Musing

today’s Musing written and published from south Calgary, near Fish Creek Park

walk report: -11C/13F, crisp, light breeze, fading full moon watching over us as Gusta wanted to cross the road to make the acquaintance of a wailing chocolate Lab pup

I wasn’t 6/7th right or 1/7th wrong; I was right on 6, wrong on 1 . . . and everything that was wrong seemed fixable, correctible or could be done over; as children, teachers marked papers – we knew immediately what was right or wrong, correct or incorrect; there was always some certainty to rely on when I got ‘6/7’ scrawled in red at the top of a paper

life, sadly, is not like that – though opinion polls and media seem to imply it should be; as if 48% support means a failing grade or any measure of support at all; whether government or the corporate world, it seems a long way from ‘6 out of 7 right’ as I remember it

fraction (from the Latin fractus, to break), way of expressing a number of equal parts, ratio of numbers or variables, measure of how something is to be divided up or shared out

right thought, wrong idea, right thinking, left leaning, wronged, wrong righted – language, and perhaps our collective thinking, seems to view right and wrong like they are interchangeable for good or bad; I live in a country, like many, where right and wrong and rights vs. lack of rights is never as clearly defined by laws, court decisions and public policy as I would prefer; so much of right or wrong seems to determined by some person in some office somewhere deciding for me or for you what is right, what is wrong, what is OK, what is not . . . not always a man or woman or committee with authority, but all seem to wield power – none so great as what we each wield in our every action, in our own thoughts

when a fraction of reality is expanded or projected as if it is meaningful – it is just a rationalization; a lifetime, or a life, a mere fraction of a second in the great scheme of time, we live fractions of our lives – missing out on so much; when I read or hear about something, how can I understand anything with only a fraction of the information, some ratio of ideas to volume of data without knowing . . . but from such skimpy notions world altering choices are often made – sometimes choices so singular, so close to home

Robert Latimer is in the news again; I still think he was 6/7th wrong, it seems many see it the other way and support his release, if only he would say he was sorry; while I quarrel with the rationale that says he was right in law or in spirit for what he did, I must respect someone who stands firm in his conviction, who will not change a publicly stated view in order to get something – I respect that part, but not the other parts of him; maybe its time we called it a day and let him out of jail, recognizing we’ve all lost something and in doing so, maybe we will all realize we learned something from the loss of Tracy’s life

Mark Kolke
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... with your voice, teach in order to learn


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