Happiness is.....

...not so tough to find if you don't have gigantic expectations. I'm a pretty simple guy. I like birds, animals, snakes, long trails and a few people. I like being able to listen to other's ideas and enjoy the time spent looking in each other's eyes and sharing some human time.

I also like to issue challeges - to me. Often. I don't like disagreements. They rarely end in accord because most people aren't very flexible anymore. I'm able to keep smiling because I understand that just as I'm not going to change their minds, they probably won't change mine. I simply listen, hope to hear a cogent argument being made and usually...OK, frequently...just go on believing that my position is right. I don't understand why it's so difficult to learn to defend a point of view without hurling invectives at each other.

Oh, yeah - I really hate web based disagreements. I guess many feel they are now licensed to say anything to anybody in any foul, disrespectful manner they choose because it's done anonymously and no one will ever know they said it. There is nothing quite so disturbing as the incivility of this "modern" world.

But I digress. Barn owls are flying over the yard, and I can sit in the back and listen to them stake their claims to that air space all night, and always with a sense of wonder. So many magnificent creatures, and so few who appreciate them. Instead, the world has come to a wherewillwegowhatwillwedothisisntfuniwannagohomebecause itsboring kind ofplace. How sad. Life blows past so quickly, in huge chunks if you happen to have any of your time placed on temporary or permanent disability, for example. Survival then sudennly takes on a new spirit, not always a positive one. Our world has become a "me" world, each of us with an entitlement to the life we want. It can get contentious among us, and instead of finding solace in nature, with beings who understand that they are pieces of a larger, impossibly intertwined community, we take by force, practice cruelty, destroying the very people and places with whom we should be celebrating each other's lives.

And I'm tired of it. Enough. Humans can be educated, and egocentric, and uncaring. If you see yourself, try this - stop, sit, close your eyes and listen. Turn down the noise we people love to make and there, in the background of all those sounds you may hear a robin, a wren, a woodpecker or hawk - have you noticed them before? Now open your eyes and watch them - there's not a second of wasted time, of finger (wing?) pointing, of anything but nature's urgent push to survive. There's no pretense, and every action has a purpose.

Although I would have a problem completely shutting people out of my life, I grow more respectful of nature each time I can sit and - and learn - from a non - human. So please, turn off the Blackberry. Stop texting. Get out of the house and look around. Put your faith in these beings rather than your electronic doodad. You might just learn a few things. Then, look me in the eye, across the table or on a bench and we'll talk for awhile.