Dale Williams Barrigar

One Writer’s Life (Lately) by Dale Barrigar (Images by Dale Barrigar)

“The earth’s proper scripture could be carried on a three-by-five card if we weren’t drunk on our own blood.” – Jim Harrison, from After Ikkyu

INTRO NOTE: This little article about five photographs appears to jump around a lot; but that is only because it is an EXPERIMENT in attempting to capture the process/es of one writer’s mind during a mini-siege of controlled thinking.

I repeat: THIS IS AN EXPERIMENT. In the same way that scientists do experiments is this. (We know as little about the mind as we do about the entire universe which is just one reason why I believe Mind Experiments are productive.)

Henry David Thoreau once said: If I knew anyone better than I know myself, I would write about them (instead of writing about myself.)

Second Intro: These five pictures are called “One Writer’s Life” for six simple reasons.

ONE: I write in my car (a small, fuel-efficient vehicle), a lot, by hand, while roaming around, or ferrying my kids around, from work to school and back again, sometimes while actually driving.

I can drive like Paul Newman or Steve McQueen. There are a trillion things in this world I’m no good at, at all (even unto the point of being mentally deficient at some level, at least by this society’s standards), but driving is not one of them. (Writing an essay about all the things I’m not good at is on the agenda.)

TWO: I spend a lot of time in the northeastern Illinois fields roaming around with and sometimes without my three dogs, and writing, by hand, on paper, with multicolored pens, in all four seasons, which I love equally well. (Every time I try to pick my favorite month, I remember that all the other months are equally good for different reasons.)

I use many-colored pens because I like many colors (it makes the page/s look alive and vibrant, and reminds me of my heroes, Van Gogh and Walt Whitman), and because it helps me tell what the hell is going on in the packed page/s later (if and when the pages don’t fall out of my pockets for someone else to find, or not find, later).

THREE: I watch a lot of documentaries about writers in my down time, when I’m too tired to read or think on my own.

(I have (almost) no regular furniture in my small, fuel-efficient apartment, and if I did have it, I wouldn’t use it (which is why I don’t have it).)

FOUR: I write outside, as stated previously, a lot, including at night. I rarely use an umbrella even in the rain because my uncle, who was a Marine sniper in the Vietnam War with two tours of duty (and later regretted his actions but felt he was serving his country at the time), told me that Marines never use umbrellas unless it’s holding one over someone else, and I admire that kind of humble, dutiful, rock-solid toughness; but I still find umbrellas beautiful for some reason, I think because of my fondness for Asian culture and some of the beautiful paintings I’ve seen.

The lonely plant here, reaching toward the stars (not touching the stars: reaching toward them) is a symbol of the real (and HUMAN, all-too-human!) writer.

The stars are not of this world; and at the same time, they are the only thing that’s truly important in this world at all.

FIVE: In the mode of William S. Burroughs, that great Kansas aristo-cat who always wore an Army jacket and baseball cap in his later years, I sometimes toss together half-assed collages of writers when I’m not writing.

At the present moment (I counted) I have 103 pictures of various writers (and a few other artists, especially Van Gogh (who was also one of the greatest writers of all time, just pick up his letters and dive in anywhere), Picasso, Leonardo da Vinci, Marilyn Monroe, and Joan Crawford, one of whom reminds me of my mother and another of whom reminds me of a few someone/s I won’t talk about right now) up all over in my apartment.

Many of the pictures are small, like postcard-sized and so forth.

I see them much more than I see any other humans these days except strangers on the street and my kids, and sometimes their friends, etc.

SIX: Real writers are more introspective and self-conscious, and less publicly performative and pushy, than all other kinds of artists (in general, or mostly) and many of them definitely fit into the category of “neurodivergent,” and many of them in many more ways than one, too. And many of them are always dodging and disappearing around corners, like Herman Melville, and Emily Dickinson, were both equally wont to do, on a regular basis.

Hurray for the Human Writer, the Outsider Observer who cares (and struggles and strives) and can get it all down in words!

They call/ed Jesus “The Word” because they knew he is the greatest writer who ever lived, bar none.

Paul first spread The Word’s teachings through the word. (Open his letters anywhere and dive right in; Kurt Vonnegut repeatedly called himself a “Christ-loving atheist”; Charles Bukowski said, “Jesus had style.”)

Literature is the deepest, most profound, most complex, and longest-lasting Art form (without any doubt whatsoever at all).

Almost all of the greatest military generals in the history of Planet Earth (from Alexander the Great to Napolean to Ulysses S. Grant) have known and acknowledged this fact.

Michelangelo, and Picasso, and Rodin, all also acknowledged this fact.

They were all obsessive readers of Literature, and either were, or wanted to be, Writers.

Dale Barrigar (Words and Photos)

The Eyes Have It by Dale Williams Barrigar

This here shaggy dog is headed to Jensens Island in the middle of Big Bearskin Lake in far northern Wisconsin.

I am not aware of whether he knows the details of all that, but he isn’t used to being on boats and one thing is certain from looking at these photos: even though he isn’t used to them, he isn’t scared, either.

That’s because he has a fearless and bold nature that makes him plunge into situations such as these almost (not quite) without thinking twice.

He’s also jumpy and paranoid in certain ways, hyper-aware of what’s going on around him and the best guard dog, when it comes to people, you could ever hope to meet.

He doesn’t care about material objects or possessions or probably even money, near as I can tell, as long as he usually has a full belly when needed and somewhere to lay his head, also when needed.

But the people in his life – he would die for them if he had to, without thinking twice.

There are many people in this world who would say, and do say, that a Dog is just a dog.

Anyone who attributes spiritual properties to their animals, like I do to mine, and like the Chippewa of northern Wisconsin used to do (and some still do) to theirs, will think that such people as that are lacking something in their nature. Not that they aren’t fully human, but yes that they are humans with cold (or at least colder than they should be) hearts.

For me, one look in his eyes tells you instantly that there is a lot more going on in there than some people give him credit for.

In some ways I even believe that he’s much smarter than your average, run-of-the-mill, boring, materialistic human – and very much so, at a level that cannot be scientifically tested or verified at all – and is even more true for all of that.

Words and pictures by Dale Williams Barrigar and, of course, Boo

I Finally Said Goodbye to All Those Years by Dale Williams Barrigar

(Images by DWB)

You’ve been there since then

since when

the last time I saw you

and you were

standing

there

in out of the rain

under the eaves

with the dead flowers

in your arms

waiting for a train.

It’s been

seven years

since then

and today

was the first day I

finally said goodbye

inside my mind.

You were the start of it all

and I owe you for that

but I looked up today and saw

that time has now flown.

And now I’m going to have to

forget you and now you’re

going to have to

make it

like I always knew you could

all on your own.

Dale Williams Barrigar

(Bonus Image by DWB, Boo on Vacation is Wisconsin)

The Trauma of Money by Dale Williams Barrigar

(I am pleased to inform the readership that DWB will be presenting new works for the next several days!-Leila)

If you’re not good at

getting money

and keeping

money

or if you

don’t have money

or if you’re

out of it

right now, or

hard up today you are

pushed to the side

way to the side

almost off the side

or maybe right off the side

of everyone’s mind

and you are thought

way, way, way,

WAY

less of

by

almost everybody,

indeed…

In fact, if you

are not good at

getting money,

or keeping money,

or don’t have money

right now

or if you just cannot hold

onto it very well

once you do

finally

get it

(and, sometimes, you do

finally get it

out of the blue)

because you

gave it all away

to someone else

who told you they needed

it more –

you are

pushed

way, way, way,

way

off to the side

marginalized and alienated

and looked down

upon

spat upon even

thought less of for sure

and frowned upon

by almost everyone

in the good old

USA, today

(or,

almost

everywhere

(but not

everywhere),

globally).

Dale Williams Barrigar

(Images courtesy of DWB)

Report from a Burning Planet: Chicagoland, USA, July, 2026; or Cabin Fever by Dr. Dale W. Barrigar

“Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing…” – Jack London, The Call of the Wild

I realized recently how much I love going outside when I couldn’t go outside.

I couldn’t go outside because I live in Chicagoland, and the other day we had, by far, the worst air quality in the world. The AQI was at nine hundred million billion zillion or some such number.

The air was truly toxic and as soon as you stepped outside, as soon as you stepped outside, you knew it.

It was like a yellow and grayish toxic fog of smudge filling the air everywhere that made your lungs burn. The dogs, too, started coughing. You literally could not stay outside unless wearing a mask, and last time I checked, dogs can’t wear masks, thus, you had to take them out quickly to do their business (if you have dog/s) and then right back inside.

It was wildfires from Canada, hundreds of miles away, that were causing this dystopian, toxic situation.

The smoke blew down from there to here, mixed with the city air and the 105-degree F “real feel” temperature, and created the toxic air.

Even the professional baseball games were canceled. All the Lake Michigan beaches (28 straight miles of free public beaches in the city of Chicago alone) were closed.

I am not a person who needs a mountaintop, a seashore, or a desert on a daily basis, although I have been known to travel to those kinds of places frequently in the past, and I go down to visit Lake Michigan pretty frequently. (Lake Michigan is 307 miles long and 118 miles wide at its widest, with a maximum depth of over 900 feet: i.e., an inland sea, connected to four other inland seas and forming the Earth’s largest fresh water system, or 20% of the world’s surface fresh water. There will be a lot of people trying to move to this area by the end of the century.)

But all I need on a daily basis is some trees (or even one tree), some flowers, some grass (or snow in winter), a few parks, or the local, humble forest preserves, which look modest and are actually filled to overflowing with such creatures as: frogs, toads, snakes, turtles, bees, beetles, butterflies, dragonflies, praying mantises, other insects, hawks, herons, ducks, geese, song birds, other birds, deer, coyotes, raccoons, opossums, squirrels, skunks, rabbits, river otters, muskrats, and even some beavers. And even the fish in the river must’ve been coughing during the latest Toxic-Sludge-Air Event. (Hemingway roamed this area as a teenager and John Wayne Gacy dumped bodies into this river 25 miles upstream which, to me, shows the best and the worst of humanity all coming together at the river.)

And when you can’t go outside, you start to get cabin fever. (Or: when I can’t go outside, I start to get cabin fever.)

Cabin fever usually denotes not being able to go outside because it’s too cold and there’s too much wind and snow; but now it also means not being able to go outside because when you do, it makes your eyes and your lungs burn, your hair and clothes smell like smoke, your healthy adult dogs cough, and the fact that it’s hard to breathe out there starts giving you the fantods (and the heebie-jeebies) because there’s an onslaught of toxic particles infesting your lungs and eyes – literally, seriously; like something out of an H.P. Lovecraft horror story (not exaggerating here) and that self-admitted weird guy could really make up some creepy stuff. Weird Tales, indeed.

If you start feeling like you’re in the middle of an H.P. Lovecraft short story and it’s real life, do something!

I suggest putting your mind above it all, like Jesus on the cross (even though there’s also a time to shout out, “Why have you forsaken me!?”).

Sitting Bull used to sit down in the middle of bullets whizzing all around his head, pack his pipe calmly, and sit there smoking his pipe, calmly, while all the bullets continued whizzing around his head.

No one knows why, but all the bullets missed, all of the times, except once when he was younger, and at the end.

And I realized that when I can’t go outside, I start to go insane.

Then we had a Noah’s Ark and the Rainbow moment here.

I woke up today and the sky was blue and clear, and the air was okay again, just like that: and the temperature was perfect enough at a “real feel” of just 90 degrees F.

When I was a little kid, about fifty years ago (I’m 59 now), 90 degrees F was VERY HOT and very rare.

Now it’s normal for a midsummer day here in the middle of the American Midwest in the middle of North America. Just like tornadoes and floods are much more common here in Illinois now, and in the wintertime we sometimes get a thing called “thundersnow” (thunder storms and snow simultaneously) which is a thing that did not even exist around here at all when I was a kid. The first time I saw it I was so flabbergasted and amazed that I felt like Moses on a mountaintop being shown the Burning Bush almost.

And I still love, as do my dogs, going outside.

Crucial Dog Notes: I have the dogs for a literal multitude of reasons, one of them being that I don’t get along with the vast majority of herd humanity very well on a face-to-face basis most of the time because they give me the fantods and the heebie-jeebies (the people I do get along with I get along with fine, and very well, usually) which is why I always appear to be running away from people or hiding and lurking behind doors, like Emily Dickinson; or faithfully wearing my sunglasses, like Lightnin’ Hopkins or Jeffrey Lebowski; and another of those huge, crucial reasons is that we all love going outside together so much.

END NOTE: The wildfire smoke is back today (but not as bad).

Dr. Dale W. Barrigar

(Images by DWB)

What a Poet Is or Who by Dale Barrigar

(Images by Dale Barrigar)

The American poet Ted Berrigan (1934 – 1983) said (wrote), “I don’t feel / a necessity for being a mature person in this world. I mean / all the grown-ups in this world, they’re just playing house, all / poets know that.”

Among other questions this beautifully plain-spoken quotation raises, it raises the question of what, or who, a (real) poet is.

A guy who (sometimes) calls himself “The Drifter” (because he synthesized Samuel Johnson’s “The Rambler” and “The Idler”) came up with an answer for this.

He broke it down into three simple parts (or things) – or requirements.

One: a modern poet cannot be, cannot be, CANNOT BE, a cheerleader for The System, not matter what system you mean.

The modern poet MUST BE, must be, must be, an outsider; in one form or another.

Wallace Stevens was a married insurance executive with a kid (and a house) and he still managed to live as one of the most profound lone wolves North America has ever seen. And when it comes to lone wolves, America is second to none.

Secondly, the poet must have an original vision. Many poets have been literally blind, starting with the very first known and named modern poet (in the West) of all, Homer.

Their inner visions were so intense and so original that they lost their outer sight.

That is what the Homeric myth of outer blindness and inner seeing really means.

Next, the poet must be able to say what they see.

Not to a billion-plus people all at once. Once it gets to that level (or even a million) poetry has turned into propaganda. Donald Trump used to be able to give some wickedly effective “poetry” readings about immigrants being snakes. But these readings were propaganda in the form of (simplistic) poetry; they were not “real” poetry.

The poet must be able to say what they see that no one else sees.

BEING A POET HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH USING FANCY WORDS OR “PRETTY” VOCABULARY (although almost all good poets have a wickedly large vocabulary).

Real poetry is about ELEVATED LANGUAGE and the circumstances that rightfully call for elevated language; and that does not mean elevated language is pretty.

Elevated Language is often harsh; very plainspoken; savagely angry; obscene; heartbreaking; hilarious; haunting.

Elevated Language is always intense, but very-much oftentimes, intensity comes in a whisper.

Much or most of the best poetry is AWKWARD, at least until you get used to it. (Awkward, NOT “pretty.”)

And its intensity is often calm, quiet, whispering, mumbling, clipped, pungent, brief, startling, something on the wind over the waters: memorable.

Marlon Brando mumbling on screen in some of his best roles is kind of like poetry. He can do it so well you don’t even know he’s faking it: maybe because he wasn’t (quite) faking it (he was bringing it up from a real place inside himself).

An outsider with an original vision who can communicate that vision to at least one other person in words because the right words make you think and feel more deeply, privately (not publicly): that’s what a real poet is and what real poetry (and who a real poet) is.

Dale Barrigar

The Psychedelic Renaissance by Dale Barrigar

(Images by Dale Barrigar)

My psychiatrist (who is employed at a very well-known and well-respected hospital and medical establishment in the city of Chicago) calls the time we are living in right now The Psychedelic Renaissance.

He calls this time that name because of all the research that is currently being done on what are known as “Magic Mushrooms” on the street. Magic Mushies, or psilocybin, are being researched right now as an effective treatment for a wide array of modern issues, including, but not limited to: treatment-resistant depression; Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder; adult ADHD; and Substance Use Disorder.

To those not in the know, it may sound ironic, and even ridiculous, to give someone who has been addicted to alcohol or opioids Magic Mushrooms instead; but, trust me, the difference between these substances is profound, and one important name for this kind of treatment is: “HARM REDUCTION.” I.e., taking a few Magic Mushes now and then might be beneficial, and is not deadly in the way a full-blown addiction to alcohol and/or opioids is deadly.

HOWEVER: lest anyone think that Magic Mushrooms are perfectly harmless and you can take as much as you want whenever you want, I offer a few examples (taken straight from life, and experience) to make you think again.

If you take too many Magic Mushes all at once, accidentally or on purpose, you can really, really get yourself into some big trouble. Number one, it raises your heart rate and can trigger strokes or heart attacks.

Number two: it can make you paranoid. It can make you very, very, very, very paranoid. It can make you so paranoid, if the dose is large enough, that you become, temporarily, psychotic, which means, totally out of touch with reality.

Taken every day in large doses over, say, a two- or three- or four-week period, a person can slowly, steadily start to become separated from “reality” in a very, very serious way, as in believing you are being watched by the police when you are not being watched by the police, or thinking that your neighbor is out to get ya.

(I am not saying I know these things from personal experience; but I know these things from personal experience.)

Magic Mushrooms have their street terminology, like all drugs. One term is: “hero dose.” It means taking a massive dose and going on a long, strange journey, or trip. Another term is: “micro dose.” It means taking a small, controlled dose, kind of like having a single cup of coffee instead of nine or ten cups of coffee, or a few puffs on a cigarette instead of the whole pack. A third term is really beautiful: “afterglow.” This is what happens when the hero dose or the micro dose starts wearing off, but is still “there.” This phase of the experience is, very often, the very best phase of all. And sometimes it lasts for days (on and off). Literally.

I have seen a grown man sitting on a couch weeping like a little baby and asking the people around him to call his mother because he “wanted his mommy,” even though mommy had been dead for twenty years. This man was not me (I only witnessed this) but damn and wow, did it make an impression.

I have also seen a teenager hiding her head in a bucket for over six hours while believing that “THEY” were at the front door and about to “get her,” because she took a massive “hero dose” accidentally and then freaked out so bad she literally went insane for a while.

Again, it wasn’t me that happened to but I witnessed it, up close and personal, and damn and wow, did it make an impression.

Magic Mushrooms are A DRUG. They are a much safer drug than ALCOHOL, the most dangerous drug of all, along with crystal meth, fentanyl, cocaine, etc. etc. They are a much safer drug than “the hard stuff.”

But if you think you can take as much as you want without losing your shit, you are wrong.

END NOTE/s: They also affect your balance and coordination and can make you fall down.

Never drive on these things unless you are Paul Newman!

Dale Barrigar

The Exhaling Brain by Dale Williams Barrigar

The Editors of Saragun Springs (L and D, Seattle and Chicago, USA) share a mutual passion for William Shakespeare. We revere him for the same reason/s that almost everyone who likes him likes him: he’s the greatest single writer in the English language and everything that has been written in English since him has been massively influenced BY HIM, even if that particular writer is not familiar at all (on a personal level) with his work/s.

I could go on and on about Good Will, but I can’t say it any better than Ralph Waldo Emerson did almost two hundred years ago. The following 305-word quote (at the end of this little essay) is NOT a cut-and-paste. This quotation was typed out by hand, from memory, by me; and I checked the text afterward because I knew there would be a few mistakes (there were quite a few mistakes, which I have since corrected).

Anyone who reads, rereads, and studies, this quotation will have their mind stretched in the right kind of way, even if they’ve never heard of Shakespeare.

I was not able to type this thing from memory because I have a photographic memory. I have it memorized because of two things: repetition and concentration (I’ve read it a lot and I always concentrate deeply when I do: it is a form of meditation, and prayer).

Shakespeare cannot compete with the world’s best-selling and most well-known book (BY FAR), the Bible, when it comes to characters: and not even close; and he himself knew this very well.

Adam and Eve, The Serpent (Satan), Yahweh, Cain and Abel, Moses, Noah, David and Goliath, Solomon, Samson, Job, Jonah, Jesus, Mary, John the Baptist, Mary Magdalen, Peter, Judas, Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son are now and will always be more well-known, globally, than any of Shakespeare’s characters.

(The Bible is the world’s greatest story collection, and I am speaking here of The Bible as literature. I also believe, personally, that the individual authors of the Bible were divinely inspired, very much so, each in their own very individual, very particular, very different ways.)

Some of Shakespeare’s most famous personages are: Hamlet, Falstaff, Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, and Romeo and Juliet (he did not actually invent any of them, which is also true of most of the Bible’s main characters and their authors, just as it is true of Rabelais and Gargantua, Goethe and Faust, Lord Byron and Don Juan, etc. etc. etc….).

I once heard two little kids running around on the sidewalk talking about Romeo and Juliet in Arabic.

I believe R and J are WS’s two most famous characters.

But even they cannot even come close to competing with Jesus and Mary (as characters; I also happen to believe, personally, that each of these were also holy; but my definition of “holy” does not match “the world’s” definition of holy, unless it is the Russian definition of such).

But Shakespeare added something new to the presentation of character that every single writer who has written in English since then, has been influenced by (to say nothing of his influence in other languages as well, like German, where he is, if anything, even better known than in English).

Now that I’ve blathered on for over 600 words, I leave you with the Ralph Waldo Emerson quotation. I would say, pay close attention to the title of this little article and the way it appears in the following quotation. Emerson wrote this quotation when the world thought Shakespeare was just a cheap entertainer. Emerson was among the first to see deeper on this issue (not the first, but among the first, which amounts to the same thing; because there are no “original” ideas):

“Some able and appreciating critics think no criticism on Shakespeare valuable that does not rest purely on the dramatic merit; that he is falsely judged as poet and philosopher. I think as highly as these critics of his dramatic merit, but still think it secondary. He was a full man, who liked to talk; a brain exhaling thoughts and images, which, seeking vent, found the drama next at hand…He is like some saint whose history is to be rendered into all languages, into verse and prose, into songs and pictures, and cut up into proverbs; so that the occasion which gave the saint’s meaning the form of a conversation, or of a prayer, or of a code of laws, is immaterial compared with the universality of its application. So it fares with the wise Shakespeare and his book of life. He wrote the airs for all our modern music: he wrote the text of modern life; the text of manners: he drew the man of England and Europe; the father of the man in America; he drew the man, and described the day, and what is done in it: he read the hearts of men and women, their probity, and their second thought and wiles; the wiles of innocence, and the transitions by which virtues and vices slide into their contraries: he could divide the mother’s part from the father’s part in the face of the child, or draw the fine demarcations of freedom and of fate: he knew the laws of repression which make the police of nature; and all the sweets and all the terrors of human lot lay in his mind as truly but as softly as the landscape lies on the eye. And the importance of this wisdom of life sinks the form, as of Drama or Epic, out of notice.”

Dale Williams Barrigar

18 Words to Live By by Dale Barrigar

Sappho says this:

“Now, while we dance //

Come here to us, /

gentle Gaiety, /

Revelry, Radiance, //

and you, Muses /

with lovely hair”

The MOVEMENT in all sections of the poem is always to something new, from something that is fully defined. Progression, development, fulfillment, all in eighteen words.

The “dance” can be likened to what Nietzsche said about his hero Zarathustra, that his walk was a dance, that his walk was so lively that it recalled a dance and could be likened to a dance and that he danced that dance and walked that walk whether he was in town or out of it, once he had become himself, that is.

“Gentle Gaiety, Revelry, Radiance,” recalls Charles Baudelaire’s command to “Always be drunk! On wine, poetry, virtue, or what you will, but be drunk!” The wine itself isn’t important; the drunkenness is, an injunction which has inspired many august souls from Rimbaud to Dylan Thomas to William S. Burroughs and Bob Dylan. The wine itself (or the drugs, or the love) is never more than a means to an end.

And the end is THE MUSES, who are the ones with lovely hair.

Sappho and her cohorts all believed in the literal existence of “The Muses,” that is, they believed them to be gods, i.e. transcendent forces worthy of worship, eminently and ultimately worthy of worship, and therefore worthy of dying for, too, if that’s what it took.

They were only humans like us but because of what they believed and how they lived it, they may have been (among) the best of us.

END NOTE: Endless thank you/s to Mary Barnard (1909 – 2001), who made the translation of Sappho used in this commentary. Her translations possess an Emily Dickinson-like intimacy and idiosyncrasy which must also be contained, in a different way, in the fragments of Sappho.

Dale Barrigar

Nine Words to Live By by Dale Barrigar

(Note: Whether he be DWB, Dale Williams Barrigar, Dr. Dale Williams Barrigar or never seen at the same time as the Drifter, we are pleased to show work by Dale Barrigar!)

Hello! The Tao Te Ching says this:

“Greatness entails transcendence. /

Transcendence entails going-far. /

Going-far entails return.”

“Greatness” here is a you-choose type of situation.

Whether it be in dispensing the milk of human kindness, creating art that will outlive your own time, becoming the most passionate football or Taylor Swift fan who ever looked out over fields or stage, or any other area of endeavor, greatness is up to the one who wishes to become great, entirely. When the definition of “great” is in the right ballpark, then the wishing-to-become-great becomes already-in-itself an aspect of greatness. Not all of us, and probably not even most of us, will truly be able to reach our so-called goal/s here in this life. That is as it has been, as it should be, and as it ever shall be, too.

The important thing is to have a goal that is NOT an end-point destination. The important thing is to want greatness, and to live like it. And to not let them tell you otherwise. Or if they do tell you otherwise (and they will), not to believe them. Giving someone a silent stare and then turning around and walking away is the greatest rebuff I can ever imagine.

“Transcendence” here means to rise above your worst self here in this world (and all that entails). If you’re looking to get to heaven in the afterlife, it should console you to know that all the major religions say (in one way or another) that the way to get to heaven in the afterlife is to transcend your worst self here, in this life. It’s akin to what the great psychologist Carl Jung meant in a mostly secular sense when he talked about confronting, and mastering, your own dark side. And for Jung, such behavior also led to modern spiritual enlightenment.

“Going-far” can be seen in the phrase “going the distance,” which means finishing the fight, finishing the journey, NOT BEING A QUITTER. No Quitters Allowed. And there is nothing to quit from when you realize that your goal is the way you live your life every day, NOT a specific destination like winning a prize, making a million bucks, becoming “famous,” or any of the other ephemeral and illusory trappings that are pushed so hard by our Consumer/ist Society, where the Almighty Dollar is the one and only real religion. It simply isn’t true, at all, that only the rich and famous are worth anything.

What it means to “return” is up to you to decide. And the decision, once made, should never be final.

The word entail = that it has to be there, that it cannot not be there, and that if it is not there, the whole thing falls apart. And at that point, mere anarchy is loosed upon the world – your world, that is. Your own private world, which is where it all begins, and ends, now, yesterday, tomorrow, and forever. Never let The Algorithm tell you otherwise!

END NOTE: Thank you to Charles Muller for his wonderful translation of the Tao Te Ching (2005).

Dale Barrigar