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“Who Knows Where The Time Goes?”

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So go the lyrics to the eponymously titled Fairport Convention song. Sung plaintively by singer Sandy Denny, it addresses the passage of time through seasonal changes, and love and friends lost. The themes are universal, we’ve all experienced these at some time in our lives.

As I write this, I wonder where the past two years have gone. Friends have been lost, some to isolation, others to death. Even the seasons have been missed, while we euphemistically “sheltered in place”.

And now, once again, there is reason for cautious optimism that we may be turning the corner on the pandemic. Yet, time is not slowing down. I fear that upon reaching what will soon pass for “normal” we still wonder where the time has gone.

However, it, like spring, may afford us the opportunity to revisit some those endeavors/resolutions/hopes and start anew.

What would you like to revisit?

Wuv, twoo wuv…

Bruce MeistermanLeave a comment

True love was not something he was looking for, but found it just the same and in a most unlikely place. Since he’d no real experience with it, he had nothing to work with. That much was obvious. And his ignorance would cost him.

A Coward’s Guide to Living

In search of…

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The Holy Grail? No.

Aliens? No, again.

True love? If you got it, hold on to it. If not, good luck in the best possible way.

I’m currently reading the book Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. The protagonist states in the beginning, “It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make…”

And the choices in his search that he makes are unforgettable. Just as are the choices we make. It’s a search that, in one form or another, takes a lifetime. In Jacob Will, 11.0: A Coward’s Guide to Living, this protagonist learns that in a hard, funny, and hopefully poignant way with lasting effects.

What are the choices you’ve made in your search? Are you happy with them?

Wherever you go, there you are.

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“Wherever you go, there you are” is attributed to Confucius and made popular by the character Buckaroo Banzai in the 1984 eponymously-named movie “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai.” And it, as aptly as anything else, describes the protagonist in A Coward’s Guide to Living.

Try as he may, Jacob Will has yet to realize that wherever he goes, the baggage he holds internally will always be with him, wherever he goes. I believe it’s also true of most of us, no matter how much therapy. Wherever you go. He has to discard those bags (issues, prejudices, and perceptions) before he can be somewhere else, where he can discover his own truths.

What’s holding him back? The list is long, eleven little deaths long and there’s no roadmap to help him.

Leaving New Jersey and New York – for what?

Bruce Meisterman2 Comments

To a lot of people, the idea of leaving the greater NYC area would be anathema. Why? That’s a good question.

But if the only way to find your way home, or in life, is to leave, then that’s not such a difficult decision. And if it’s true, that wherever you go your issues are still with you, what must you do in order to answer that questions?

For Jacob Will, it’s simple – Eleven Little Deaths, all his. All he has to do is hit the road and pray it doesn’t hit back.