When it is time to take that final journey, will you leave behind your gold, or will you leave behind you something else; something that can not be sold for reward?
As age creeps upon me and it is ever harder to lace up my boots, I ponder what will be my legacy to the human race. Will it be the gold I dredged up, the flakes I swept up in my pan or the poems I left unpublished in my journals, words of travel, and wonder; of deeds, glory, shame?
What will you leave behind?
love your thoughts . as i sit here right now sucking up my day 2 chemo pills. only 8 of them so with the rest this morning it will bring the gran total to over15 for the day.
what will i leave behind? stories on my westcoast page on the forum, some people saying āthank god that poacher has goneā
What will I leave behind?
One wife who is telling everyone āThank goodness the errant bastards gone, peace at lastā
At least one person on this site saying āArsehole, good riddance to bad shitā
A pile of bills and liabilities
A defunct Landrover that last fired up ten years ago
Three kids desperately searching for a few bits and pieces the existence of which might exist or might be a myth.
A large number of annual diaries recording my darkest secrets which everyone has been desperately trying to access in order to ascertain whether I have or have not been sinking the pork sword into members of the opposite sex, fact or fiction.
My accounts to see exactly what I DID spend on various toys, accoutrements, luxuries and otherwise unnecessary bits and pieces.
Various family members spending many hours trying to find the keys to my four empty safes in the forlorn hope that they are filled with splendours beyond compare - and my diaries!
A pile weighing several ton of second hand fencing gear, rotten posts, twisted waratahs and tangled number eight and high tensile wire, several farm windmills (disassembled) nine or so old stationary motors which arent going anywhereā¦or for that matter doing anything.
A treasure map showing the way to a couple of items I own - and which no one can decipher.
A couple of boxes of recycled used condoms.
Yessir when I go westā¦it could be interesting.
Ahhā¦ the fruit of y
I always reach for my Kahlil Gibran book āThe Prophetā itās been helpful for me and I will pass on my copy to the kids, on death he says:
āā¦For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are oneā¦only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing, and when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb, and when earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly danceā¦ā
Memories:
What is it I hear, slow beat of a drum ā¦ calling me.
What is it I feel, soft brush of tussock.
What is it I see, glint of a mountain stream.
What is it I taste, salt of your tears.
What is it I smell, my child.
What is it that I understand, slow beat of a drum ā¦ calling me.
I have been pondering for some time what to write to you.I read Kahil Gibrain long ago and love his work (and your choice of his work).
However inspirational his work, and how much I love his poetical style, it did little to guide me on a path to self knowledge. (Being a better person) ( I readily admit to being a dumbass)
I grew up wild and free and as dumb as a stick socially leaving me unarmed in the mighty struggle for life. The struggle to remain sane in an insane world which I failed miserably at. (part of my shame).
In the dark, we need light, a practical guide to living. In solo activities we need little guidance, I taught myself how to pan, read, and after many painful trips, how to hike safely alone. But with activities that involve others we need a set of moral rules that are universal, moral rules that apply to everyone.
For me the āTen Commandmentsā were abhorrent because of the threat. The threat of eternal damnation which I take to be longer than the wait time to Spark Telephone Center.
What I needed was a practical sensible way of knowing the world and how to relate to it. For instance, what are we to make of the dole.? āwhat, you get paid for not working ?ā And maternity leave. What is that about, it is not my child, why am I paying for someones choice / mistake?. And what is the point of work anyway? Work for 40 years and die, and all the people who smoke and ā¦ The world seems crazy until someone shines a light on it all. For me that someone was Stefan Molyneux. (he used to be on Youtube) Now you can find him on ""Freedomain podcasts.
One example that I am sure we can all relate to. Our lizard brain. That part of us that warns us of danger. to Quote:
āYour head is for solving technical problems and your gut is for finding evil ā¦ Your gut is particularly good at figuring out predators ā¦ There is a second brain down there - gut sense- ā¦ Predators want to disarm you from your gut ā¦ anyone who says, ādonāt follow your instincts / you are over thinking thingsā is trying to separate you from your gut sense and that is deadly dangerous to humans.ā
Unquote.
Have you ever had a bad feeling about someone, something, some place. That is your gut talking and you had better pay attention.
So, in closing, though I love the works of Kahil Gibrain, what "I " needed in life was a way to figure out people.
With respect; Ivan.
Well said Ivan. I have always been a believer in gut instinct. But often with our educated minds we override it, and pay the price.
cheers trev aka the hatter
Things that are yours, and yours alone are your words ( diaries). A few times I have met men, alas too few, whose words (journals) would be worth far more than the gold they gained; You, Lammerlaw, may be anotherā¦
Words do not portray the real being within Mr Ivanelmago. For those who think they know others and judge accordingly are not as wise as perhaps they should be and often enough they might interpret the words they read in earnest and take them as an indictment of a persons personality while in truth they are spoken in jest.
You say that a person can have a āgut feelingā - never did like that term. Why some idiot coined that term I will never know. Does that infer that a person who is a gutless wonder never has a āgut feelingā? I will think about that. It is an instinctive feeling and it comes from the mind. I have always had that - I dont know if it comes from being descended from a long line of native witch doctors, in NZ Tohunga or Tohuka or whether it is the gypsy side of me. In any case I call him āThe wee man in my headā He looks after me or at least he tries to - sometimes I dont take any notice - thats when I get into trouble. The instincts come from the mind or more to the point from the spirit within.
Just so, Mr Lammerlaw. Definitions are important and I speak from the heart. Ooops, I mean from that part of my brain where lies emotions, however jumbled that is.
I do not know you, but I know of you; I know you have been generous, and generosity of oneās own assets is far more meaningful than being generous with other peoples assets.
For example Jacinda is very generous with money stolen at the point of a gun (taxes; if you donāt pay, eventually people will turn up at your door and take all you own and throw you in prison, and if you resist the thieves you know what happens); she thrusts out her chest with a huge smile of pride at giving stolen money to countless people {after pocketing a goodly share for herself and her cronies} who cannot / will not undertake work in the free market.
I try to be careful with my words; I am not here to create arguments for the sake of argument. Also I try to make what I say relevant to mining and prospecting for gold.
On "gut feeling "or the,āwee man in your headā. I fear I am not overly bright and was used / abused (to my never ending shame) by others. When I heard Stefan Molyneux talk of, āgut feelingā it rang a bell in my head. I remembered all those times when alarm bells rang in my head and I ignored them. Again, to my shame.
As an example of this not listening (to my gut) I was in fact in your cabin in the hills (just to be clear, invited, which I wish I had declined). Even in those long gone by days the bells rang but I was misled and told there would be just the two of us. If I knew there would be others I would have run far for the hills. And I am still running.
I am getting old now, the days before me fewer than the ones in my rear, yet I still try to learn from my mistakes and from others words / wisdom. I now listen more to my āwee man in my headā. As an example of this I am no longer honest (and try to never have anything to do with them) with anyone who brings a gun into the room. This is, for those who do not get it, a metaphor for those who come into the room armed with violence bubbling just below the surface. I am now very afraid of those who tell me how tough they are and how many beatings they have dished out for what they are really saying is ādo not disagree with me or elseā. People who yell racist, homo-phobe, white supremacist, misogynist at the drop of a hat carry with them a loaded AK 47 with the safety off.
As I said in my previous post some āmenā lead lives where in they have gained such huge skills in fields like engineering, welding electrical work, etc. whose value to any company who hires them is immense. I alluded that you may be one of those.
However, I did meet a man who had more knowledge of mechanical things in his toenail than I had in my head. Yet ā¦ ahhhh if only I were perfect.
May the gods, your gods, be with you. From Ivan.
Gods? I thought there was only one but he has many names and is seen in a different light by the many religions.
When itās time to go give everything away even information as most tend to take to the grave leave nothing only the house