(#85-1) December 25 2014. Sometimes the traditional way of saying something is the best—even if one is saying it in a slightly different way.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS

FAMILY, SIBLINGS, FRIENDS, FORMER LOVERS (WHO, IF NOT DEAD—and too many are—ARE MOSTLY STILL FRIENDS) POTENTIAL LOVERS—AND ANYONE ELSE WHO READS THIS BLOG.  I’M THINKING OF YOU—AND, SINCE IT’S CHRISTMAS, IN A KINDLY WAY..

MY POSITIVE VIBES ARE WINGING THEIR WAY TO YOU. IF YOU ARE LIVING IN CHINA OR AUSTRALIA THEY MAY BE A DAY OR TWO LATE.

ANOTHER OF MY SISTER LUCY’S BRILLIANT PHOTOS—A MORE ATTRACTIVE CHRISTMAS CARD THAN MOST!

It seems to be more customary to say ‘Merry Christmas’ here in the U.S.—and it may even be more appropriate (given that one can become merry with relative ease, and a few glasses—or puffs) but I prefer ‘Happy Christmas.’ It’s the expression I grew up with with.

Can one be happy? Some argue that it is no more than an aspiration and the best the human condition can aspire to are brief flashes of happiness—and contentment.

I don’t agree. I am exquisitely happy while I’m writing—but rarely content. How can I be? Writing is an unending struggle to try and write better.

So, am I discontented when converting thoughts into written words? How can I be when I’m writing!

As for the meaning of life—that greatest puzzle that has preoccupied the keenest minds since Adam and Eve were an item—I have discovered the answer. Socrates, eat your heart out.

Life is an unending struggle to try and improve one’s character. Nothing else matters.

But what is character? I’ll solve that puzzle after I have improved it.

Am I ever happy when not writing? Much more often than I expected to be—despite going through the roughest patch that I have ever experienced. In fact—in my case, at least—I can establish no correlation between the trappings of success—and happiness.

But mostly I’m content—except when I’m writing. Writing requires a certain restlessness. That, I have.

Incidentally, I have just heard Clive James being interviewed. He is an Australian best known for being a TV personality in the UK—but he is also an interviewer, critic, writer and poet. And he is suffering from multiple conditions—including leukemia and emphysema—and dying.

He said:

• “If you’re a writer, you can never resist a subject.” In this case he was talking about writing about his infidelity. He is so right.
• “Writing is making a contribution to mankind’s heritage of intelligence.” How cool is that. I tend to think of writing as, “illuminating the human condition’—and clearly a writer does both—but I had never thought of it that way before.

He will be missed.

VOR words c. 400.

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