Thank you, each and every one. May I submit this tiny piece of advice to, I pray, further your goals and appreciation of what is important:

No Regrets

So far, and it could change in a moment, life has been for me a continuity of pleasures, joys, lessons and sharings. I am so enamored with my own existence, I feel as an emotion-filled balloon, always prepared to burst. Through the daily wonders of empirical living, I have learned to shed anger, fear, hatred, prejudice and violence. For all its individual faults, I so love humanity I could cry. Although, that is not to dispel its many needs for improvement.

I am no saint… I’m far too bawdy for such considerations as that. I’ve simply taken to the line of least resistance–which just so happens to also be the shortest route to happiness. I have found that satisfaction (happiness, if you will) is less a thing itself, to be pursued on its own. Rather, it is a process of elimination (when possible), of the various elements of dissatisfaction; pain; suffering; misery, in each and every form they may take. For example, the joyless lacking found in hunger can be remedied by a simple meal, residually leaving an elated state of fullness, having a fed belly! We need not be so basic as an ascetic nor, for that matter, so conspicuous in our consumptions as to believe they actually count for very much. That is, in the larger scheme. The middle ground prevails. Next case.

Ah, Shakespeare! I’ve recently reviewed one of my favorites: Julius Caesar… regarding procreation:

Forget not, in your speed, Antonius,
To touch Calpurnia; for our elders say,
The barren, touched in this holy chase,
Shake off their sterile curse

John Wilkes Booth (on left) as Antony

For all our self-perceived knowledge acquired, the arrogance that mere centuries alone can propel mercy in the hearts and wisdom in the minds of men doth seem frivolous. Shit, man… read enough Shakespeare and I start talking like the guy myself! Strange, whatever smarts we may think we’ve accumulated over the eons, it still seems to me it was all said nearly 500 years ago. We need only pick up one of the many volumes to confirm.

Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.

And,

Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.

Now, what could be more profound than that? Except,

I am constant as the northern star,
Of whose true-fix’d and resting quality
There is no fellow in the firmament.

CAESAR

Doth not Brutus bootless kneel?

CASCA

Speak, hands for me!

CASCA first, then the other Conspirators and BRUTUS stab CAESAR

CAESAR

Et tu, Brute! Then fall, Caesar.

Dies

My heavens!

I would speculate, the re-readings of William Shakespeare’s writings, might grace the contemporary “WE” with a renewed awareness and stabler direction in which to move than our present course offers. I realize less people read nowadays (other than that which can be readily offered up on iPhones), and daily the number further dwindles. However, if I could impart one simple and concise piece of intelligence, it would be this: our social, political, moral, morale consciousness is in apparent need of assistance. The information is already there (accessible even on an iPhone), we need only access it!

    craig rory lombardi, bronx born

    Written by

    NYC incarnate. Snake hips chicken lips and other flights of fanciful whimsy. Musician, Renaissance Mo-Fo, Beatnik, Philosopher, Feminist. Purist of the impure!

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