Out & About With Some #RandomThoughts

 

During a recent assessment of my archives, I ran across this--in the challenging times before us, it is not really easy, but one has to be as I decided to headline my final notation for the quarter.  I also finished assisting with notations for the Daily Outsider as a decision has been made to go dark on all Daily Outsider properties ((except for Periodic Updates on X, which I look forward to supporting)) as the World awaits the clash between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. 

Earlier, I finished my final quarter-end notation on my Personal Meta Corner as I reflected upon the continued horrors in Iran):

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It was also a week that saw the second anniversary of Mahsa Amini's Death, and the iconic picture that triggered a revolution was captured by Mana Neyestani he notes that the Mahsa Revolution continues: 

I close out with this from the Daily Stoic:  

As we work and achieve, we pile up titles and money. We accumulate assets and influence. We build a life, as they say. And a life is made up of things: Our job. Our house. Our car. Our relationships. Our reputation.

Looking around at what we possess, what we’ve poured so much sweat and blood into, is an immensely rewarding experience. As Margaret Atwood writes in a beautiful poem,

The moment when, after many years

of hard work and a long voyage

you stand in the centre of your room,

house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,

knowing at last how you got there,

and say, I own this,

But the Stoic knows that we never really own anything. All that we possess in this life, Marcus Aurelius says, even life itself, is really ours only in trust. We are renters. Our lives are here on loan...loans that can get called in at any time. We can be fired. Someone can dislodge our seemingly dominant market position. A loved one can leave. People die.

That’s why Margaret Atwood warns against the pride and satisfaction of surveying one’s possessions. The moment you do that, she says, nature rebels. Almost out of spite, they feel the need to rebuke you for your pride.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.

You were a visitor, time after time

climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.

We never belonged to you.

You never found us.

It was always the other way round.

None of us own anything. Everything is constantly in flux. What we have today may be gone tomorrow—we ourselves may be gone tomorrow. Understand that. Appreciate everything accordingly. Be grateful and humble...or life will rebuke you. Fate will remind you who is in charge and nature will reclaim what is hers.