In ancient times, the Greeks called a person enthousiasmos if they were akin to god possessing. In today’s lexicon, a person is thought of as passionate if they are enthusiastic. However, the root remains the realm of the gods, for to be enthusiastic is to be both of the moment and beyond the moment.

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Kin is not akin to clan in my book. Although your kinfolk may still reside in them thar hills, it simply sounds awkward albeit proper to say he’s kin, whereas I have occasionally referred to bigots as belonging to the Klan. It’s kissing cousins to sloppy speech, and bears an affinity to slang. I’ll grant you that its OK in my book to refer to a lambkin as such, but I draw a line at the Brit’s kinchin. I believe it hails from them thar lowlands.

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Enthusiasm or ego, but never both at once. One cannot exist beside the other. Ego is always in the past or the future, enthusiasm is always in the now.

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Akin is not as clear cut as afresh, however. People, real people, make a fresh start, not an afresh start. Someone who makes an afresh start undoubtedly gets acold alighting from the shower, and then, of course, gets agoing to brewing their cuppa.

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Closely related but not mutually exclusive, joy, happiness and love are also manifestations of being in the now. As with enthusiasm, all are contagious. Even if we start the day in a funk, we can sense the attraction in positive emotions. Its akin to a group of girls giggling together.

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I’m perfectly comfortable with running amuck, although I do have a responsibility to muck out the pond this weekend. And I may be atypical, but I typically put chores I dislike aside for days when I feel a bit amoral. At least then I can make amends.

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For a while I lost touch with the enthusiast. Nowadays, I’m downright unstoppable when I get hold of even a small bit of inspiration, both online and off. Its contagious, it blooms, it overtakes any complacency and I find myself riding that feeling with much joy. And I’m grateful.

Here’s my favorite obituary ever, clipped from an old issue of my hometown newspaper. ‘Buchart, Peter Wilhelm: Accidentally killed last Saturday when a bullet ricocheted while he was endeavoring to shoot a rabbit in his vegetable garden. Surviving are his wife, three children and one rabbit.’

(What would you like your newspaper to write about you?)

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I’ve been thinking about words today. I arise as the sun and the paper are being delivered, and, as soon as I am able to distinguish the one from the other, I wave at the one and get acquainted with the other. Then on to the keyboard, with only intermittent reprieves, until a part of me is sore and another bruised. I’m quite sure my own inarticulateness will only hasten a heart attack, and so you can find me morning, noon and night doctoring these bloody bits, assessing their effect and exercising the weak.

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Quick aside. I read somewhere recently the ancient Greeks didn’t have a word for interesting. ‘Really!’ I thought, ‘Was everything interesting to them, or nothing at all?’

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As I think back to my childhood, then to my kids, I’m convinced it isn’t the words, and the lessons they meant to convey that take hold for a lifetime. Quite the opposite. I can’t tell you how many of those speeches I even heard, let alone those I’ve consciously determined to change with my kids. Yet what was never articulated have the most lasting power. The importance of quality time together, integrity in all exigencies, striving to be better tomorrow than today, and one that’s been growing in importance lately, at least one damn meal together each week.

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Just had a thought. The moment you decide that what you know is more important than what you have been taught to believe, you will have really started to live.

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I’m now thinking I should simply endeavor to untangle, and keeping myself to a minimum of sentences which I myself don’t fully understand is to be my yardstick.

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Today’s word: epitaph. (What’s yours?)

Time once again to remember that what we think we know, we probably don’t. The subjects at hand: orbits and moons and light. Ready?

1. Does the earth go around the moon or vice versa?

Nope, not moon orbiting earth. Try again.

Nope, not earth orbiting moon. Try again.

That’s right. They actually go around each other. There’s this invisible pivot point approximately 1000 miles beneath the surface of the earth. In fact, the earth actually makes three different rotations: around the sun, around its own axis, and around this pivot point.

2. How many moons does the earth have?

I know, I always thought just one. Nope. It’s actually 7, if you count the six other near earth asteroids which follow the earth around the sun. Not strictly moons, you say? Well, consider their travel around the sun is approximately one year, and sometimes these come near enough to exert a slight gravitational influence on mother earth.

3. How fast does light travel?

If I remember my physics correctly, it’s a constant 186,282 feet per second. Would you agree?

Well, for starters, it isn’t constant. Only in a perfect vacuum does light reach its maximum speed. Then, it depends on what it travels through as to how fast it moves. Through a diamond its about 80,000 miles per second. Through sodium at -272 degrees Celsius: 38 mph. That was the slowest ever recorded, until recently. You see, there’s this team at Harvard that’s just not satisfied with riding light as fast as their Moped. Apparently they have been able to bring light to a complete standstill. How? By shining it into a Bose-Einstein condensate (whatever that is) of the element rubidium.

3a. Extra credit: What’s the color of light?

OK, you know it isn’t a color, it’s the absence of color. But consider this: You can’t see light. It’s invisible. You can only see what it interacts with. Otherwise, it would be something akin to seeing fog, where everything in front of you is obscured. (Which is so appropriate for this site’s theme, don’t you think?)

3b. Extra Extra credit: What’s the color of darkness?

I don’t know, since it isn’t there and I can’t see through it.

Sometimes the injustices we’ve suffered keep recurring, over and over, long drawn out, fretted over, seemingly as illusory and incredible as the original. And in that moment of remembrance I can sometimes picture that cretin wearing exactly the same outfit breaking into the current scene, reenacting their role, with only my role better played.

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Voice: Why didn’t I say that the first time?
Answer: How should I know? You didn’t, is all.

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Not all moments of remembrance are fraught with angst. (Somewhat less frequent, though.) I remember the day I turned 30 and all around the agency, down the hallways, in the kitchen and the boy’s room, the walls were littered with blown up pictures of me with some of my more colorful sayings tagged underneath. Some of them were indecent (these were kept to the creative’s floor), all said in jest, and all on public display. I don’t know who’s idea it was, but it continues to warm my heart. Thanks.

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Voice: I had some pretty good lines, eh?
Answer: Your “I’m the one who does the undulating in bed!” line (in reference to water beds) was totally, completely, utterly inappropriate.

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Regrets are also a popular theme. Like not taking the year off to travel across Europe between undergrad and grad school. Or leaving academia and a free ride to Ph.D. because the career was calling.

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Voice: I knew I’d never be happier than when…
Answer: And so it was…

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Of course, the most painful of all, far and away, are our stumbles, embarrassing moments, being caught red handed, being found wanting (and with good cause).

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Voice: How could I have been so stupid?
Answer: Are you still humming that tune?

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As for myself, I’d rather take succor at the breast of inner awareness, be aware that I am aware, than at the many teets of that sow ego identification.

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Voice: I remember when…
Answer: Their all just moments in time, self. Wait ‘til you taste what’s cooking.

I’ve been like a cricket in midsummer hopping all over the place with nary a rhyme or reason. I’ve been struggling to keep pace with the demands of multiple posts a week, and I’d lost my way.

Trouble is, I’m not that good of a writer on first draft. Nor on second, either. I struggle to get it right, to put things in order on the screen, to capture something of what is and my back is up against it.

Start parenthesis. (Then, too, there’s the medium. One step removed from pen and paper. (Of contemplation, then the act of right hand writing while left hand holds down the paper, reflection, jotting an errant yet perhaps meaningful thought lower down the page, reflection, another sentence and so on.) I haven’t even touched on the distractions inherent online.) End Parenthesis.

It’s been tiring, this battle with writing well. What once came flowing out of me was now a mere trickle. I’d lost my voice. I found myself twaddling, like now.

This is, conservatively speaking, driving me nuts!

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I should just let go, I’m thinking. Take a deep breath…let it out.

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So much of my time past was wound up pretty tight. I hated the incomplete in my life, all little things, mind you, nonetheless matters of some concern to me. The dripping faucet needing a washer, the cracked and sinking patio needing mud jacking, weathered aluminum siding needing paint, weeds in planting beds needing a tug, rusting paint cans in a corner of the basement needing retirement.

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For me, writing on the subject at hand, and in order to contain the surprise that initially delighted me, the logic needs to come after the fact, with the insight right up front. As in life, if you thrust the logic in front of you as you head out the door, hurtling experience ahead to pave the walk, then you invariably lose the revelation that informs that day. The writing of a post, like that proverbial walk, can be worked on once it is, but first and foremost it cannot be worried into being.

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There. This will simply have to do. My house in the burbs has become my bride, and she’s got her own honey-do list if there’s to be any peace around here. First up, a jig opening up some paint cans for drying. Then, I’ll waltz over to the hardware store for washers of various sizes. I’ll dance attention on her all afternoon, but she’ll have to sit out and wait for warmer weather before being treated to a new coat and pumps.