Sol's Inner Vault

Reflection time. Do I hash this out every year ending to self punish, or encourage, or take some other count? Not sure, but it feels like a requisite process that must be some form of healing, or mending all the unforeseeable hurts and surprises of the past dozen months. Perhaps each time I'm looking for purpose, or reason to count up all my blessings. There are always more to realize. It was a year of profound and consequential change, inevitable maturing, and generational shift. To our amazement, our boy turned twenty-one, truly a child no more. Personally, my own progress as a human being doesn't impress me. This year, I still worried too much, reacted to too much, and definitely another year of just thinking too much. Overthinking isn't good. Neither is emotion controlling the moment when it's unimportant.  Still room for so much improving, fine tuning, and just learning more. Maybe that's next year's theme: more discovery, being simply kinder.

For most of an entire summer vacation, I was brave Green Lantern. Green outfit, big green ring. I dutifully memorized and faithfully invoked the ring's secret oath every day, recharging its consequential power over uncool evil doers and such. Many innocent lives were saved around the apartments, my neighbors were safe and grateful.  But, I also had a close second DC Comics hero, favorite for a reason. Batman, unique among his mighty colleagues, had no superpowers! Along with his partner Robin, the Caped Crusader won his Gotham City missions without any magic, metaphysics, or otherworld tricks. And, as every DC diehard knows, Green Lantern and Batman just didn't really get along, although they did team up together many times. So, what did Batman have? Six major attributes taken to the very highest  levels of accomplishment:  - Martial arts expertise. - Gadgets and high-tech.  - Stealth and surveillance. - Strategic thinking. - Superior intellect. - Athleticism and agi...

Everything vibrates by frequency. Everything in the universe has the same vexing challenge: distance. We don't see the silent splendor. We don't feel the furious drama. Every thought is fully recorded.  All memory is retained and stored. There is this one single moment. Perception of time is an illusion. The illusion of time is all-powerful. Space expands faster and faster. But, all that doesn't matter when  I can not see this world revolving. I'm just outside walking my dog.

We can not always know who or what the teachers or lessons are. Some of what I learned early, still learning a half century later, a short and consequential list: Courage, the rarest of qualities. A hateful lie may live forever. Rage is every man's Kryptonite. Generosity can be swindled. Reason, the refuge from chaos. All have an unassailable core. Age, a number; attitude, timeless. Teachers and lessons come from both losses and gains, times of turmoil or calm, all unannounced, becoming the basis of experience. This daily instruction never ends.