing the same five notes for thousands of years.”

- Willa Cather 

{Angel of Death courtesy of the genius of Leonora Roy}

HOW is one of the notes that repeatedly haunt humanity throughout history. 

But then, doesn't the history of every country begin

in the heart of one man or one woman?

And HOW is the persistent refrain within that heart.

No matter the specific HOW TO question of the moment,

the bottom line to it is HOW CAN I BE HAPPY?

It is feckless question really.  

You can't divine nor forecast the conditions that will make happiness.  

You only stumble upon them by chance, in a lucky hour, at the world's end somewhere,

and hold fast to the days until they are no more.

Eventually, if you live long enough, suffer wisely enough, you realize that even in happy families there is this double life:

 the group life, which is the one we can observe in our neighbour’s household, and,

underneath, another – secret and passionate and intense –

which is the real life that stamps the faces and gives character to the voices of our friends.

Always in his mind each member of these social units is escaping, running away,

trying to break the net which circumstances and his own affections have woven about him/her.

You one day realize that human relationships are the tragic necessity of human life-

 that they can never be wholly satisfactory,

that every ego is half the time greedily seeking them,

and half the time pulling away from them.

In those simple relationships of loving husband and wife, affectionate sisters, brothers, children and grandmother,

there are innumerable shades of sweetness and anguish which make up the pattern of our lives day by day. 

Until the countless paths ahead become only one as we turn around and see the solitary winding road of our life.

{Only solitary men know the full joys of friendship.

Others have their family; but to a solitary man and an exile, his friends are everything.}