Up, up and away

The Helix Nebula, courtesy of Astronomy Picture of the Day

It's Friday again. Where has another week gone? The hours, minutes and seconds that have sped by will never, ever, be experienced again. Did I spend them wisely? Who knows. Is it really important how we spend our time? I think so.

Yesterday evening, my son asked if I wanted to play chess with him. We hadn't done that for a long time, and I thought it would be a great opportunity for some father-son bonding. We played three games and I lost them all. Should I be admitting that to the world?

Just about anyone can beat me at any game. I have trouble concentrating. My mind wanders all over the place and before I know it, I have lost again. I am a gracious loser though, I think. Were I not, I would spend a lot of time in a very frustrated state. Card games are the absolute worst for me. Poker, anyone?

An 'ex' of mine and I used to visit an interesting old couple who lived near our country home, and inevitably, when we had been brought up to date on all of the local gossip, we would sit down to game of euchre. Each time we played, I had to have the rules explained to me. If I had to play a game today, I wouldn't have even the slightest clue on how to play.

Unless I am focused on a particular project or something that captures most of my attention, I am seldom 'here.' I am lost in the ether somewhere, thinking of who knows what, dreaming of what might be someday. When I am 'away' like this, my wife says I am visiting relatives on another planet, in another galaxy somewhere, possibly even a different universe where there are others as odd as I. I don't think she means it as an insult. I hope not. Considering the state of our world, and much of the human flotsam and jetsam in it, I don't mind a bit that someone might suggest, even jokingly, that I might be from somewhere else, far, far away.

I am very capable of embarrassing myself. I know I am an imperfect person, in an imperfect world. Sometimes I do or say things that I shouldn't, but they are usually (I hope always) minor things that have no major repercussions or discernible negative consequences for anyone else. I try not to embarrass myself; I am never a willing passenger on a ship of fools. Still, I am often embarrassed anyway. I call it 'sympathy embarrassment,' something I experience when I see or read about something someone else has done, near or far, that is so stupid or inane or insane, that I am ashamed to be a human being. That happens far too often to my liking. Buffoonery appears to be on the rise, especially among the leaders we elect, and we as the followers are stuck with the consequences of their foolishness. Who, really, is the greater fool, the idiot who causes our enslavement or we who allow it?

Those are the sorts of things that go through my mind. And those are the things that keep me from winning at chess, remembering the rules of poker and euchre, or finding the latest of a growing list of things that I have misplaced somewhere.

Of course, I could just admit that I am a simpleton, with a tiny brain, incapable of any but the tiniest thoughts and decisions, but that would be giving away too much, don't you think?

Happy weekend!