Charlie Brown, Lucy and the Football

I think of myself as a sane person.

But then, Charlie Brown probably thought he was sane when every fall his thoughts turned to the glory of a magnificent kick into the end zone.  

Lured by Lucy's promise to hold the football so his fantasy can be fulfilled, time after time he falls into her trap and winds up on his backside.  Lucy is a master of deceit ingeniously finding new ways to be trusted.  Charlie Brown is starry-eyed, desperately wanting to believe her and live out his dream.  This gag went on year after year ... probably because we all recognize ourselves in the scenario.  Probably because we all think we're a little smarter than Charlie Brown and we won't fall for "it" one more time.

June 17th is my chosen "death day."  We all know and celebrate the day we are born but we don't know the day we will die.  So, I've chosen June 17th as my death day since it is half a year away from my birthday.  Every year I try to give up something that no longer serves me.  I've been trying to figure out what I'm going to let go of this year but finding it difficult to identify what needed to be released.  

Then the Universe revealed a pattern ... a pattern of trusting something or someone who has already proven to be a shimmering mirage ... a pattern of wishful thinking blocking my perception of reality.  

It's tricky ground though.  

As an advocate of possibility thinking, I believe things always live in the realm of the possible.  One day Lucy might actually choose to hold the football and Charlie Brown might actually get the kick of his dreams.  So that dance between being open to new outcomes and insanely expecting a different result from doing the same old thing can be a little toe tangling.  

I don't believe it's about giving up the dream ... but more a matter of creatively thinking about new ways to support it.  After all, Charlie Brown could have asked Linus to hold the football.  He could stop expecting Lucy to be someone she's not.  He could invent a remarkable new holder and kick footballs until his toes tingled.  He could patent it and become rich helping children across the world fulfill their own dreams of the perfect kick. ...

So, on this approach to the anniversary of my death day, I prepare to let go of misplaced trust ... but not the dreams behind it.

About this image:  Dreaming of Home

One of a new series of "glimpses."

Artist Influence Map

I discovered this exercise a few days ago and really enjoyed creating an influence map for myself.  If you would like to make your own, here's a link to a Photoshop template.


I'm going to create a Pinterest board of these so let me know if you make one.

Response to the Person Without Hope

It was one of those perfect mornings ... no wind, warm sun, blue skies and horses and riders on the beach to entertain flocks of photographers from two local photo clubs.  It's hard to imagine a more beautiful ... or a more hopeful day.  


Yet, when I returned to my car, there was a small, hand-written note taped to my door.  It read:

No, I don't have hope.  In the most evil, dishonest, corrupt and traitorous president and administration I have seen in my life.

And I have no hope in fools who cannot tell their left hand from their right hand.  "There are none so blind as those who refuse to see."

I have hope that soon you leftist communists will be no more and the world will not have to suffer under your lies and oppression.

I don't know who left the note but I've made some assumptions in my response to her, although I know there is virtually no possibility that she will ever see it.

Dear Without Hope:

You sound like a well-educated person whose life has not gone the way you wished or expected.  I am truly sorry that on this glorious day, on this beautiful beach, in this amazing country, you feel no hope.  If we were to meet in person, I would listen to your story and perhaps understand how our country has so disappointed and angered you.  

Somewhere in our past a great divide opened up among our people, a divide that has broken trust and dissolved our faith in our ability to work together for the common good of all.  We no longer think of ourselves as Americans one and all, us ... US ... the U.S. ... the United States ... but rather subdivisions of rightness or wrongness ... "they."  

"They" are Republicans, Democrats, liberals, conservatives, Tea Partiers, radicals, communists, fascists ... "they" are evil, stupid, corrupt, and tellers of lies.  It breaks my heart that, even though we have never laid eyes on each other, we cannot see ourselves as fellow citizens of a great country, citizens who might have differences of opinion but share a common heritage, culture and future.  It breaks my heart that so many of us have lost hope.

So, while we will not meet in person, I will hold hope for you, for me, for the rest of the people in our country and the world around us ... and for the common future that binds us all together.  May blessings come to us all.

The offending bumper sticker:

Ideas Not to Miss: $100 Graduate Degrees

What happens when a product becomes so expensive to buy 

that only the favored few can afford it?  

What if that too-expensive product also 

requires an enormous outlay 

of time and effort to even get to its distribution point?  

And, what if after all that expense and effort, 

the product itself doesn't do the job?

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that something is drastically wrong with our higher education system.  But it does take a genius to figure out a better way to deliver a cheap, effective process that allows open minds around the world to gain the knowledge they need to grapple with today's extremely complex problems.  Enter Sebastian Thrun ... Stanford professor, disrupter par excellence, inventor/champion of self-driven cars, Google fellow and developer of Udacity, where 23,000 students recently finished a course in artificial intelligence taught by Thrun and Google research chief Peter Norvig. 

Thrun believes that the very concept of degrees may evaporate as the idea of education as a "package" is replaced by a need for continuous learning.  Thrun's Udacity isn't the only online learning venture addressing this issue but all of the others are connected to major universities ... a help and a hindrance.  

Students want the credibility that comes from doing work under the auspices of a name-brand university and top professors.  But those universities have a lot of bricks and mortar to defend ... will they be able to see these new ventures as a natural evolution ... or will they water down the online offerings  in order to protect the expensive tuition-based programs already in place?  

If the experience of other industries holds, chances are the future of education is more likely in the hands of people like Thrun than in our heritage institutions such as Harvard.  It will be interesting to watch.

Great Forbes' article on Thrun and Udacity and the state of higher education:  

Expecting Growth

Gaultier Umbrella

"Not everything that can be counted counts 

and not everything that counts can be counted."

-- Albert Einstein

Yesterday, my friend Diane at Contemplative Photogrqphy talked about growth and it reminds me of one of my favorite books:  George Land's "Grow or Die."  Despite having a fog-factor of 37, it is a remarkable book proving the premise of its title.  Unfortunately, our measuring stick for growth is almost always:  bigger … more … most.  

And, since what can be measured … money, speed, time, grades, votes, square footage, and anything else that can be turned into numbers … is what we usually focus on to determine growth, we wind up in a numbers race.  Which leaves all those fuzzy, squishy things like love, relationship, joy, beauty, compassion and wisdom, truth, peace, justice and goodness left behind in the murky, unmeasurable "out there."

And, maybe that's good.  Can you imagine if the folks who designed "No Child Left Behind" got their hands on relationship … or beauty?  You must kiss your spouse four times per day and plant three azalea bushes (color balanced to coordinate with surroundings) in your front yard.  And, next year, because growth is good, you will increase those numbers to five for kisses and four for azaleas.

What interests me this morning with this idea of growth, however, is personal.  Having reached the age of "retirement" and official entrance into senior-dom, it seems as if the expectation of growth has ended.  The thought has occurred to me several times in the recent past that I could stop … just stop … and no one would reach out and shake me and say, "What's wrong with you?  Get off your butt and get going.  You've got things to do and worlds to conquer."  They would just nod, perhaps give me a gentle hug and murmur something about enjoying my golden years. Well, excuse me, but F**K that.

Until our ashes blow away over our favorite vista, we should be expected to grow.  The modes might change and maybe we'll move away from all the numbers games, but we need to expect ourselves and our fellow seniors to grow.  Regardless of our physical or economic condition, we can pour kindness and love into the world.  We can continue to learn and find new ways to experience joy.  We can expect ourselves to wake up each day and contribute our hard-won wisdom to the world in small ways or large.  

We can expect to be a force for good in the world.  Our generation started out thinking we could change the world … maybe we still will.  Perhaps it starts with expecting it.

Reflection of Time Past

An old memory surfaces

Throwing reflections across my heart

Then. Now. then. now. thennow it beats

until it becomes not time, notime, just is time.

nothing is ever lost

nothing is ever gained

all that is remains.

The Dancing Light

The Dancing Light

If you can touch it, it's real ... or is it?

If you cannot see, hear, feel, taste or smell it,

      it's not real ... or is it?

Science tells us that most of what we are ... 

     most of what everything is ...

     is empty space ... 

     at least, right now,
     we think it's empty.

Mystics tell us that we are all connected ... 

     that everything is connected ...

     perhaps what links us all together is that space ...

     and, perhaps, it's not so empty.

Recent experiments in quantum physics revealed ... light ...

     light emitted from all cells ...

     perhaps that empty space is actually filled with light.

We know that each of us, everything in our world,

      is made up of the dust that came from stars ...

     We are stardust that became living, breathing creators of "reality" ...

     perhaps that empty space ... that space that is really light ...

     is the life force we call creativity.

If everything is connected ... 

     from the light bulb above your head ...

     to the dog walking by on the street.

If everything is filled with hidden light ...

     then your light dances with my light 

     and both of us dance in the light of trees.

If that hidden light is the creative force that surges through all of us ...

     And, if each of us is connected in the great web of life,

     then the artwork you see around you is as much a part of you 

     as it is the artist who birthed it ... your viewing it, enjoying it ...

     is one moment in the link that connects us all.

Please enjoy YOUR art  ...

     and the river of creativity that flows through each of us.

(c) Joyce Wycoff, 2012