Pat Whitty

With the holidays coming up, we've been thinking about the perfect gift. The kind that makes you go, "Wow, this is exactly what I wanted!" None of those awkward moments when you're smiling on the outside but secretly wondering, "What am I going to do with this?"

If you're reading this, chances are you're a Bibliophile, someone who loves books, rather than a Bibliophobe, someone who fears books. Perhaps you're even a Bibliosopher, someone who gains wisdom from books.

Five years ago, I made my first pilgrimage to MEA in Baja. I call it a pilgrimage because I looked up the word and found that it meant a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about themselves, others, nature, or a higher good through the experience. It can lead to personal transformation, after which the pilgrim returns to their daily life.

Socrates said it's when we come to the realization that we know that we know nothing. Maybe that's true.

It was raining. My 9-year-old granddaughter said, “Hey PopPop, let’s dance in the rain.” I responded with, “No, Parker. We’ll get soaking wet.” She responded, “Please, PopPop.” In my 79-year-old wisdom, I said, “No, Parker. You’ll catch your death of cold.”

I’m waiting for a feeling. I can’t start without it.

The Law of Inertia, also called Newton’s first law, states if a body is at rest or moving at a constant speed in a straight line, it will remain at rest or keep moving in a straight line at constant speed unless it is acted upon by a force. I wonder if Newton was talking about the human condition as well as physical objects.

Two-time MEA alum Pat Whitty has been leading a 12-week course based on Julia Cameron’s book, The Artist’s Way. While doing his morning pages exercise, this poem just appeared, as Julia predicted, and I started writing it down.

Is it the best of times or the worst of times? Charles Dickens wrote that famous opening line of “A Tale of Two Cities” in 1859. He wrote it as a statement, not a question. I suppose it was the best of times for some people and the worst of times for others, just as it is today.

I’m thinking about the Law of Conservation of Energy today. This law, first proposed and tested by Émilie du Châtelet, means that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; rather, it can only be transformed or transferred from one form to another. I wonder if that applies to aging.