Running for Your Life: Lonely Hearts

Times columnist Nicholas Kristof write about loneliness being a silent killer (11-17-19).

How people, depressed in a crushing solitude, have lost their way in the dog-eat-dog world that is modern life.

Conversation is one thing but continuity that comes from listening, from paying attention, what Zen followers call the sincerest form of gratitude, that will set us on a path to good health.

“Without:” that is the active ingredient that defines the inactive life “without” energy.

Without love, without meaning, what is a life?

Sorrow yields a living death. Isn’t that why we pepper our fiction with zombies – the sci-fi manifestation of the oblivion of without?

Smile and then what? Recover? Why?

Because when you believe in yourself, in the work you do, that you continue to do, you show the natural joy and boundless energy of, yes, the dog.

It is too bad that Kierkegaard did not write about the moral lessons of a dog, a dog’s nature, her behavior.

Oh, wait a minute, maybe he did. (This line courtesy of “Kirk” – my pal Kirk Nicewonger, that is):
“When one has once fully the realm of love, the world – no matter how imperfect – becomes rich and beautiful, it consists solely of opportunities for love.”

Next: Running for Your Life: Yes, David Jones!






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