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More than two and a half years have passed since I last posted an entry to this blog. I mostly use my tumble log nowadays. It's much more convenient. Blogger I still like but a tumble log is easier to use. Wanna see my tumble log? Head over to dee.tumblr.com.

Times passing

Sometimes I wonder where time goes. Life is like a train moving at high speed through time. Someone booked a one-way ticket for us, no return allowed. We see stations but we can't get out. You've got your seat reserved, lodge in your compartment and are able to get other seats better or worse. Perhaps you are able to connect to some other individual and share a compartment for some time, maybe years. Each day passing is a blurry image shooting by. No day is like any other but they melt together wound to one big reel, the movie of your life where you only remember the highlights, the pivotal scenes. It's the movie you are the main character in, no reheasal necessary. On the last day of your life it will have its premiere with you the only one to watch. No standing ovations, no rerun, sorry.

We dream of getting out, stopping the train, turning it some other way, sending it back or putting the engine to reverse. The engine, I need not tell you, is off-limits to us. In our sleep at the deep of night when we are in the land of dreams we sometimes seem to be able to step out, see that station, go back. Daylight brings us back to reality. Never will we change anything. Life passes on with only one station. It's the one where our train terminates.

Beauties hidden

Life is on the fast path more often than not. We hurry on, seldom looking left or right, never glancing at the ground. So many things go unnoticed. Blazing light catch our attention, booming loudspeakers, glittering tinsel, bright neon-lights and exotic perfumes. But our world is more. There is a hidden world of tiny beauties, buried like sparkling emeralds, so close by and yet so far, so out of sight. Compared to our artificial eye and ear catchers these small treasures don't advertise. It is us who have to see. Only the eye open and alert is able to detect what hides in corners and underbrush.

Perhaps we should envy children

Little witch
Originally uploaded by donaldtownsend.

Children in our modern world live lives bare of any responsibilities. They are just children free to play, to dream, to rove around, to meet friends, to laugh, to forget, to grow, to mature, to weep and to be children.
These wee creatures are spared what might make an adults life miserable. No burdens to carry their day starts when they get up and ends when they turn in. There is no tomorrow to mind and no yesterday to worry about. Life moves on as an endless sequence of days.
Children are full of boundless energy. When they awake in the morning they are spring-loaded, ready for action and it takes many hours to tire them out. When they do sports they need no warm up. Jumping and running seems to cost no effort.
Of course children can be sad and there are days when life is not nice. Illness and loss make themselves felt, but mostly not for long. Their unhampered optimism and naivety leave no room for enduring unhappiness.
To be honest, this is not a very realistic picture of childhood. It's nothing more than a memory with the ugly bits blocked out, a myth, however a nice one.

MAN

glowing letters
Originally uploaded by donaldtownsend.

We are outstanding we tend to think, crown to creation, man. Are we, really?
Yes, man has got the gift of knowing, remembers and is able to look and plan ahead. Our brains empower us to calculate and construct, to reason and to phantasize. This might set us somehow apart from animals, plants and other living things, Life differntiates by millimetres on a scale, be it size, speed, sense or intelligence amongst other traits that define life and its various forms. Thus it is with everything. We are not the only ones to construct or to use tools. Remembering is not our's alone. Perhaps we are at the extreme end at some scales, some, perhaps not the right ones. We hate, lie, betray, rape, imprison, hurt, maim, kill, you name it.
Man is not better, wiser or else, nor able to transcend his biological heritage. Man is outstanding, but only with regard to negative extremes.

Wintry reflections in a pond

wintry reflections in a pond
Originally uploaded by donaldtownsend.

Winter is often grey and dull. They sky remains overcast all for weeks on end and instead of snow there is just rain or some kind of slush. Days are short because the sun comes up late and night falls early. So it's wet and cold paired with wind. But sometimes the skies clear up and the sun comes out. The air grows crisp and carries a certain freshness. Snow, if there is any, seems pure and clean. And even if winter returns to its unfriendy dullness there might be something that is bright and shining like this reflection in a pond.

Reigned in by shadows

Shadows on a wall
Originally uploaded by donaldtownsend.

The past throws its shadow onto the present. It might loom tall over everyday life like the shadow of a giant imposing its will upon everybody. Kemal Attatürk is such a giant. His legacy is still strong, his shadow still reigns politics in modern day Turkey. Germans still live within the shadows of the Holocaust. It's a shadow that weighs down on people's consciousness. Einstein is another shadow giant. Astrophysics is under the sway of the shadow he left behind. A shadow is nothing but the inversion of a fleeting exposure. But nevertheless it often holds tremendous power over people's minds and actions.