MUSINGS and other writing by Mark Kolke

December 31, 2011

My grasp of excitement – like that Pointer Sisters classic ‘I’m So Excited’ – has always been on that level; as a child and today, “I'm so excited and I just can't hide it” has been my way, always. I never thought it manifested itself any other way in anyone else.  It probably does, possibly always has . . but that never occurred to me until now.  Hiding excitement, at any age, like sneaking a spoonful of Jello without letting anything jiggle – near impossibility. It builds, I suppose, in different ways, at a different pace in everyone …. so, when I hear someone say they are excited when the classic outward signs are not showing, it confuses me.  I have trouble understanding it, because I’ve always thought everyone gets excited the same way I do; not about the same things always, but in the same way. I’ve had this notion a long time, but recent experience has called it into question for me. I don’t remember stopping to think – ‘hey, maybe other people don’t show it when they are excited’ …. it just never occurred to me before. - Mark Kolke

December 30, 2011

Some of us are just born happy people, while the rest of us have to work at it. Some, a lot. I have found lots of happiness along my path, but not to say rough spots never invade; they have, can, and will again. There is freedom that comes with time; this stage of life, with so much behind me, the flexibility of circumstance and reality is quiet empowering – there are so few limits on what we can do.  To say what we mean, to mean what we say – a noble goal in dealing with anyone, but before we say want we mean, want, need – we need to know what that is. - Mark Kolke

December 29, 2011

Have you ever awakened with a great idea on the mind - then, after saying ‘I’ll make a note of that in the morning’, going back to sleep, never to think or dream it again? It is like trying to recover sunk money . . . once it’s gone, it’s gone. It might have been a bad idea, or a great idea lost. From now on, it’s pen and yellow sticky notes on the bedside table. - Mark Kolke

December 28, 2011

Safety and security of person or property - not bought with money or fruits of our labour; it comes in through the mind and connects directly to the backbone as a stiffening agent. We don’t need crutches, we need support. We don’t need helping hands, we need hoping hearts, not bandleaders but cheerleaders. We need someone to be there, just around the corner or down the hall, not hovering but there, not smothering but there, not intruding but knowing where and when to step in, or step up, to steady us when we might falter. - Mark Kolke

December 27, 2011

Like any plan, my plan requires and deserves re-examination from time to time.  I’m doing that – not so much from a bottom-line driven business plan process – from a bottom-line life planning process.  I can’t determine the quality or length of my life – neither can you; we get more by doing than simply by hoping, but in the end we have little control over these things.- Mark Kolke

December 26, 2011

This kind of day - like a membrane, that separates the air from the spilling out of entrails into the street – we keep it all in. The membrane separates all things we hold in from those things we protect ourselves from. The delicacy of it is exquisite. - Mark Kolke

December 25, 2011

When we accept all things, we find peace within. Good. Nothing else makes sense, nothing else works. This is the formula for finding joy in every morning. It works. We are so adaptable – adapting to our environment in our thoughts, though our big brain tends to over think; it likes to get in the way sometimes. We keep progressing as individuals and as a species at an incredible rate.  But adapting is not without challenge. We must change with the wind and the weather, we must put winter behind us when it is time to embrace spring. Now, here we are - like the plants, trees and birds, we feel reborn, again and again and again. - Mark Kolke

December 24, 2011

Best way forward is, likely, to be like the way that brought me to here.   I didn’t get here in a straight line, so why should I expect future to be some straight line progression of an idea, initiative or plan I hatch? NEW PLAN evolves, must be multi-faceted and complex; no simple solutions, no easy answer, right? If it isn’t, is it still a plan? Which begs a different question – about whether life turns out best when planned, or not, thought through, or not, orchestrated, or not. And, if thinking or planning – or figuring out a morning, between two, does it require one mind, or two. I’m not trying to over-deep think this (OK, maybe I am) but when I look back at my path I wonder about which parts I’d keep, ones I’d discard, if I could do it all again. Which would you keep? - Mark Kolke

December  23, 2011

Not every problem need be a crisis. But, every crisis is surely the result of some breakdown or failure in communication, some failure to recognize and react to a problem, some breakdown in the smooth running of things, in the well-oiled interdependency of us all.  I’ve found that most problems, left alone, do not go away.  Like a bit of fruit-rot that can so quickly envelope a whole fruit or the whole barrel . . . - Mark Kolke

December 22, 2011

I’m OK today. Are you? I believe I’ll be OK tomorrow, and next year and well beyond that.  I don’t think results or direction of life is pre-determined or accidental, but rather, deliberate act. No accidents, just decisions. If we sit on our hands, and mouths, make no decisions, have no dialogue and make no plans – that is a decision. I think it a lazy and dangerous decision. I could be proven wrong – happy to hear stats if there are any – but I think I am bang-on with this. I’ve met lots of folks in this ‘go with life’s flow’ mode – apparently happy, well adjusted, successful at what they do for a living, how their domestic lives are working, glad-handing well wishers, toast of the town, pillars of the community . . . or on the other end of the spectrum, someone down and out waiting at a bus stop with barely the fare in their pocket, and so many who are between those extremes. They don’t get it. They mistake money for happiness. They mistake power for purpose. They mistake poverty as lack of wealth. - Mark Kolke

December 21, 2011

Look in the cupboard, look in the fridge, paw through the freezer – find things you’ve forgot, try some combos you’ve not attempted before, there is time for feeding – and then there is time for dining; time for being part of the process and time for being the process.  Cooking does not require a recipe, walking does not require a map and imagination does not require a policy document or instruction manual.  We learn by doing. We learn by taking actions. We sometimes re-learn by re-doing – sometimes we start to slow, sometimes we fail and fail and fail before we succeed.  Sometimes we fail simply because we never started.  We didn’t begin. We didn’t start. - Mark Kolke

December 20, 2011

I know, more than anything, we need to count on one another.   Is that not pretty fundamental to making all relationships work?  I think it is.  Try as we all might, to make sense of things, I’ve learned life and its players are not bound by laws of logic or nature or man – we are free spirits, all, bounded by imagination on one side, immovable objects and realities of physical world on the other.  But, there are more than two sides.  Always. - Mark Kolke

December 19, 2011

I’ve worked hard but not the hardest, I’ve led much but I was not the only leader on this team – but I must say, amid all that learning everyone did, I believe I learned the most; a view I expect other members of the team have as well when they wake from their well earned sleep this morning because that is what they will see in their mirror. Any goal pursued to its end, to conclusion, to fruition – and the euphoria overwhelms us in the end – proves that the place you end up, in the end, is not an end at all.  It is a beginning.  It is many new beginnings, for every member of that team. - Mark Kolke

December 18, 2011

Truth finding, in others, in self, is a lot like prospecting – sometimes you can do a lot of digging and not find much – but observing people say the unnecessary, do the unnecessary as they juggle facts and fiction merely to create an illusion - to obscure what is obviously true - always intrigues me, and seeing it several times recently in action gives me pause to ponder. - Mark Kolke

December 17, 2011

A few unconnected things, in the span of a short time, each one hitting some emotion-button trigger and we want to scream @(&%!@)%! at the top of our lungs. But we don’t.  We stow it, park it, walk it off . . . but, not often enough, do we talk it off.  Did that.  Felt good.  Didn’t solve a thing, but it diffused the things that contributed to the  ‘******’ moment, identified some points for further discussion and some for ‘lets not talk about those items so much’ . . . more about proportion and frequency than about silence or exclusion. - Mark Kolke

December 16, 2011

Best work, experiences, people – best times, practices; much of the time, none of them make sense.  For reasons I don’t comprehend, life lesson puzzle pieces are assembling themselves.  If I focus too often on my recurring mistakes and déjà do-do moments, I lose focus, I short-change myself on the good things. - Mark Kolke

December 15, 2011

Each day, some piece of tomorrow’s dreams arrive; each night, everything in the today jar that’s not used up or burnt up, moves into the abyss of yesterday – never to be seen or experienced again.  In yesterday, freshest memories and recent events sit on top – not settled yet, not adapted to their new role/impact, not yet covered and surrounded by experience …. And there will be more, soon, to comfort the rough parts, the sore parts, the paining parts.  That’s the way these things work. - Mark Kolke

December 14, 2011

When stuck, I behave like a little truck without reverse. I rock and bump and push against obstacles, try to overpower, run over, bump them out of the way – or steer away, to an easier path.  Either way, the path created, the route I choose is my own. No one else’s.  Too often  I’ve wanted someone else to choose the path I’d wish they would, but I am convinced that is a wrong-headed approach; I can’t choose for someone else any more than they can – or should - choose for me.  Maybe I would help myself by developing a reverse/retreat gear.  Pulling back or away is not something I’ve ever been very good at, but I could try.  In all of this, I also realize this - we are all creators.  Some create art, some create ideas, some create an atmosphere, some create joy, some create angst – but ALL of us create lives we lead and those with whom we share it, by the many simple (and often very difficult) choices we make. - Mark Kolke

December 13, 2011

Are you ready for it?  Each day, like school – offers lesson time, study time, recess time, run around and blow off steam time, lunch time, after-school time, home time, dinner time, homework time, evening time and sleep time.  Work days and play days offer no more, no less.  Each day arrives on our doorstep, like the morning paper – ready to be unfurled, ready for us, and it says – here is what happened yesterday, but offers no instruction for this day.  All up to us, it asks . . it begs of us, ‘what’s next?’ or ‘what do you want?’. - Mark Kolke

December 12, 2011

I don’t think of the day – this or any other – as a chore, but rather as an opportunity.  Growing, changing, tackling new problems, or tackling old ones yet again because we aren’t done with them just yet . . . that’s the way these things go. - Mark Kolke

December 11, 2011

Pleasant memories flow easily. Unpleasant ones, not so much.  I’m focused on happy memories today.  That we remember, and what we remember is no choice thing. We remember what we remember, and we’ve forgotten what we forgot, blocked out what we can’t bear.  One thing, always true in this – when I remember what I remember, I know I remember because I was there. - Mark Kolke

December 10, 2011

Try – for just a minute – to think of Saturday morning as a mistress, or lover.  Think of it as a person, a wise instructor (instructress), taking us by the hand, leading us in quiet meditation, soothing us, rubbing the stress from our neck and shoulders, touching us softly as we ease through breakfast and turn pages of the paper. Think of Saturday morning as maid/butler, valet to us all.  Consider these factors:  There is no hurry, there is no worry – on Saturday morning. The trick, and I’m still working on this, is to have this Saturday morning feeling every morning.  I don’t mean taking a vacation or retiring – I mean ‘being Saturday morn-mode’ in life, every day, every morning; I need it, my body needs it, my brain needs it . . . and I know I’ll be a better person for it.  Saturday morning’s purpose, when taken properly, is to relax us. Time – in a mental place – one where we don’t spend much time during the week, because there is just too much to do, not enough time to do it and we so often neglect ourselves. - Mark Kolke

December 9, 2011

Today is not your fly-on-the-wall Friday.  Pay attention, please, there might likely be a test.  How are you?  Top of the world, down in the muck - or somewhere between those points?  I wonder, why are you here, reading this?  10,000 people do not have 1 opinion or 1 perspective, even if they are all fans of mine.  Please take a moment to answer:  why are you doing this? I’m writing for you, and to you. Yes, you.  - Mark Kolke

December 8, 2011

The concept, or institution, of marriage – depending on your view, can be empowering partnership or restrictive shackles. Everyone I know who has a marriage – past, present or  future – that fits their image of what it is, what it was or what it might yet be.  So many people, so many views.  Having seen so many not work out, including two of my own, it is so easy to be cynical, to believe there must be some other way with more joy and less self-doubt, more love and less misery, more sharing and caring than those constructs of conflict and hurt, failure and pain.    Experience teaches that there is much difficulty along that road.  Alone, or with a partner, so why not have fabulous company? - Mark Kolke

December 7, 2011

Actions we take fall in two groups- things we do by free choice and things we do in reaction to actions of other forces (people, the world, circumstances). In other words, actions and reactions. Mix with that – expectations – you get a new dynamic called confusion; I find myself confused sometimes. I see others confused too.  I’d like to change this a bit, if I can, but sometimes confusion / lack of clarity emerges when I am looking for just the opposite. - Mark Kolke

December 6, 2011

This is something I struggle with – to not just take in the sounds, the words, not just listen – empathizing with someone whose point of view is different than mine, to appreciate fully the views and feelings of someone who does not feel the way I do about things . . .   We are all at different places along life’s continuum . . . which does not preclude harmony, but denying or avoiding discussion of differences does little to help, does not repair discord and cannot ever, on its own, bridge any divide.  This is why, we have both mouths and ears; we must talk, and we must listen.  Otherwise, we are isolated and alone . . . whether we’ve taken a risk, or not. - Mark Kolke

December 5, 2011

We all have troubles – they gnaw in my belly-twist region, like evidence of mice sneaking into kitchens at night to nibble, eventually, a breaking through. My struggles, compared to real life drama struggles - few and relatively trivial troubles mine are.  Yoda said: “Do or do not do . . . there is no try.”  Picasso said: “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”  Wouldn’t it be nice if we all could, at least once in a while, share moments that wise and that effective in our own understanding of ourselves, or of anyone. Understanding grows, but labor of it continues – some things I can’t do and have failed miserably in previous experimentations . .   Because, I can’t.  Barely, in smallest ways, can I even change myself.   As I can’t change you. - Mark Kolke

December 4, 2011

Tripping through this day, like starting a novel, is new – untried, inexperienced, flailing to find its way – notwithstanding our considerable experience with running a day or dashing away, there is newness and hope in every nuance, time and place for every element, for every emotion. Realism in this day, or tomorrow, beautiful picture – a kind not yet painted; there will be experiments and trashed drafts, but at the end of the day there will be completeness, and done-ness. - Mark Kolke

December 3, 2011

There are so many things we like (or need) to do over. And over. If we could just find  time. Write over, paint over, cover it over, and do it again. Surveyors use correction lines. Editors use red pencil. Plasterers a trowel, painters a roller. Cooks use a trash bin and start again. Adjustment to changing circumstances and judging our work – revisionist process, work in progress. Plenty of time to change, do over, do again, start again . . . sure. If we get the chance. - Mark Kolke

December 2, 2011

While a bad mood internalized doesn’t help us very much, it doesn’t mess with anyone else’s day either.  But here is da ‘ting!  Bad mood people don’t keep it in. Bad mood people leak it around, spread it, share it, help everyone else ‘appreciate their angst’ a little bit. - Mark Kolke

December 1, 2011

Imagination can be truth, can it not?  Truth is a single word, yet telling it requires so many words, and threads. Truth is simple, yet endlessly complicated - blocks actions, stupefies strangers who don’t trust my truth. It stares at me, daily; like financial statements. Mostly, like a balance sheet snapshot, this moment in time as opposed to an accumulation of activity, losses and profits … it reflects earnings we’ve retained – sitting on my balance sheet of life, icons of who I am, what I am about, what I stand for and, as importantly, what I won’t stand for. - Mark Kolke

November 30, 2011

Last words can open a cornucopia of experience and knowing or could be just a lost (perhaps spectacular) opportunity. Choose, whichever you wish, but in that choosing, recognize you forever lose the other.  There is always time to make new friends, just as there is time to avoid making new enemies.- Mark Kolke

November 29, 2011

Things are always changing; big things, little ones too - they don’t change much or very fast.  If you don’t believe me, reflect back on last year, last decade, last job, last home, last …. you get the picture – what has changed?  Really, fundamentally changed?  For an answer, swing by the bathroom, stand at the sink – you are looking at the single common thread in the ‘nothing changing much’ scenario. - Mark Kolke

November 28, 2011

We sum accounts.  What is owed. Owed to us.  Balance books, keep track, fill forms, reconcile.  In our reconciliations, always a few cents get lost, different numbers in the total must surely be a rounding error.  Ignore. Move on,   Do we seek in people, in our experience – things, feelings we lack – or ones we know well?  Both?  What makes us tick?  Habits, behaviour, struggles, joys, dreams, hopes, people, pets, skills, pleasures – that matter to us? - Mark Kolke

November 27, 2011

If you have love in your heart, give some away. If you don’t, even more reason to give some away, give lots. My seasonal gift wish for you: find love, hold love and wallow in love for as long as you have it and, if love leaves you, may it leave you the gift of being changed and shaped, in ways you never imagined. - Mark Kolke

November 26, 2011

Leftovers may feel and look like a creation, of something new, but they are simply a rearrangement – one that fills more space than it did before . . . much like steam molecules being further apart than water molecules. This happens when people expand our understanding, stretch our limits, cheer us on when we struggle through difficulty. - Mark Kolke

November 25, 2011

If we think we can change anything involving another person simply because we can impose our will (changing baby diapers is probably the exception) we can’t; all we can do – all we ought to do – in cases where we care, is offer ourselves to help be an agent of change, and when we can’t be successful (most cases, most of the time) we simply need to accept that reality. Or, as my friend Annie from New Jersey says, ‘build a bridge and get over it’. - Mark Kolke

November 24, 2011

We can read of pain; cutting our finger, breaking our arm, or having our body sliced open to remove bad parts. I’ve been cut, broken and cut open. I’ve not been burned, but I know someone who was. I’ve not been terrorized, but I know someone who was.  I’ve not been bereaved, not lost a lover, but I know someone who has. I’ve not been left behind or tossed aside, but I know people who have been. I’ve been told of how slow wrenching torture put on its show for those watching life become death – despite love and caring and all doctors do, that wasn’t enough and death won.  - Mark Kolke

November 23, 2011

I don’t know this letting go feeling – letting go of someone or some idea – acceptance  things are changing, have changed, will never be the same again. Holding reins tight, it is hard to let go of the past, of yesterday – especially parts we feel/see slipping away – but it is tougher still to let the future unfold, let next steps unfold without control on them.  - Mark Kolke

November 22, 2011

Sometimes, when I feel down a quart, it might be best to check my mood at the door - like it was a coat I could leave, deposited on a hook.  Does my mood rub off on them, or do I let their mood diminish mine?  I probably don’t try hard enough for the first and admit the latter happens too many times to be considered an accident.  But, do I not choose who I speak with, meet with, hang out with and knock heads with?  I’m not advocating head-knocking, just careful choosing.  I am the air-traffic controller of my space, am I not? - Mark Kolke

November 21, 2011

Too often, I think, it is easy for us all to look at issue or problem we might have in our lives as insurmountable, impossible, or just too hard.  Mix with that this tendency to excuse and rationalize, many of us would rather happily state that there is no problem at all rather than tackling it. - Mark Kolke

November 20, 2011

I was out there – on those skinny branches; said what needed saying, explained, best I could. Afraid, worried, took risk, said my piece. ‘Worst case scenario’ did not; got what I wanted - serious dialogue.  No guarantee. May not work every time, but, if lesson can be turned into axiom it would be:  Tell truth to those you love.  They will never react as you predict or fear, but if you don’t tell them truth, what you see as ‘you see it’, then they won’t hear what you feel, won’t know what you think, won’t see what you see.- Mark Kolke

November 19, 2011

Changes, adjusting to them – positive or no, large or not – largest lesson is not contained in fresh information or new processes. Learning is in adjusting.  Learning is buried, in each adaptation, each accommodation, each new way of doing something, each day – so much to learn so much adjusting of our sensibilities, and our abilities, to learn – and to grow.  Change, however subtle – or not – is such a healthy process.  It reminds me of the business cliché, ‘if it ain’t broke, break it’ . I’m not saying we should self-destruct to change everything in our life or routine so that we can re-construct, but ask yourself this: ‘why not?’. - Mark Kolke

November 18, 2011

We cannot make and ought not to even think – that anyone can or should adjust their life to ours.  Adjustments – subtle little ones, massive shifts or epiphanies just arrived; we make them, take them, confront them, bounce and roll with them.  These are moments of life in place that combines a casual connections with time  or schedule – alternative activities waiting around every corner. - Mark Kolke

November 17, 2011

Today – what do you bring me?  To today: of the future, thank you for stopping by my imagination, please enjoy browsing my mind; you are so far away sometimes but now you arrived. I'm interested in cultivating a deep meaningful connection with you – because you are the type of day I would hang out with if you were next door or across the street.  I am not lost, wandering a bit, to see what our future might hold – I’ll ask for directions when needed, but I’m not lost yet.  Life is too short to be over-thinking …. anything.  - Mark Kolke

November 16, 2011

When we venture …. if only for a moment into a new world that involves creating a road over/around an obstacle, turning the obstacle into a tool or vehicle for our own progress is our hope – our only hope, our best hope to getting where we need and want to be.  That could be an immovable object - or a stubborn person, or our self. - Mark Kolke

November 15, 2011

Lessons come to us.  Sometimes they come slowly, sometimes rapid-fire.  The theory, as we get older, ought to be that they are fewer – because we’ve learned so many before, so much already absorbed. Still, it seems scarcely a day goes by, that some lesson arrives that is not new or nuanced version of something old – but, rather, one I thought I’d learned before.  In this learning life – surely, eventually, absorption of knowledge will occur. - Mark Kolke

November 14, 2011

My fairy tale isn’t over; it’s just beginning. It involves me, my thoughts, memories, loves and lovers, my past, my present, my future - it involves ideas and hopes, dreams . . . and late night pondering.  I like to think that my water could be ice and snow or tears sometimes, beneath my feet, or a salty spray on some Hawaiian shore splashing my face.  Life, and love, are not about being OK or getting what we want. They are about feeling how we feel, about people, issues, ideas and being the water, not the rock. - Mark Kolke

November 13, 2011

Someone recently invited me to re-think my view - on abundance – how I can create more of it in my life.  I thought I was doing OK.  Agreed, in the lifestyle, happiness and optimism sections, I’m doing well.  However, in the prosperous department, I have some casualties in my past to forget and some yet to dispose of.  I am much indebted for lessons, but I hate being indebted in financial terms.  So, coming back to abundance . . .     The case to be made for abundance is, as I understand, that abundance flowing to us is a byproduct of attitude. Work, yes. Smarts, yes.  Luck, of course.  But first, last and always there is attitude.  On what, do you rely?  - Mark Kolke

November 12, 2011

When we are confronted with best opportunities – or worst – are we afraid of failure, or success?  Unknown.  No control.   We fear that.  But, turned on by it, just the same.   We are moths, destined to fly at the flame, drawn to brightness. Flying into fire is neither reckless or courageous.  It is both, at one moment. Need it. Want it. Work for it. Fight for it. Love it. Can’t get enough of this life.  As moths, we would not learn what we humans learn; the light we are drawn to is someone’s glow, the heat we are drawn to is someone’s heart pumping, the flame we are drawn to is the fire we get when we rub two sticks together and fan the resulting flame. Two moths could never do that, think that or feel that.  We are not moths, we are just behaving like moths. Lucky us. - Mark Kolke

November 11, 2011

Today is new, it is fine, we’ll be fine. Tomorrow will be good too, perhaps better.  I try to have faith, in things that are good. Knowing so confidently that they contain truth we can trust should keep us safe from fear, immune to uncertainty and free from doubt. When we trust that, we move on as surely as winter moves into spring – not so much the season’s start, but to enjoy the spring in our step that flows from the first spring day. - Mark Kolke

November  10, 2011

Just imagine, what an open mind can find if it is open.  To me, that is like asking what a dry sponge can soak up.   But, a bright mind is easily disguised as an open one. I think the two don’t always or often go together. - Mark Kolke

November 9, 2011

How do we distinguish – how do we separate wheat from chaff? As complex as it is to understand anyone else, some days it is just as complex to understand ourselves.  Words, speaking them aloud, are not an isolated and pure expression of feeling as much as they are the expression of words we’ve first thought about saying, and then expressed. - Mark Kolke

November 8, 2011

Through our own eyes – missing what anyone else might see, without appreciation for views from another perspective, we see what we see, from where we stand. We see what we want to look at – via lens we choose.  To see things through our own history, we should use our memory lens. If we want to see dreamy future, we should choose rosy-tinted. For a dark view, choose dark ones that block sunshine. Pick a view, pick a lens. Or pick two or three. Confusing sometimes. - Mark Kolke

November 7, 2011

Seizing this day – grabbing it by the morning, by the thought, by the lapels - then hang on, like a rider, unwilling to be bucked off. - Mark Kolke

November 6, 2011

We say, most often, what we choose to say.  Sometimes we choose those words very carefully and express them with similar deliberate care  – choosing words, the moment, the time, the place – because we feel it is important.  I believe actions, on the other hand, whether planned or spontaneous reactions to the unexpected – these are the signals of genuineness we can trust above all others. - Mark Kolke

November 5, 2011

Abundance, I’m told, is at hand.  It is. I feel it.  Need to know it.  Have to trust.  Awaiting its arrival.  Will it come as a vision, or byproduct of bad luck, ah+ha moment, or through trial and error – or out of deeper reflection, small steps taken, time after time, step upon step, leading somewhere magical, following crumbs along an abundant trail or events and consequences – or random acts, or deliberated decisions.  Someone should keep track of these things. - Mark Kolke

November 4, 2011

Search for truth, please, in all things you do.  Take baby steps.  Whole small truths.  Then bigger ones. Then biggest.  You get my meaning, don’t you?  If we cannot tell little truths, then we set ourselves on a path habit, of not telling truth on bigger matters because we train ourselves to tell ourselves that the non-truth doesn’t matter. Isn’t important.  It was just a little thing.  Everything is a little thing.  Start there.  - Mark Kolke

November 3, 2011

Each day, like a tire, goes around and around – not much excitement until the rubber hits the road and that is when things really start happening.  This morning, seeing that burning sun filtered for me by smoke laden clouds I felt inspired – ready to let my engine race, let my tires squeal, I want to be driven hard . . . fast and left happily exhausted when finally parked at the end of the day so I can rest up for the next race day. - Mark Kolke

November 2, 2011

Consider this; life is fear, or it is courage?  I can’t imagine a third option.  Life in fear, of any thing or person, or of life – what prison that must be.  No walls, no jailer, no shackles, but no life. No liveliness.  No happiness.   Life in courage.  That’s so different; to get up, not give up. To stand up, to speak up, to go, to do, to be.    Easier when done with people worth knowing, with courage, comes truth. Truths of our lives, truthiness with each other, comes from being true with ourselves and true to ourselves. This is necessary for our energy level – for anything – to bring about anything worth doing.  - Mark Kolke

November 1, 2011

When chaos or surprise strikes – or when some circumstances take us out of our normal state, cause us to react instinctively or without time to think – then we are far less likely to have time or the dexterity to think it all though . . . it just comes out. It’s like the Hallmark moment, only better. I love receiving cards. They represent deliberate action, an expression of a thought, a feeling – often things that are harder to say.- Mark Kolke

October 31, 2011

There will be time . . .   The assumption we make – all of us, I am sure – is that there will be time. When the day or task is done, when the week or month are over, there will be time.  No need to do that important thing now, there will be time. No need to talk that issue through right now, there will be time.  No need to resolve that glitch or conflict now, there will be time.  Each time, you think that; stop, take the time. Take it now.  You don’t get that moment again. It goes by  and what you have is the memory of when you didn’t take the time.  You never get that back. - Mark Kolke

October 30, 2011

Loving is more than holding, but don’t forget to hold.  Loving is more than touching, but don’t forget to touch.  Loving is more than talking, but don’t forget to speak out, speak up. Love is more than listening, but don’t forget to pay attention to and discuss what you are listening to.  Lip-service should have only one definition - should mean lots of kissing-time. - Mark Kolke

October 29, 2011

What we do, then, matches what we say, or does it?  Nobody sees us fully but most see right through us.  Three choices - tell it like it is, tell it like it isn’t or not tell it at all.  - Mark Kolke

October 28, 2011

What appears wrong is not always what is wrong.  What appears wrong might just be a symptom, consequence, or something totally unconnected with what is really wrong.  And, once we find what is wrong, is it really wrong?  Or right?  Or, is there a difference? - Mark Kolke

October 27, 2011

Life’s surprises don’t arrive on schedule.  No reason is required.  No way to time when they’ll show up.  The challenges are in our faces, in the moment, conspiring with us to figure out which way to go . . . - Mark Kolke

October 26, 2011

Feeling. Choice. Life. Love.  Those are the tools I have.  No others. - Mark Kolke

October  25, 2011

Words we utter often mask what’s going on inside.  I think ‘long term relationship’ is one people use out of fear of saying something that has a more permanent, committed or forever or for life connotation, or fear they’ve not found it yet. The term is safe, but it lacks belief. Lacks passion. Still, I suppose, it expresses hope for a long term, whatever that means. - Mark Kolke

October 24, 2011

We are all in this game of life, alone.  And we won’t survive this life; trust me, it’s been proven.  But we all want to stretch it out - for as long as we can so there can be some measure of us, our work, our life and legacy, left behind.  For most of us that means children, and/or a great relationship with a partner (perverse I suppose that we all want a life-partner but nobody wants to be the one ‘left’ behind, alone), some life’s work or symbol that we were here, for a while, something symbolic that we did something good for the world or fellow man, or someone while we were here. - Mark Kolke

October 23, 2011

Pursuit of success is not that word, but an illusion of it; rather, it is the pursuit of survival coupled with hope and appetite. Really, after survival is assured, what’s the rest about?  This is a statement by someone who has had much and who has had little. More feels better in its moment, but that moment is fleeting. - Mark Kolke

October 22, 2011

It will drive you happy, drive you mad; it will drive you to every kind of distraction when you have it, and even more when you don’t.  Seneca said: ‘If you wish to be loved, love.’ This guarantees little in terms of results, but means everything in terms of how you’ll feel.  Romantic love may not be returned to you. The person(s) you love may not love you, may never love you, or may not love you in the way you wish they would. Still, by giving your love away, you have a chance at least that some will find you.  Conversely, by not giving any love away, you likely assure that little will come your way.  That’s not Seneca’s wisdom, that’s mine.-  Mark Kolke

October 21, 2011

Every day unexpected, not-as-predicted. We might get what we say we want, or expect, or deserve sometimes . . . but being happy with it over time is another matter entirely. Time is all we have; space and distance have no relevance if we don’t have time for them.  Everything of value is connected to time – how we make time, spend time, invest time or waste time.  No permanence to it. Can’t hold it in your hand, can’t bottle it, can’t sell it, can’t store it up. - Mark Kolke

October 20, 2011

If today is my last, I could ask for no better memory than yesterday – and if tomorrow were, then I’d like to think of today as the better memory, not for what’s past or remembered but from what has begun here, now – here, today. – Mark Kolke

October 19, 2011

If there is one thing I’ve learned, above so many others, from writing this column, it is that people we connect with have the power to affect the flavour and direction of our lives – if we allow it.  We get in, to us, that which we let in.- Mark Kolke

October 18, 2011

Sculptor chips rock blocks to reveal visions – then the image is set, rock solid. Elements chip and wear landscapes to reveal what is behind everything and it changes, but change is millennia slow.  We have but one lifetime to chip away ourselves to reveal insides.  I believe we can do it one lifetime.  If there is another, then that’s bonus time. Frankly, I don’t think it is about the time limit as much as it is about the chipping. - Mark Kolke

October 17, 2011

Critics send spear-like thoughts, tipped with sarcasm. Not dipped in venom for no reason, but painful just the same. Not often, but sometimes, those barbs stick – not because they are sharp, but because they are accurate.- Mark Kolke

October  16,  2011

Now, here I am.  What next?  Happiness, is a direction I am heading to, not a place I’ve been.  Not just logic in it, much emotion too.  No sureness to it, but wishing.  Yet, I wish it. Still, I hope it. Then, I dream it. - Mark Kolke

October  15, 2011

Being ‘up to it’ and being ‘up for it’ are similar but vastly different concepts.  Putting a toe in the water is different than jumping, with both feet, into the deep end of the pool.  First, do I check for water in the pool?  Or, do I sign up for swim lessons?  You see, the little changes produce 5 minute savings that get snapped up so quickly we don’t notice. To make major changes, we need to create large blocks of time so we can invest that time in making dreams come true.  Yes, a dream could come true in 5 minutes.  But that’s a stretch.  A dream could come true . . . in a heartbeat, in a lifetime, or never.  Are you ready?  Do have time for it?  Are you up for it? - Mark Kolke

October 14, 2011

Wanting to know. To know it all, takes emotional labour. Drains, pains, pulls our head in competing multiple directions of present, past, driving us, stopping us – whatever it is, there seems to be a sequence to it, rhythm, tells us when we’ve found it, or when we’re close . . . but we all fear wrong path choices.  There are no wrong choices.  Life is not a sequence of denied do-over requests – rather, it is a do now, do next, do what we want world.  Go ahead, get up out of your chair, go out the door – do what you want. - Mark Kolke

October 13, 2011

All I can do is offer myself up to you, world – show you what I am.  I can be anything you want, so long as it is what I want.  Like most people, I want to share this life with someone. Not that our pursuits of brain and body are not valuable in their own right, I know my greatest value is not found in solitude. - Mark Kolke

October 12, 2011

In the middle of the daily battle, in this struggle – who are we fighting, who is the enemy, what describes that foe?   If we can call it by a name, give it dimension, wrap it in color and characteristics, maybe we can make it human, make it real, make it something we can reach out to touch – or to hit – we can begin to wage a battle against it. - Mark Kolke

October 11, 2011

To change, tweak, massage – or reinvent my approach to scheduling, planning, action – or is it simply too hard?  I can do short bursts of energy, but that’s not change, it’s just a big push. I know this because how I work, plan, manage . . . my time and tasks doesn’t look that much different than it did years ago; only now, I get 300% as much done as I did before (thank you – I think – to technology) . . . but I seem to do that, just to stay even.  And I know, I’m not staying even at all . . . simply managing, albeit poorly, how far it is that I am behind . . .  - Mark Kolke

October 10, 2011

We live life. Then it ends.  Whether or not we’ve achieved our stated goals, when we are done, we are done.  So, what can we do, if anything, to help someone left behind?  For those who’ve seen life taken early, taken swiftly; it never gives anything back no matter how long they wait for it to come. Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. Not knowing which to do must be suffering’s worst form - to understand, but to be powerless. - Mark Kolke

October 9, 2011

We need to see, through our own eyes, unfiltered - to see them (people, situations, feelings), not as they are in some objective sense, but as they are to us.  I need to. You need to.  There is no right time, or wrong time, to feel what you feel, to do what you do or to have lived what you’ve lived.  When things don’t turn out the way we wish, does that mean we made some mistake in actions, assessment of the situation – or, that we didn’t do anything wrong at all?  - Mark Kolke

October 8, 2011

Waiting for something – someone, some event; aren’t we all?  I am waiting. For you, for me. Do give an answer, show me a glimmer, offer a clue to what the future holds. Don’t we all want to know; juicy drama, perched, edge of seats – wanting to know what happens next. Don’t give us an intermission, or candy-fluff, we want to know it all, want to know it now? - Mark Kolke

October 7, 2011

The truth appears to be far more complicated than one might first think; what is it, how can I define it and when I talk about truth or explain mine is it the same as anyone else’s . . and if not, then what is true, what is truth?    On the other hand, it is probably just as perplexing to define non-truth; just as many nuances in what is not true as there are in what is. Truth is obvious except when it isn’t, which is often. Truth is simple except when it isn’t, which is often. Truth telling is easy except when it is hard, which is often. - Mark Kolke

October 6, 2011

Some people come into our lives and they stay – till they die or until we do. Some people come, stay a while, then leave as their paths take them down paths they’d not imagined . . . and surely those paths don’t involve us.  These characters – these spectacular gems – move along with their lives, look more forward than they look back and they venture where they (or we) might never have imagined they would go. - Mark Kolke

October 5, 2011

What is a ‘complete stranger’, anyway?  We don’t use that term to describe people we’ve never connected with – but, rather, it is reserved to describe people we’ve just begun to . . - Mark Kolke

October 4, 2011

Words, wisdom and kindness; someone sent me something private - not for reprinting but it serves to guide me today. I’ll share a line – I’m borrowing without attribution to keep the privacy of the author, but I am sure anyone who reads these words will lessen their load when they read these words:  ‘Like so many things. It must be gone through.’  The challenge is met in those words. The rest of us write, re-write and re-try to convey our feelings using words – long pieces - they so often fall short. But, we get to keep trying if we are lucky. - Mark Kolke

October 3, 2011

Goals, mountains to climb, obstacles to overcome – achievement measured in so many ways; presentations I enjoyed most were from people whose big story was about falling short of their ultimate goal, not finishing first or at the top, but finishing best because the journey, the climb, the test – was the best, where the best tests and lessons were found. - Mark Kolke

October 2, 2011

Emotion is great, excitement fantastic – but caring is something that builds, like layers of pearl in an oyster.  The oyster never gets better looking, but the pearl gets better and better as time passes. - Mark Kolke

October 1, 2011

Staying put, steady, driving middle of the road, toeing a line, playing safe, protecting our position – common, valued, typical – and wrongheaded.  Go. Do. Don’t pay attention to those who criticize . . . they are not all wrong, but they cannot know what is right for you. - Mark Kolke

September 30, 2011

Feeling really good, doing good, having good things come back to me; much of my thinking is focused on two things. The first is a purpose, the second, a person. Place matters too, but it’s just a place, though it is nice to be in the same place at the same time.  That can change. Mostly, it’s about purpose.  But, then, what’s the point of having a purpose without someone to share it with? Someone who gets me (and I her), someone who has come to mean so much to me in a short time. - Mark Kolke

September 29, 2011

At any age, stage of life – there are all things that have gone before, all those who’ve crossed our paths, walked our paths with us, stayed in touch or drifted away – they and those experiences inform who we are.  Understanding ourselves, and each other, is like a geo-technical survey – we can’t know what loads we can handle unless we examine what is deep beneath the surface. - Mark Kolke

September  28, 2011

Charting some course into a future is a strange notion – implies we will have sufficient skill and vision to imagine things as they will be, and then to make them so.  Experience teaches that plans, however well intentioned, often don’t work out the way we might have expected, but they usually turn out the way they ought to . . . - Mark Kolke

September 27, 2011

I’m not mad at people or regimes – but clearly disappointed at leaders who pay more attention to media politics than to issues, and media that focuses on style points over substance, controversy over reality and self-congratulation over genuinely getting the news everyone is obscuring.  In other words, I don’t want what is in the paper. I want what is NOT in the paper, not on the newswire, not on the air or on the internet. I want the untold stories. I want the unreported insight. I want the issues ripping lives apart that we don’t know about – I want that. And I want reporting unsung heroes whose actions change our lives. That’s all. - Mark Kolke

September  26, 2011

Opportunity to live life fully - as large as it can be lived - does not come by mail or courier or embossed invitation. It is there for the taking. Or, we can pass it by. - Mark Kolke

September 25, 2011

A road to insight unfolds when least expected - column of light appears when a street lamp pierces space between buildings, or when downward focused lamp floods darkened room portions with energy, paving a path between a chair and a cabinet, allowing me to see into that darkness – illuminating corners I’d not reach with the stealthiest of old brooms with longer stalks on the edge for scouring corners.  This is not about saying yes, or no, or being melancholy on a rainy day – it is about seeing through all that, smiling, knowing there are reasons I don’t understand, timing I don’t appreciate, forces I cannot fathom . .- Mark Kolke

September 24, 2011

Cliché to say, strangers are friends we’ve not met yet.  No truth to it. Most strangers, even when we meet, don’t’ become friends. Some just get stranger, and stranger.  Some come. Some go.  Some take up residence in our lives.  Make note of the date when you connect with someone – because one day you will want to remember when that happened. - Mark Kolke

September 23, 2011

I’m experienced, but I’m not used up.   Season changing reminds me – ought to remind us all – that while autumn comes every year, autumn of life arrives, and stays.   Hands aren’t as strong, but days seem longer.  Back still gets up, but not as fiercely.  Hair still stands on end, but it’s shorter now – missing in places it was, and showing up in places it never grew before. - Mark Kolke

September 22, 2011

Thrilled with the morning, unafraid of tomorrow - future is where everything rests – waiting for us . . . to enjoy everything that hasn’t happened yet. Nothing is wrong, or needs to be wrong - to know that right hasn’t arrived. Nothing is missing except the feeling I am missing. Nothing is to be done . . .  - Mark Kolke

September 21, 2011

When we make changes to daily routine, weekly chores or monthly processes – what happens to the 5 minutes saved here, 10 minutes saved on something else?  I should think – after many years of trying to make decisions that made sense in terms  of improving the value/use/efficiency of my time, that I would have something dramatic to show for it – like a cookie jar full of 5 minute bites and half-hour meals.  In fact, by now I should have entire months stored up . . .   But I don’t. - Mark Kolke

September 20, 2011

Curiosity about opening books, or people, to see between covers, read between lines - curiosity requires mind-set that embraces whateverness we find there, tucked, inscribed there . . . or only thought about. - Mark Kolke

September 19, 2011

Seriously, we can see our life, and how live it, as spirit squelching hand-cuffs and chains, keeping us in the life we’ve been living, pressed deep into ruts we know.  OR, we can start a new life, start anew, put gas in our engine and lightness in every new step.  C’mon along, it will be a fantastic ride. - Mark Kolke

September 18, 2011

No way to predict, just receive the present - like its name, when rubber hits road – best expectations or worst fears move from dreamland to tangible reality.  Some ‘best experiences’ I’ve had, best people I’ve met, best relationships I’ve fostered came from such unexpected innocuous starts I almost missed them. - Mark Kolke

September 17, 2011

Life’s a no-fault event, it’s just life. It happens to us all; directed, or miss-fired, it continues like water spilled across a prairie, finding its own way – burrowing a channel that leaves a gouged trail behind. Landscape is carved, but not hurt, in this process. - Mark Kolke

September 16, 2011

Some days, seem futile – when big boulders don’t roll uphill by themselves. Compared to billions who would happily trade my place, I’m happy to have big rocks to push up the steep grade.  Those hills seem steeper now; valley floor still beautiful, but the climb back to the top takes more out of me than it used to.  The landscape hasn’t changed much, but I have. - Mark Kolke

September 15, 2011

More and more, I think about it, I get what I get, I got what I got, I find what I find. There is a feeling, at moments, that I get more difficulty than I deserve (yes, I realize most of what I get that doesn’t feel so good is of my own creation), but lately, more and more, I find pleasures I didn’t expect, kindness beyond what I deserve, efforts I’ve not invited but which I so richly appreciate. - Mark Kolke

September  14, 2011

I’ve wondered, from both business and personal perspectives, if fixing past things occupies too much time/energy/brain work . . . and in so doing, takes my focus off doing the present and building new future.  Someone shared a splendid sentence: ‘We are packages made of events and circumstances and people who are and have been in our life. We’re not finished unwrapping’.  Packages are, of course, much smaller than baggage.  Baggage should always be checked, but packages can be carried-on; so we should carry on, shouldn’t we?  Hard to see forest for trees, but when leaves fall, it gets easier. - Mark Kolke

September 13, 2011

I can start something, finish another . . . or just make a little progress on many things; too often the day shapes itself. I have a pile of things ready to go, some are nearly complete, some I’ve just begun.  How, then, do I measure productivity at the end of the day?  The key – for me, at the end of it, is to be glad of it.  - Mark Kolke

September 12, 2011

Having anything, or anyone, is something we have no assurance of – no guarantee, but we never lose times we had or memory of what we had with whom we had it. Wealth comes, not in cash or things; in time we realize the only thing valuable is time – and how we spend it. If you are young and don’t believe that, give it a while . . . - Mark Kolke

September 11, 2011

We wake up, not to smell coffee, but to spill it, on counter or down gullet – we need this, as bread needs its kneading – punching down, turning over, punching again and again. Our anger displayed and our bodies splayed on the hills we don’t want to climb or die on. Our joy displayed in tall lettered road-signs. Our pain fades.   Most things we hold dear are worth fighting for and working for – and when I was younger there seemed to be so many of them.  Fewer now.  Clearer. - Mark Kolke

September 10, 2011

I breathe and work and play, I read and write and eat, I wake and sleep and dream – though sometimes the dreams come in the middle of the day. The difference, of course, is that the dreams in daytime involve real people in real time.  If we are lucky, these are signs we are getting things right.  Sometimes that involves meeting some awesome person, sometimes it’s having just the right amount of every ingredient on hand for making what we are making – sometimes it makes no sense at all, but the arrival seems so idyllic, it must be some brand of perfection – so maybe, just maybe, life’s randomness can be elegant after all. - Mark Kolke

September 9, 2011

When we take things apart, we can never put them back the same way – without pieces left over, without signs of re-assembly, often better to leave dis-assembled, pieces laying there in plain view. - Mark Kolke

September 8, 2011

Be careful, this is a life sentence. Use it, or lose it.  You won’t get out alive. You are stuck here on this planet, encased in your body – for life, and kept alive by your great relationships. There is no escape . . .yikes!  - Mark Kolke

September 7, 2011

Dreams are of a time, and when it is time, new dreams take their place – new hopes, fresh objectives, changed perspective – transition feels like so much work, which it is, of course, but worthy work. - Mark Kolke

September 6, 2011

Expectations don’t show up - in a mirror, see something – or someone or some ideal – we need to see beyond it.  No x-ray vision, but imagining unimaginable – an impossible that goes beyond the goal - then, maybe we bring things closer to us in time or distance – into better focus. - Mark Kolke

September 5, 2011

Each new venture can be adventure – or not; if we take the view it might be phenomenal on many levels, we give magic a chance. If we have a notion of how it might turn out, chances are best that it won’t meet that expectation. Then, what do we do?  Say NO, because it didn’t meet our expectation, or say YES because it is fantastic? - Mark Kolke

September 4, 2011

Mood.  Love it, or hate it – can’t avoid it.  It inhabits the body as well as the mind.  When a great mood inhabits mine, I am thrilled (it gets obvious) until I bump into other people.  Then, the variables arrive: how solid is my mood if I meet up with or cross swords with someone who is not in the chipper state I am? - Mark Kolke

September 3, 2011

We don’t realize that - as children – and often, at any age, we mistake each day, each turning point, each next-step as just stuff we have to muck our way through.  But it’s not that simple. Every step, every one, even those easy-feeling ones is an act of courage on some level.  You might not have trouble functioning in a room full of strangers or extending a hand to shake, to touch, someone new – but surely someone else finds that to be a hurdle.  Both of you exhibit the same amount of courage, just that confident ones breeze past that thought as though the issue is a facile one . . .   A word, gesture, movement or an argument – each is a courageous bold step. - Mark Kolke

September 2, 2011

My thinking - if someone reacts in a strange fashion – is that, there is a reason rooted in behavior that is far more significant to watch than the ‘facts du jour’.  Words have etymology … so do feelings and behavior. Origin of how we process events, words of others, thoughts of our own – they have a process that unfolds.  So, consider a new way of being.  OK, you don’t have to consider it as a total life commitment to change – but, please, humor me for a moment.  Consider this . . .  being open to possibility – all possibility, to find and to have the most glorious life which provides pleasure and health, emotional and intellectual growth – the only requirement is that you be open to radical change in your life. - Mark Kolke

September 1, 2011

My tendency is to talk around things rather than directly ‘to them’, easier to discuss issues than to confront reality head on, easier to generalize that to admit – even to those we are closest to – that we have failed at something, that we have not been able to accomplish what should seem so obvious and simple . . . - Mark Kolke

August 31, 2011

I say I am open to new ideas. But am I really? Pre-conceived notions can be debunked, but not usually without a fight? Holding firm to strongly held beliefs is not something I give up, usually, without a struggle of some sort. I think most of us struggle that way – because enlightenment does not usually involve accepting one new fact or embracing one new idea. It usually turns a big part of how we think on its ear. - Mark Kolke

August 30, 2011

I’ve met several people recently; some social, some business – my tuner set for purpose of catching snap-shot view quickly as I could, exercise quick analysis, to later see if initial gut-feeling is validated. Or not.  Too soon to tell. Interesting to see new people from that angle, looking into one facet in search of knowledge – the kind to make a judgment with – before exploring other facets. Facet-enating glimpses.  The challenge, the real one, is not to see new folks from these clever vantage points to gain new perspective of every facet of them.  The challenge to see people we already know, ah+ha, that’s it; the most important of all, self. - Mark Kolke

August 29, 2011

We see FROM some angle, look at things COMPARED to other things, see people measured AGAINST things next to them.  Most things are seen so incompletely, it is hard to believe we see them at all.  People too. We see a sliver of a single dimension, usually from mid-distance.  Up close is better. Too close is, too close.  Too far away is too connected to longing and my middle-aged eyes can’t see that … for that I need my bi-focal brain to visualize.  - Mark Kolke

August 28, 2011

Some things are only for the young; others for wiser older men, women too, who knew when to change from young turk to wiser miser – while others - whatever age, remain young fools still chasing dreams.  But we chase, still.  And dream, always.  Our ideas, dreams and troubles keep us up at night – but that’s OK; there is no point wasting a good night on sleep every night . . . wonder, if all my failed schemes, dashed dreams and mistaken judgments had been idyllic, would I have learned an ounce of wisdom that seems to now come by the pound?  Second chance, or second guessing?   Always. - Mark Kolke

August 27, 2011

Every time we try, and fail, the voice that says ‘you can’t do that’ speaks to us. Every time we stretch and break that voice says ‘see, I told you that was impossible’.  Every time we think we can do something difficult, that voice says ‘who are you kidding, you failed at that before, what makes you think you can this time?’. Every time we dream a dream, however small, that voice says ‘what hubris, that you would dream so big when so many have so little, who do you think you are?’.  Sometimes they need to be over-ruled. Sometimes, they need to be completely ignored.  Little voices need to be silenced, every time.  I know this – we need to continue – to try, to fail, stretch, break, do difficult things and dream ambitiously; the voices are not real unless we let them shackle us, because then we empower them to limit everything we do. - Mark Kolke

August 26, 2011

People and ideas do not fit in boxes or pigeon-holes; compartmentalizing elements of our home/work organization has its place, but people things are messy, spill over, leak, crumble, overlap and undermine – things we do to each other and to ourselves make no sense at times, perfectly natural at others.  Voices in the distance . . . whispering loud enough to be heard, saying …. what can I do, can I help? - Mark Kolke

August 25, 2011

Times have changed, and they change us too. They – those, those who would be best at this or me at that, we’ve changed. Older, not always wiser, but older and playing a different phase, of a different game. - Mark Kolke

August 24, 2011

When I’m busy, it seems easiest to short-change sleep; you know the feeling – we’ve all done it, because an hour or two stolen here can be paid back later. Or, I’ll rest when the project is done or when I’m caught up.  Surrender to sleep, let her take you hostage, take you prisoner, let her hold you, keeping you still – eyes closed and body resting till dawn. - Mark Kolke

August 23, 2011

Life is haphazard.  We think we plan it. But any plan is, at best, like rehearsal where our efforts build momentum - accelerate and grow our power – until  balloon pricking incidents dissipate us, leak our energy onto some flat emptiness - the next phone ring, next rehearsal . . .  I am telling a story – mine; sometimes I’ll tell one like yours – maybe mine appearing to be like yours?  Who knows how complex it will get, or how simple? Simple is the target goal, but how do we find it: by unraveling tangle, or weaving smooth? None of it is rehearsal – it is a life state where optimism is caffeine for the spirit, confidence the wheel grease, attitude the accelerant and the next great stimulus might blow in on a breeze. - Mark Kolke

August 22, 2011

Those who study brains tell us the mix of emotion and memory is key to those things which are etched in our minds; sadly, for those who have trauma/emotion combos, those are etched deeply too.  The future memories we harvest come from the crop we plant today; combine emotion with people we meet, things we do, ideas we discuss – and the connection has a chance of being deep and clear.- Mark Kolke

August 21, 2011

Disappointments, all sizes, fuel me – they propel us - forward, onward, upward, through  bumps and stormy weather.  I don’t mind.  I don’t mind disappointment – seems a requirement of forward progress; but I wonder why there is within us (me anyway) a wish that unfolds in behavior, to avoid it. And I see this fear in others who risk little, tread softly because fear of disappointment or realization of misjudgment paralyzes adventurous aspects of their spirit. Why is that? - Mark Kolke

August 20, 2011

Thoughts and people, in my mind, mix fantastic metaphors – crack egg to see what’s there, yet scrambled we lose sight of components, just like people; playing with ideas – easier than playing with people – because ideas don’t ask questions, don’t change their mind and ideas will wait until you are ready – but people get up, get dressed and are gone before an idea can wake up.  Dream chasing, chasing the dream – or just dreaming? On gloomy days it is so difficult to get a lift – and sunny mornings, it is so difficult not to. What do you fantasize about on days like this? - Mark Kolke

August 19, 2011

If we are lucky, we have a place at the table, a voice in the discussion – but the role of men as the thinkers, deciders and dominators has passed.  We share it now with children and women and, together with Google and Wikipedia - we seem no closer to answers. - Mark Kolke

August 18, 2011

The question – always – remains, what is the point of all these series of experiences, of strength and weakness, and knowing ourselves, if not for some purpose beyond pleasing ourselves with the fineness and excesses of life. - Mark Kolke

August 17, 2011

I love days when I am pumped, stoked, hyped – wired …. with fire in me, aim easily finds the target page; but, when not so primed, blandness tries to intrude.  Someone commented - I write best when I struggle emotionally – their point being that, in calmness, I lose my edge.  I strive/yearn for a more peaceful easy feeling, but it seems the angst will not ever leave me. - Mark Kolke

August 16, 2011

Explain anything, if you can; keep it simple, clear and meaningful.  Now tell everyone.  Change the world.  THE END.  Wouldn’t it be great, if it was that simple, but what – if we knew the pure perfect answer – would we spend our lives doing?  If all was explained, wouldn’t we all be done searching, finished our final act, complete beyond all expected completeness? - Mark Kolke

August 15, 2011

Start fresh, looking always, for something new, inspiring . . . anything, to start our mental engines.  Many do it crawling through traffic.  I do it crawling on my hands across this qwerty keyboard.  World starts anew each Monday morning; all over this planet we use calendar, clock and Monday as the start of the new marathon.  A chalk line we are crouched behind, ready and loose, to spring from the starting blocks at the starter’s gun’s report. - Mark Kolke

August 14, 2011

Yesterday reminded me to laugh, to remember, to be sad about some mistakes made; but reflecting those poignant experiences – to determine if they were errors in judgment or simply errors in timing – I realized that, over months and years, people who stay with us, through thick and thin times, easy times and tough times draw for me the clearest conclusion that timing is the culprit and that instincts were solid.  - Mark Kolke

August 13, 2011

Clever statements, quotations, axioms - fit the punishment poorly, as often they ill-describe the crime; sometimes actions, words and choices of others collide with my view of how someone ought to be dealing with me. I’m unsure if it is comeuppance, reaping what I’ve sewn. Or is it?  When someone’s actions upset me out-of-proportion it is time to look in that mirror – to examine why I am upset; hence the term self-reflection.  When something doesn’t ring true or fit right , it reminds me of when I’ve done the same thing to someone else with scarcely a care.  - Mark Kolke

August 12, 2011

How do we communicate?  Really? Not you and me – not necessarily, but most of us, generally, with each other.  That movie, The Kids Are OK, was less exciting than one might expect from a good cast – still, it provoked some thoughts about how we do, and don’t, screw things up.  Life is not a highly-predictable movie plot, or is it? - Mark Kolke

August 11, 2011

To do a unique day, not ‘a repeat of some day from the past’ – something completely unique, untried, un-tested, un-tethered to conventionality of ‘how we live or run our life’ …is required. How about that – a stretch – a big stretch – but how to do? What to do?  Now to do! - Mark Kolke

August 10, 2011

Passions generate heat but aren’t much good unless they catch fire – drive us, burn us up and sometimes burn us out.  When we least expect it, we are lit once more. We go on as if there was endless fuel for this kind of blaze - pondering, if am I covered for that? -  Mark Kolke

August 9, 2011

Bad timing, or good, cannot excuse stupid. Great timing does not equal success or produce magic.  Timing, the perception that we can make things work out better for ourselves or for someone based on our timing choices. - Mark Kolke

August 8, 2011

Seriously, how tough can it be to be daring?  For some people, daring is standing out in a crowd – for others, it is simply standing up, standing for something.  For some, it is leaping. Leaping across a gap, a canyon or simply the widest of all – a leap of faith. - Mark Kolke

August 7, 2011

Humility doesn’t become me. Some friends say it’s part of being ‘LEO’. Whatever the cause or reason, when endorphins and adrenalin flow, I shine when that excitement grows – when good works and good deeds (sometimes) puff me up – push my chest out and I swagger.  I don’t care for parts of that mirror image, but parts of it intoxicate.  -  Mark Kolke

August 6, 2011

One person’s belief in something, in someone, in self – that defies everyone else’s belief – might be heroic destiny or unbearable folly.  How can you tell? Can anyone know for sure? - Mark Kolke

August 5, 2011

Some ideas deserve to have a firefly’s-flash lifespan – at the very least, they deserve thinking about for a moment or two – or doing something about or, at least, saving/recording them for a quick look later.  Pads on night tables help; on the desk, on the car seat, in jacket pockets (post-it notes are great….if you remember to put a pen in that pocket too). - Mark Kolke

August 4, 2011

I woke up today, not yesterday. Yesterday cannot be wakened, re-lived or changed.  My silly acts, dirty deeds, errors in judgment and wrong road-fork choices - or those of others, cannot be changed.  Nothing happens in the past.  Over, it’s done, some parts ‘over-done’.  Mistakes made, errors in judgment, hurts and acts of hurting are all behind. Hunkering down, retreating, avoiding, cowering – these have there time and place but they are a poor refuge for going forward. - Mark Kolke

August 3, 2011

There is always a fresh opportunity at hand. Taking on any opportunity has little chance of success without passion, energy, humor and confidence.  That is true when pitching a major project to a hot prospect or pitching woo to a hot woman. Without it, we come off flat and disinterested, uncommitted and unworthy of attention of success. - Mark Kolke

August 2, 2011

In hopes of getting it more right, or at least less wrong, most things we do are not masterpiece quality – but, rather ‘best we can do where we are with what we have to work with’, hoping each time we get it ‘more right’ than the last.  Hope of perfection long lost in the past.  The lesson – nothing in life should ever be trivial or any moment considered unimportant. - Mark Kolke

August 1, 2011

When we consider difficult challenges to our resolve and stamina – or consider tragic circumstances many people encounter, it seems almost petty to spend time troubled with figuring people out – or figuring ourselves out; seems so self-consumed that it would be easy to dismiss it’s value – or its relevance. - Mark Kolke

July 31, 2011

Ideas touching, or colliding, is much like people touching – or colliding; energy is generated, given off and channeled either away from something or toward it.  Thinking is far less important to the process, in my view, than is feeling – and acting on the feeling.  Intellect gets in the way too often. - Mark Kolke

July 30, 2011

Do we parse words, couch strategy like a military maneuver – or are we comfortable if seen, as skeleton - with our life form stretched over it, experiences dangle limb-like, back-bone gone soft lets the whole mess sag. Can you see it?  Is this our image of self – inflatable for show, only to sag in the corner when not in use? - Mark Kolke

July 29, 2011

Two kinds of decisions, hard ones and easy ones.  Or, ones I make and ones I avoid.   Two kinds of people too – those I know, and those I’ve not met yet.  Am I trying to obscure something by talking around it, piling up meaningless things to hide some important thing, or am I plowing through obstacles, pulling away debris to reveal some gem-like beautiful epiphany statement of ultimate truth? - Mark Kolke

July 28, 2011

Where are the sparks?  How do they start?  Ones that start fires.  Not forest fires. Fires in bellies. Hearts. Minds. That fuel ambitions, that capitalize expanded horizons, energy for growth – those fires. Ideas.  Little ones. What happens when we have them, and then fail to immediately capture them, write them down, act on them … record them in some way?  Some go away, fall away, slide through cracks in our mental floorboards - to be recalled when we see someone succeeding with ‘our idea’. They weren’t smarter, or better, or faster.  They wrote it down. Acted on it, believed in it, fueled it, advocated for it, made it happen.  If I had a dime for every good idea I never acted on, I’d be living a very different life.  I’d have a very large bag of dimes. - Mark Kolke

July 27, 2011

Life and love, joy and pain – they come, and go on their own terms and timetable which have no relevance in logic or wish or hope. It just is what it is.  Day always comes before night; sometimes I can’t wait for day to be over so I can start the night of enjoying dreams. - Mark Kolke

July 26, 2011

I don’t think life – good and happy one – should be a process of elimination; you know, try it, see if you like it, keep it or lose it.  What a waste of time and energy – all the failed efforts to do things, failed experiences to know people, failed attempts to make harmony work with someone.  I hate the failures, mistakes, oops-moments.  So many things have worn me, but not worn me out; there seems to be energy in the near victories, the missed aims and the failed attempts in life.  Been left for scrap, like discarded laundry – but really can’t complain, because I’ve done the same to others as much I suppose. Maybe more. - Mark Kolke

July 25, 2011

Life, series of turns – left turns, right ones.  Right turn today. Tomorrow, one less left. I count them down, every day – each time, remainder grows smaller by one. Each time I live one more day, I have one less day left of life.  I’d better not take too many days off! - Mark Kolke

July 24, 2011

I remember, way back – my very first day.  Day I was born, was a ‘taking it easy’ day, I could cry out if I was wet and someone would change me, and cry out if I was hungry and someone would feed me. I would open my eyes when I felt like it and the rest of the time I would sleep.  No worries. None. I didn’t know much, but it seems I didn’t need to.  The world took care of me. But then, slowly, inexorably, the world did less for me and I took on responsibility for taking care of me – obstacles like parents, teachers, convention, rules …. were there - to be overcome, avoided, ignored, tripped over or forgotten altogether.  - Mark Kolke

July 23, 2011

There is no way someone we’ve known twenty-minutes can know us like someone who has known us twenty years; still there is a magical freshness of new people in our lives  - they provide one more opportunity to re-tell old stories, one more mind to explore, one more challenging-personality-to-understand experience to round us out, and one more reason to dream it might be possible to find love again – or to find it on a higher-higher-plane, for the first time.  I don’t want to squander it like I have before, so many times before. - Mark Kolke

July 22, 2011

Looking back is entirely instructive; can’t change facts but, when we reflect we do get to live it twice, don’t we?  By having experiences, then having them again in our mind, not the same of course – but in re-living memory, more like dream than nightmare, more likely focused on narrow depth of field because that’s where positive energy was spent, not on things which were never part of our focus in the first instance.  I should explain that term – from photography, depth of field [simply put - portion of a scene that appears acceptably sharp in the image - decrease in sharpness is gradual on each side of the focused distance ] seems to matter to me today. - Mark Kolke

July 21, 2011

We are all, I think, holders of reigns - of our own horse (best we avoid trying to hold someone else’s reigns) - unless we drop them, or hand them to someone else who will then steer us where they want us to go.  Any horse without someone pulling on the reigns, will stop at the first patch of juicy grass and stop running.  The choice becomes one of who we want directing us – channeling our energy: ourselves or some other influence? - Mark Kolke

July 20, 2011

Envisage the future.  Envisage next year.  Next month.  Next week.  Tomorrow afternoon. Tomorrow morning.  Morning . . . has comes. This day is, no different than ‘the future’.  It comes after yesterday and after all that has gone before. This is new.  It is simple. Pure. - Mark Kolke

July 19, 2011

The door on yesterday has closed, firmly. Locked. No retreat. No turning back. Forward.  See ahead, tomorrow morning will be sunny.  Look ahead, tomorrow afternoon will be full of joy.  Feel it then, next week is a whole new chapter.  Enjoy it then, next month is like a whole new world.  Envisage next year.  Envisage the future.  This moment, this day, of turmoil is a mini-whirlwind, not a tornado. - Mark Kolke

July 18, 2011

This phenomenon begins with making plans, appointments, commitments – the ‘have to’ parts of the day.  Why? Because, in each one, there is a promise I made – either to someone or to myself; a commitment to get something done, do it right (write), thoroughly, brilliantly, on time, on budget - you get the picture.  I figured out a way for me to break (or fail to keep) fewer promises.  I’ll make fewer promises. I’ll keep more. That’s it. Sticky note on my computer to remind me. One for the phone too (both stations) and one by the front door, so it’s the last thing I see heading out. - Mark Kolke

July 17, 2011

Sometimes, maybe, we need to readjust the plan rather than readjusting our feelings or changing the course we’ve plotted. We might be taking a right path, simply need to adjust the plan, the goal . . . without necessarily adjusting ourselves.  It’s just a plan. We can always change the plan. Always.- Mark Kolke

July 16, 2011

Aristotle said: ‘The energy of the mind is the essence of life.’  I’m not going to argue with Aristotle.  His words, ancient and long lasting, are not necessarily logical (like life) but there is something to this, something clear and true that has endured through ages.   Twentieth century writer/cleric Norman Vincent Peale added, I think, a more relevant connection by saying: ‘The more you lose yourself in something bigger than yourself, the more energy you will have.’  Making sense - of life, people or where the energy comes from – could drive us to distraction. It simply validates what is worth fighting for, separates it from issues and people who are not. Understanding doesn’t make struggles easier. - Mark Kolke

July 15, 2011

We don’t live in paragraphs, don’t touch people with long treatises, don’t matter to people in metaphoric glory – we matter because we do, and sometimes that is more than enough. Listen, can you hear it, feel it, know it?  I imagine heat, sweet, beginning ... calm, time it takes to make this incredible thing work. There is reason, many people believe, everything happens; time for it, place for it – happens. - Mark Kolke

July 14, 2011

Avoiding is a roadblock to making something new or good or original.  Don’t believe me?  Try avoiding something important, an obligation, keeping a promise, facing some reality – now, at the same time, do your best work, be inventive, stimulating, prose-ful, purposeful.  You can’t do it.  Bet you couldn’t if you tried all year. - Mark Kolke

July 13, 2011

If we know what life is about, how might it feel to win the grand prize? The REALLY big prize, you know – fulfillment on all levels we aspire to, health, wide-eyed smiles from dawn to dusk . . the true big one. If it exists, and I believe it does, I want it. I want it all. - Mark Kolke

July 12, 2011

Someone’s story thrills - someone else’s will terrify.   In each moment, lives both joy and terror.  Never trivial, every moment might be our most important.    We are not alone in our journey or our trials – it feels alone – but we have people who care about us, love us, support us, think about us.  Answer this for me: if the next five minutes might be the most important of your life, would you rush by them – or pause, carefully tasting the texture of every moment? - Mark Kolke

July 11, 2011

Feeling drive and feeling driven – similar words and such a wide gap in meaning; each day I feel lots of drive that puts my shoulder to the wheel on many things, but thing about which I am truly driven, the number is much smaller . . . the heart pumpin’ go till you drop kind of driven. I’ve tried to examine those ‘driving forces’. - Mark Kolke

July 10, 2011

Summer signifies bright-aliveness of life, whether in youth, in its prime or its later chapters – summer is where it’s at man; really, there is no better time to celebrate life, celebrate a birthday or celebrate bathing in the sunshine and drawing breath.  Being born in summer has a great benefit – you always celebrate your birthday in summer, in fine weather without the cold-harsh meanness of autumn chills or winter storm. There is an outside, looking in at life, to it. - Mark Kolke

July 9, 2011

What makes whole life whole?  Not a trick question from an insurance salesman – where whole life has a very different meaning; but really, what makes us whole in life is having a full whole life, sharing it with someone else who has one too – then putting them together like kindling for a roaring blaze, is it not?  I want that kind of whole life experience. - Mark Kolke

July 8, 2011

Mid life should not, in my view, be a time for going crazy; rather, I think it’s a time for going sane.  Why not?  Our time is our own and the prospect of being old and frail with too much time for looking back on an empty ‘middle’ scares the crap out of me. - Mark Kolke

July 7, 2011

When we least expect it – and even when we see it coming, losses are immeasurably hard to take, gargantuan in terms of expecting to survive them . . . but we do.  You do.  Some people get a welcome when they arrive, some get a fond farewell when they depart – people come and go in our lives, slip in when we least expect, leave on timetables we can’t control . . . - Mark Kolke

July  6, 2011

Death offers me nothing. I’ll take life please.  Lots. Give me plenty of life’s improbable lottery . . where odds of winning big are about the same whether we play or not.  But life isn’t a lottery, there are no tickets, no winners, no losers.  Just those who live, and those who don’t. - Mark Kolke

July 5, 2011

How many things can we feel strongly about at one time – how many high-priority pursuits of work or play or personal relationships can we handle; when our energy dissipates, as we lose enthusiasm for something or some idea or some person, is that a conscious decision, is it an instinct or is it simply the competition among many things for the amount of energy available? …. And then, as we dole it out, which ‘issue du jour’ is at the front of the line? - Mark Kolke

July 4, 2011

Each day – is a new frontier – or one where we are staying in familiar tracks, doing familiar things, doing the same-old job the same-old way, going through tired motions/emotions and e-motions; as if there should be no expectation of a different kind of day.  -  Mark Kolke

July 3, 2011

If my path ends here, if life ends tomorrow, I’ll have been DONE, have lived a life of fullness with which I am amply pleased and proud.  On the other hand, if life begins tomorrow, . . . I expect the best, the grand prize, the whole enchilada.  -  Mark Kolke

July 2, 2011

Today, could be, the BEST day of your life, or mine, or ours. I don’t mean because it could your last or my last (well, c’mon, it could).  Seriously, are we facilitating that possibility with all our being, or are standing squarely in its path – resolutely enforcing how we think the day should go so that nothing upsets or alters our expectations? - Mark Kolke

July 1, 2011

Why?  is the best question to ask, the toughest to answer; the why is wrapped in so much recitation of what, when, where and who we were with that the why skates by under the radar. - Mark Kolke

June 30, 2011

Horse power and horse sense are terms we use often – sometimes we see ourselves rounding the turn in the tight-pack of a crowded field, sometimes strolling through a pasture of juicy grass, eating our way in leisure – gathering fuel to continue the race.  They call it the human race for a reason. If weren’t racing for something or toward something, would we have much reason for living? - Mark Kolke

June 29, 2011

The side-benefit of old stories we share with old friends - we were left with our own little side-splitter stories; they regularly provides reminders of our folly and serves, sometimes, to instruct us again and, hopefully, steer us away from chances to get cross-threaded with people we care about over things people should laugh about rather than fight about . . - Mark Kolke

June 28, 2011

Someone wrote asking ‘how is your life?’ . . . which is both kindly conversational and a profoundly insightful question for me to answer at this time. Because I feel like I am clear on so many things – and at some form of crossroads  with at least 4 directions tugging at me … I wondered, is this about being life size, or about the size of life – as big as we make it, I suppose, or as narrowly focused as make it too . . . we say it is about choices, but then it is about consequences of actions. - Mark Kolke

June 27, 2011

Will there be a thing or two I made happen … that lasted?  Will there be a place that is special to someone ‘cause of me?  Will there be a way of doing something, ‘cause of me?  Will there be something that should never have happened, that didn’t, ‘cause of me?  Will there be someone who remembers me? Will there be someone who cares or who misses me?  Will there be a book gathering dust on a shelf somewhere, ‘cause of me?  Not yet.  I have work to do.- Mark Kolke

June 26, 2011

Good advice, if you try and fail, is to not see it as failure – but as giving up too soon; then it is time to take a break …  Take a break.  Take an hour, or maybe longer. Then start again.  Get up, get out, go have some fun, listen to some great jazz, let your feet move and let your heart beat . . . and beat, and beat. - Mark Kolke

June 25, 2011

If each encounter is met with a ‘this can change’ attitude (I recommend it), the question then is whether we want it to, or not.  This has nothing to do with being instrumental in change in any way, but simply recognizing the possibility of where change is possible, and where it is not. - Mark Kolke

June 24, 2011

Every day I waste time.   We all do.  I meet people who do this (sometimes the guy in the mirror does it too) who are simultaneously firing off in many directions – too many initiatives, too many ideas, too many people – to expect them all to work. The rationalization fits sometimes, because some do work.  The case, more often, I think is that by dividing attention in so many directions I sometimes avoid committing to any one of them. I see this in others sometime and it then seems so obvious – when it reflects something I struggle with myself. - Mark Kolke

June 23, 2011

In my search for love – or it’s hunt for me - I’ve made so many mistakes, wrong turns and right-moves and left-behinds I could easily/painfully write a thick book no one would want to read; dog-eared pages, thumb-worn sections proof some things need to be repeated several times before lessons are learned. Weary-making hills and valleys of it, blind alleys, dead ends, moments of awestruck tragi-comic shock and amazement – are just too entertaining to give up.  While seeing ‘awe’-in-action makes me want ‘what they have’ sometimes, as if a glimpse of apparent happiness in some couple is, demonstrates how to find it in one’s own life … sure, if only! - Mark Kolke

June 22, 2011

We all have, I suspect, trigger buttons buried deep in our pasts – things that drive us, things that drive us away . . .   And lodged there – somewhere between rock and hard place – lives the essence of who we are; others try to find that in us.  When we meet someone new and they question/interview and study us - we do too - that is what is at the root of it. - Mark Kolke

June 21, 2011

Decisions made, prove quickly if they feel right – which in itself has little to do with ultimate success or failure, but in those early days following a bold decision . . . some things feel like a perfect fit, hand in  glove, and others just result in a sore wrist. Constant re-assessing has value, results in some sleepless nights but the reward is watching a glorious sunrise.  - Mark Kolke

June 20, 2011

I know I spend too much time focused on where I am, rather than where I am not; something has changed inside – like the clunking of gears in an old manual transmission, and everything is different now. Watch me make it, different than it ever was. - Mark Kolke

June 19, 2011

Changes - how I express feelings and ideas has morphed significantly – I know this, but the changes I see, miniscule daily ones, don’t seem so different from yesterday, or that - from the day before. - Mark Kolke

June 18, 2011

Any chapter of life or a week in a month can be rolling along quite nicely – no drama, no hint of change or spectacle – just an ordinary time, going through motions of ordinariness, until a friend interrupts our flow, stands in our path – cause to pause, need to feed the mind with ideas and food. Any day can start with a plan, or as easily without one. Then a friend calls.  Any plan can move along, but then a friend writes.  - Mark Kolke

June 17, 2011

It is even more important, on this homeward leg of life, to let emotions drive us – more than ever before – because this space, the distance between here and the end of our lives ought to be filled with purpose, joy, doing every thing we have an inclination to do or try or experience without regard to its idealism but wishing to leave no stone un-turned, no corner un-turned, no feeling left to wither there in a shadow. - Mark Kolke

June 16, 2011

Gazing in rear-view mirrors, seems wiser than leaping boldly, with only a muddy bug-splattered windshield view to guide. Wishing ‘I had aclear view of future’, but I don’t.  Most days, I don’t have a clear view of what is coming my way before lunch. - Mark Kolke

June 15, 2011

I truly have had the times of my life. Already. Still, without doubt, very best ones are up ahead. I’ll be watching at every turn . . .   Mark Kolke

June 14, 2011

Entangled - somewhere between argument and inclination, filed away after good nature and before good sense there’s a fine crooked line. It starts here. Risk starts here. The ride starts here. Slippery slopes are less about poor footing than they are about a great slide – the path is not marked on map, no road-side sign shows the way.  And it ends up somewhere un-known, un-charted, stirred up and folded over – but without doubt it will be mine. - Mark Kolke

June 13, 2011

Rx: get to work with ideas, draw on imagination, carve niches in new stones for installation on sandy beaches - ahead of turbulent change waves, dream dreams of being swept ashore in triumph … smooth ride until that sandpapered-rump landing. - Mark Kolke

June 12, 2011

I have time left in my life to make several new lives; the one I’ve had so far is many chaptered, some worth it and some wasted. The next, and the next, and next after that have room for me, welcome me with arms opened wide; the red carpet is not rolled out for me with a non-slip pad beneath it . . -  Mark Kolke

June 11, 2011

I’ll work on my heart, I’ll rest my knee, I’ll eat left-overs - I only have what I have at my disposal, which is everything, all of me, all my energy, all I possess, all I can gather up - there is no stopping an idea, freight train, or powerful memory – whether it happened or not – how things were and, more importantly, how they might have been; memories it seems are less hot but oh so sweet, when served warm. -  Mark Kolke

June 10, 2011

I’ll want to know what a man is, if left alone, what a woman is, if left alone; come to me, be here with me, be here at three, don’t leave till three, and come again at three – I won’t be ready, but I’ll be here . . . - Mark Kolke

June 9, 2011

The challenge, in enjoying, not so much what we did,  but what we remember - what stays with us, what brings us comfort in tough moments or on a chilly night, or on a solitary lonely morning when we wish there was someone to share the paper, the coffee and a laugh . . . - Mark Kolke

June 8, 2011

Recently I’ve been discussing memories, love and the recipes that mix them. We all (most of us) have lived lives of substantial conformity; real excitement (like in the movies or thriller novels) live in minds, in memory, whether or not it was real love we had grabbed hold of, or if it had grabbed hold of us.  Memories own us, as much as we own them, don’t you agree? - Mark Kolke

June 7, 2011

When we start to understand something, or someone, really well – we get less anxious about everything. -  Mark Kolke

June 6, 2011

So many little decisions, occasional BIG one, of great import.  Deliberate, decide, announce it, carry on.  BIG decision = large consequence, right?  Otherwise, why call it BIG? So too, little ones – mostly don’t matter, but sometimes they surprise; ones we might predict and, more important, ones we never expected.   Some days I can change something. Most days I change little, or nothing.  Today, any day, can be different. Conscious choice to leap, to create . . . something different. - Mark Kolke

June 5, 2011

I can wait for a bus, if I know when it is coming; can wait for an event if I have a calendar, but for the unimaginable – joy of lightning strike which lands me on soft pillows of laughter and pain-free life of taking chances to change, create, related and reverberate as one of two tines of the tuning fork – that’s not something to wait for. That’s something to lunge ahead for, leap into the deep end of the pool without a care that I cannot swim. - Mark Kolke

June 4, 2011

for me, anyway, that’s how it feels – whether looking forward to next great adventure,  back at the last one,  or remembering my imagination of the one that never was but it seemed so real in my great imagination . . .  Being right feels good, being clear feels even better – wanting, aching – so much better than not having something to want, or to ache for. - Mark Kolke

June 3, 2011

Which came first, the choice or the action?  Seems like that chicken/egg thing.  But when and how should we examine these things?  Is there a right time of day, or night, or month…. or time of life to look at who we are as well as where we are? - Mark Kolke

June 2, 2011

I find it easier to talk about issues than specifics - sometimes I gape in awe - of great opportunities, narrow scrapes and spectacular escapes, these are the stuff of every day.  Every time we walk by a banana peel, we avoid tripping on convenient metaphors, but surely, you get my meaning - that every moment, once passed by, becomes component of my past - speed, trajectory, impossible to control.  Dangerous?  Sure, but better by far than sitting back, waiting for life to happen, or happen - breaks between busy spells always welcome. Easier (and better) than trying to invent a no-slip banana. - Mark Kolke

June 1, 2011

Too many chapters, looking back, look too much the same.  I’m feeling not so courageous, here between bookends of outrageous and afraid – between goal-post like markers I am pressed here, between page-stages that separate chapter past and chapter next. - Mark Kolke

May 31, 2011

Most Canadian men and overgrown boys, enjoy hockey metaphors. One that always confuses me, is ‘face-off’.  Two competitors, waiting for whistle’s start seems more like ‘face-on’ than face-off.  Like life’s challenges, contests, opportunities and spectacular times spent with friend or adversary, combatant or concubine – facing issues and each other is so much better, face-on. - Mark Kolke

May 30, 2011

Consider this proposition. Unexpected reversals of direction, thinking and actions – produce ‘amazing’ if we let them – to stop instead of go, to stand up for something rather than sit on it, to yelling on the outside instead of screaming on the inside, to have something to say about something instead of having nothing to say about everything. - Mark Kolke

May 29, 2011

An old friend, old comfy sweater-type, is a good thing. Calling an old friend ‘old friend’ is not to say they are old, or necessarily that the friendship is long-standing, but more like that sweater thing. - Mark Kolke

May 28, 2011

When you least expect it, a small action will have a major impact on your life.  Can you imagine how many more opportunities we might find like that if we were actually looking for them - rather than just having them show up? - Mark Kolke

May 27, 2011

Sometimes, we don’t have to figure out anything – we just need to show up.  For work, for play, for friends, for strangers, for your community, for the world – all you need to so sometimes, to do the best work and the most good – is to just show up. - Mark Kolke

May 26, 2011

There are few things, I imagine more sad or destructive than a life not lived, than love not given, than our ideas, hopes and assumptions not tested.  Well, what are you waiting for? - Mark Kolke

May  25, 011

The best laid plans . . . do not usually lead to that - I know all too well; best ideas seem to come in through my window with cricket sounds at 3AM, and flit out again, just as quickly.  Ideas, like love and tactics – come and go, and when all is done, it is my move, still. - Mark Kolke

May 24, 2011

Wise counsel – caring support of old (meaning long standing) friend does not possess greater value than insight of new friend – but wisdom in it, best conveyed by any friend, is one of respecting us, and still caring, on days when we get weird or pass quick judgment on something that should have been less hasty. - Mark Kolke

May 23, 2011

New steps, next steps . . . any steps at all, in life, are acts of courage. - Mark Kolke

May  22, 2011

Living life is either a - proactive, or reactive – process. It seems to me, we cannot have it or live it both ways; choice separates us, one type from another - clearly, as we make a decision to consume time, or to let it consume us. - Mark Kolke

May  21, 2011

Somewhere, out there, is my path - not straight or well marked; its route can only be seen looking back, turns and twists only known in retrospect.  Next turn – real turn – may be something I don’t understand until five turns later; in a way, like a chess match of many moves. - Mark Kolke

May  20, 2011

Old friends we’ve known for years or decades, or ones we’ve known only months – experiences had which transcend most intimate moments in life – or we’ve exchanged pleasantries across a hedge, an office or an ocean; friendship worth having, the kind worth keeping – shows up. It doesn’t ask, or wait for a request. - Mark Kolke

May 19, 2011

Always, it seems, there will be darkness before light arrives - and each night, another dose of dark but no solution to come with it.  Wandering, in the dark, without a light in search of a path – will, one day, lead to a dawning moment. I’ve been walking for years without feeling lost – for the most part – but some puddles have just pulled me in . . . - Mark Kolke

May 18, 2011

Life is long – so very long, years and years, decades upon decades to go, much to do, so many things to plan. I can’t be short-sighted, focusing only on here, now, tomorrow or next week. - Mark Kolke

May  17, 2011

Assumptions are stupid, decisions matter far less than reactions – not because decisions aren’t rational, but because they are.  Give me life where emotion rules. I may not live long or be rich but I’ll be happy. - Mark Kolke

May 16, 2011

Outcome of this week will be what I design, what I shape, what I create and what I react to. I wouldn’t want it any other way - that’s the truth, whether I try or not. But will that be instructive at all?  - Mark Kolke

May 15, 2011

Friendship is not a ship, though sometimes we miss the ones that have sailed. - Mark Kolke

May 14, 2011

Sometimes I tire of my path – not because it is a bad path. I just want to change the conversation; whether it is business or organization stuff, old-friends stuff, new friends, dating misadventures, writing collaborations - in each corner, especially the dimly lit ones, of my life, I want to change the conversation.   Why should friends only talk about their common-bonds, only dwell on reasons they are friends? So much more to explore . . . with everyone we know, and even more with people we don’t. - Mark Kolke

May 13, 2011

If some person, not the most powerful in the world … but the most powerful influence in your life, knocked on your door, would you answer, would you welcome them in?  - Mark Kolke

May 12, 2011

The next person I meet, the next person I talk to, the next person in line at the check-out, the next person . . . is no better than me, surely they are not, but then they are not less than me either.  We all have value, so why don’t we see it? - Mark Kolke

May 11, 2011

It seems to me that: the resolve button, the sense of purpose button, the thrill button and the living life with purpose button …. all need to be set to the full ON position, because then there is nothing that can get in our way, those adverse and negative forces on spirit cannot affect us in any measurable way.  If we are into pushing buttons, those are the ones we should push . . . to ON. - Mark Kolke

May 10, 2011

This sense of place has different meaning for me – it means feeling we are in the right place – whether that is this spot on the planet or with someone or in some situation; but having a sense we are where we are on purpose, deliberately standing our ground for some purpose beyond our own petty needs.  Voraciously we should attack life, in pursuit of this feeling, like we are a wind in a hurry, to get where we are going – and the best way we get up to speed, is by standing firm right where we are, enjoying that sense of place.  And getting to that place – enjoying that place – requires that we first of all, know what/where it is within us so that we can clearly stake our claim on the spot. - Mark Kolke

May 9, 2011

Every day we do things – but do we ever pause to ask, what is the reason, why do we do it?  Whoever we are, unless we are newborns or at the very other end of life, shouldn’t there be a reason? - Mark Kolke

May 8, 2011

Our bodies, and our lives too, I suppose could be likened to the tree trunk and its branches; we reach out, stretch out and go out into the world …. from that stretching come ideas, actions, adventures and experiences unique to our life, unconnected to our family tree or our parents who originated us - Mark Kolke

May  7, 2011

I am reminded of times when knee-jerk was me-jerk (still is sometimes…), when those bridges burned were truly blown up – some because they deserved it, some because things were not that dire except they sure seemed that way in their moment; times when the most severe problem held no candle to pain or death or silence . . . and yet the magnitude seemed so large at that time, in that moment.  Bad as those deeds were, I wish I’d have kept my knee in its socket a little while longer and reacted a little less fast. - Mark Kolke

May 6, 2011

My point, and I have one, is that we look, wisely or perhaps not, at relationships we contemplate with people much as we contemplate a home purchase.  We see a person in the best light, as they’ve chosen to portray/market themselves.  We see a panorama/virtual tour of their life – storytelling, photo albums, things and rooms they inhabit, the always tidy place, the attention (or not) to details that are important to us or to them.  The question, to stay with my point, is whether I am offering up to the universe the person I am, or the person I’d like some woman, to see - in me, potential partner, to believe what is truly and openly shown - so that, when she picks me and moves into my life, she won’t suffer buyer’s remorse when she learns some rooms just can’t be renovated, some things must stay . . . some must go.  A house isn’t a box. It’s a home. A life isn’t a set of facts and list of chattels, but rather it is our life-structure, as surely as any habitat we choose.  Then, we’ll all be home-free, won’t we? - Mark Kolke

May  5, 2011

I put these words, right here - to move you to another time, another place – on a ridge somewhere, view to somewhere – over there, beyond horizon where an afternoon bike-ride can change your life or, in course of a phone call from an old friend, provide perspective we didn’t expect, but surely need.  We talk about things if we want with who we want; others, we’ve scarcely the time of day for.  I’ve come to the realization that tact matters if I care, and so often too, getting some sleep is better. . . -  Mark Kolke

May  4, 2011

The proof of anything is in testing, experimentation – steps to prove what something is not, is the way scientists confirm (or try to) that something is true, real and in keeping with some theory or formula. Testing continues until a theory is disproved - then they start over.  I made a scribbled note last night after reading some wild poetry.  But I mis-typed /  mis-spelled it.  Branches form the tree.  I meant to type branches from the tree.  Easy to fix, right?  Hold it …. ‘branches form the tree’, maybe that is how it should be. - Mark Kolke

May 3, 2011

Following our own path is often a lonely AND solitary trip - but one we must take. When we are luckiest, someone who loves us as purely as we love them, pulls up next to us, travels in the next lane for a while. Sometimes for a long while. - Mark Kolke

May 2, 2011

We can love people - up close, from afar, for a while, or forever - but that is always a one-way street of singular effort. Whether someone loves us back, loves us in anything remotely resembling the same way is unlikely, rare and curious. People love us because they do – and they do it their way; sometimes we know they do, sometimes they are people we don't even know, but they love us just the same. - Mark Kolke

May 1, 2011

There is no normalcy to me, no common or usual.  No rushing the flow if - for want, it wants to go slow – as it should, but often I find normal paces, or paced slowness not for me; impatience presses me forward. A feeling I am a disturbed bull in life’s china shop. Sometimes the china shop has a sign outside – ‘no bull allowed in here’ – the way some people do, you know, smile sweetly, say the nicest things, so not to reveal impenetrable walls hidden from my view by beguiling charm.  I don’t see possibilities as problems, risks or improbabilities, but opportunity to be mounted like a bull and then ridden like a bull in some grand arena for at least eight seconds. - Mark Kolke

April 30, 2011

I sit here, aging, like ripening cheese, I’m seeing life differently wherever I sit. Aside from metaphoric magnificent mellowing maturity, there is less that is new.  Old things revisited don’t feel new – they bring warm feelings of nostalgia and laughter, or embarrassment – but nothing new. - Mark Kolke

April 29, 2011

Just because it is Friday (we’re all tired and too pooped) doesn’t mean our brains or bodies can’t do something valuable.  Just a moment, while you savour your coffee, ask yourself, if it became necessary - to rescue someone - would you row your boat over their way? - Mark Kolke

April 28, 2011

Only you can set your agenda.  Only I can set mine.  But sitting around staring at an agenda won’t get either of us anywhere we want to go.  Steps, actions, more steps, more actions – in time (and sometimes by lunch) those steps, actions and ringing telephones become a whirly blur-scape yet our agenda can keep us centered, especially during endless cloudy days of feeling directionless.  Yes, I could buy a compass, but that would tell me which way things are, but I need my internal one to tell me which way I am headed. - Mark Kolke

April 27, 2011

When we are closest to someone, so close we know their feelings, joys, fears and failings …though thousands of miles away, like they went away and left only silence behind.  We meet by chance, affect the other in ways that no plan could have imagined, bonds grow – in time, they’ve become unbreakable ones that connect and hold together like those big steel bands around ocean going crates . . . - Mark Kolke

April 26, 2011

Creating something worth keeping, or purging something or way of being worth ridding ourselves of, is not about cleaning cupboard or closet, not about straightening a garage or basement – it is about people.  Which ones we want, treasure and keep – and which ones we want to avoid, treasure the loss of, and keep reminding ourselves distance and history will serve us best by the choices we’ve made. - Mark Kolke

April 25, 2011

Everything starts somewhere, but it only stops when we let it stop – we are only flattened when we say we are. Just about anything is possible, whatever the dismal odds or barriers we face. I am not discounting informed decision making any more than uninformed dreaming . . . whatever spark gets us going, that spark has magic in it.  - Mark Kolke

April 24, 2011

These are my words - you get to interpret them any way you want; I am the only one a live who knows how I feel, you are the only one alive who knows how you feel.  There are ways we can open up fissures of feeling, let others peek in, see what otherwise hides in darker places.  - Mark Kolke

April 23, 2011

It couldn’t be done.  It can’t be done. It’s impossible.  How many times do we encounter statements like these?  If we don’t give up, if we refuse to stop trying, we are never defeated.  - Mark Kolke

April 22, 2011

Friday - neither Crusoe’s a man-servant or the day between Thursday and Saturday – but gate hinge between weakened and week-end, lens view where we’ve been, glimpses of where we might head next – knowing so much can change in just a day, or two. - Mark Kolke

April 21, 2011

When we are closest to someone, so close we know their feelings, joys, fears and failings …though thousands of miles away, like they went away and left only silence behind.  We meet by chance, affect the other in ways that no plan could have imagined, bonds grow – in time, they’ve become unbreakable ones that connect and hold together like those big steel bands around ocean going crates . . . -  Mark Kolke

April 20, 2011

The notion that good things come either way is difficult to grasp.  Deliberateness of planning, strategy and execution makes so much sense. But so do chance, randomness and spontaneity.  The answer, it would seem, is that a mix of both is found in our best ideas, best work and best experiences.  For now, I’m considering that I’ve underestimated the random/spontaneous ‘take a chance’ elements – and my efforts to add that to my balance are unfolding … - Mark Kolke

April 19, 2011

Passed, and over, no logic connects us to it - the past is over. Fresh drive takes me over each hill, around bends and swiftly down hills. Fresh drive is like fresh ground pepper, it spices things up. Life is neither lemons or lemon-aid; life is lemon pie . . . with meringue. - Mark Kolke

April 18, 2011

When we are young (maybe it happens in mid-life too – I wonder about that) we get to do things for the first time – each new experience’s fresh taste like trying a new brand of toothpaste you actually like - sparkly feel, imagination flits - new idea to new idea without inconvenient interruption by experiences of any kind.  What’s new, what’s the point, what’s the purpose – of being reflective, mid-point in life with a tunnel for vision looking back and forward; there is no kaleidoscope, no panoramic view ….  just the one I see (or the one you see).  - Mark Kolke

April 17, 2011

Our maximum is beyond calculation.  Our minimum, many of us are already far too familiar with. -  Mark Kolke

April 16, 2011

We should not overlook the breadth of our time. Breadth, in terms of how much we can do – and how thin we can spread ourselves to touch so many with our message, our purpose and our passion for life.  Your time is not a state of mind, it is a reality that touches many, reaches many and has meaning for many. Most of all, it has depth and meaning for you. - Mark Kolke

April 15, 2011

How do I/we sift out the big worthwhile lessons from the unimportant, worst from worthwhile ones, separate keepers from ones to just let fly-on-bye?  Ideas, like people – some are treasures to treasure, others are just people on different paths. New ideas come - trickle, or a flood – why?  - Mark Kolke

April 14, 2011

.....I'm changing the world.  That sounds arrogant, but it’s not.  I can't do it all alone.  I need helpers. You can help . . by opening your mind to daring-do, to exploring what you can do with your life rather than waiting for events and time to pass, because the only changes that will happen will come from you. It's time to get started. Time for waiting is over. I'm not talking about your two biggest problems/obstacles in your mind. You know them already. I'm talking about everything. I want you to open your eyes as wide as they go. Wider. Wider still. Dream what you want. Grab it.  -  Mark Kolke

April 13, 2011

Some folks I meet hyperbolize - moral compass in hand - in order, their ready answers to each question. I hate that brand of pompous and arrogant. I prefer mine. But, I am coming to believe there is much more I need, more than having a destination in mind - journey planned; there is more to be had, and in this, I mean more than sweet companion (nice side benefit if you can find it) of the two legged kind. You see, life should shrink, if I lack courage to make it large; life should disappear if I don’t hang on tight.  Life should expand in endless possibilities if my imagination and action arrive at the same time, place, mood . . . in the middle of the day, or the middle of night. - Mark Kolke

April 12, 2011

Some people . . . roll into our lives like a steam-roller and flatten us; some drift by like an exploring honey-bee or butterfly, flitting along but not stopping long; some create smiles, some create deep impressions. Some hang around a long time. - Mark Kolke

April 11, 2011

I hold the view the world is full of two kinds of people – those who’ve found and fully use their talent and those who wander around searching.  At each phase of my life I’ve seemed to find it – then I needed to move on, find something else, something new, more challenging, needing more – driven to dig deeper and sometimes in dark places - none of which I regret, though there are days I find writing one of the most alone solitary processes going. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I can’t imagine writing something worth keeping in a noisy crowd. I’ve not stopped searching for answers to many questions, but I’ve found this writing answer . . . and I’ll keep doing it until it is through with me. - Mark Kolke

April 10, 2011

Too often, when life (or the weather) is gloomy I spend too much time re-working my agenda rather than letting my spirit flow . . . perhaps where it is meant to go which, in recent years, flows mostly on to this page as a working drawing of how I shape my life, record of my blind-alley visits and re-affirmation of my spirit. - Mark Kolke

April 9, 2011

Most obstacles - real ones - that stand between where we are and what we want are ones of focus and decision. By that I don’t mean requirements to become rocket-surgeon or oracle of the ages – because much less is required. For most of us, the obstacle is the phone call not made, the idea not explained, the skill not shared, the effort energy it requires to buy a plane ticket or the time it takes to lift someone up with a hand extended or by some truth told. - Mark Kolke

April 8, 2011

We, wee tiny specs, in universe’s largesse. Every morning, we arrive again - enter this day, first time – it’s never existed before and we’ve never been here, in this day, before.  OK, I’m not being weird . . . stay with me; imagine, each morning – like a new land to explore, where our experiences serve to limit our ability to see what we’ve not seen before, to do what we’ve not done before, dream what we’ve not dreamt, dare what we’ve dared not. - Mark Kolke

April 7, 2011

Where/how to find new thoughts - fresh actions: laughter lubricant, adrenaline fuel, endorphin acceleration, open new doors, slam some old ones shut. If it feels good or the same, or OK, then discard it in favor of ideas that make your hair stand on end. - Mark Kolke

April 6, 2011

If all we do is repeat what we’ve done, if all we think is what we’ve already thought, if all  imagine is a replay in our minds, there’s no future value in that. What happens today, or tomorrow, is not some repeat of the past week or a past life, it is new, all NEW, ready to be tasted or wasted. Which will you do? - Mark Kolke

April 5, 2011

Test yourself with things that scare you a lot. They energize, fuel your tank, light your rocket, and turn you on like no drug or hay-roll ever will.  Dare to light your flaring torch of new energy. - Mark Kolke

April 4, 2011

I’ll go through this day without understanding much about many things, many issues and certainly not better informed about women.  Instead of focusing on that insoluble problem, I’ll do some work and run the world (OK, maybe just my world), for a day. - Mark Kolke

April 3, 2011

The pace of life easily excuses these things – you know, taking time to call an old friend, or using the time for a conversation we might otherwise miss the chance to have. Considered on those terms, the urgency of a meeting, the pressing deadline, the daily list of ‘must-do items’ suddenly doesn’t seem so important.  - Mark Kolke

April 2, 2011

Immodesty is, from what I’ve seen, not common among book writers, essay writers, writers of any kind actually.  It seems I/we have some quasi-evangelical strain that presumes to know something others don’t, presumes to have it parsed just right to tell – all the reader need do is read, listen and follow instructions . . . to a better life, as a result. - Mark Kolke

April 1, 2011

I’ve been pondering a time-worn subject of understanding – how to achieve it, deal with it, and how to deal without it – and by that I mean understanding that which, it appears, is not to be understood without more information, like guessing games in the dark.  Probably not tough for a blind man, but really tough for me. - Mark Kolke

March 31, 2011

I make notes, day before, or at night – sticky notes - words scribbled. They meant something then, when I wrote them. But, I think sometimes the note-idea or thought-cues they deliver in morning differ widely from what was in my mind in the middle of the night. Terms like ‘just a minute ago’, angels, magpie, pants, cajole, unabashed, time and distance, inequity.  My morning challenge doubled – to somehow translate those notes to thoughts, to paper, to construct, I hope, reconstituted messages from those thoughts which caused me to write those words, on sticky notes . . . so, if you get the message, it was for you, and if you don’t it simply means we see different sides of issues, experiences and clouds . . . so it seems to me. - Mark Kolke

March 30, 2011

Chinese, or pizza – we order it up, have it delivered to our door, but that will not sustain us long, or well.  If you stay close to home, as I will, consider the contrast between ‘ordering in’ vis-à-vis shopping a farmers market for locally produced delicacies, a place where our discerning taste can greet new flavor. Savor it, because full life cannot be had like take-out food; life, taste, flavor, nutrients – real kind, can’t be delivered or ordered like fast-food, we have to go out and find it, bring it home and cook something that stirs more than our taste buds and immediate appetite. - Mark Kolke

March 29, 2011

Grabbing low hanging fruit experiences of life is expedient, serves its purpose - but then, unsatisfied still, all the richest fruit seems just as far from our grasp. There’s no substitute for climbing the best tree in the orchard, in search of choosing the really delicious over the  simply OK, passing on ‘much fruit, easiest to pick’ in favor of ‘best for us’. Juicy-est fruit lives on high-up skinny frail branches – risky hard work to find - worth the search, worth the climb, worth waiting for.  - Mark Kolke

March 28, 2011

Awash in a sea: questions, answers, views and interpretations, I am reminded of randomness magic. Best laid plans are, believe me, not best, or laid, at all.  Out of that nothingness, voice comes, from far away, glimmer of magic, taste of understanding . . . a little seasoning, some fresh pepper. - Mark Kolke

March 27, 2011

Each experience, it seems to me, that we have in life – if we are having it for the first time can startle us, amaze us, new-phase us and provide experiences that tickle, torment or delight. Others are often unimpressed, because to them, it is not a new or particularly interesting experience.  - Mark Kolke

March 26, 2011

Another day – another scribbled note, brief hello, quickly ended call; life’s tidbits gather in short-term memory like lint collects in pockets, little bits in corners – special/important in their moment – yet trying to remember context the next day, straining to read that totally illegible note. Yet, it seemed, just the other day/night, to have been so important to write down for remembering. I’m not sure this happens to everyone. If it did, that would be average I suppose.  - Mark Kolke

March 25, 2011

Harnessing energy and creativity is my job. Managing frenetic pace, balancing slow and sublime too – that’s my job. I’ll not delegate it or have someone impose their version of life on mine . . .  - Mark Kolke

March 24, 2011

Catharsis of writing is home plate – centers me, closest I get to knowing myself, learning keystroke, punctuation point or pause at a time - there is a recipe in me, for fixing. If I can excise that recipe, perhaps there is something there which might release, new learning for someone receptive to have change in their life . . .   - Mark Kolke

March 23, 2011

Whatever I chose or believed yesterday, or forty years ago, or last month – has so little relevance now, because the most important thing in life, from this moment forward has nothing to do with a past I cannot change in any way; what matters most is right now - and, all that matters is what I do next, driven by what I do now. - Mark Kolke

March 22, 2011

Are we not expending the very life within us?  Shouldn’t it be really important, you know, the things we spend our time doing?  Isn’t it all about what we do next, what we do now, who we let into our lives, how we inhale life, how we exhale everything we need to purge?  Sometimes we need a purpose, sometimes we need no reason at all. - Mark Kolke

March 21, 2011

Which will it be?  On other side of next stage of our rag-tag lives, what will I/we be saying: it is what it is(was), it is what it can be, and was no more to be, for me and thee, it is(was) risky to go forward, but perhaps riskier not to, it is(was) just a beginning, or maybe an end to the beginning - risky either way; and, maybe we should just start at the beginning.  Which is greater: risk of knowing, or risk of not knowing?  How many times have we (or I) posed these questions to ourselves, to our partners, to our good friends?  - Mark Kolke

March  20, 2011

Some people, most actually, will go through this day making no changes in their lives whatever; they won’t change their mind, their perspective, their actions, their plans, their ‘anything’.  Are you going to be in that group?  Or, will you take a step?  To, take a chance?  Will you, truly?  Don’t overwhelm yourself with many changes, just try one. One only, that’s all it takes; you will be on your way down the slippery slope we guard against, the slippery slope called a free-fall into something unusual where we don’t have a foot on the brake, a hand on the wheel or a safety switch. - Mark Kolke

March 19, 2011

Reason is not about belief or feeling, it is not about trust; no more than it might be about disbelief, about un-feeling or not trusting.  Reason is about figuring out things which stand before us to figure out - whether that is how to survive, or how to thrive, to rise up after a fall, to rebuild following a disaster; or, to just start fresh without any need (or the time) to invest in fixing things which are gone, broken beyond repair or left behind. - Mark Kolke

March 18, 2011

This ‘life’s work’, doesn’t mean we invented a new gadget or developed some theory that saved the world, prevented a scourge or cured halitosis . . . but, more likely, it is going from year to year, failure to failure, triumph to triumph, beginning to end doing things people do from day to day.  That might be bringing home the bacon or changing diapers or teaching a kid to ride a bike, or drive a car.  No better job we do - for our families, community or world, that just that – making our way from Monday to Friday each week with enough interest in getting to weekend rest-stop, so we can do it all again next week. -  Mark Kolke

March  17, 2011

Alone, at night, feeling I can’t shake, thinking about those pains – ones that came, went, left little debris behind them -  but on balance, I’ve lived largely pain free; in fact my pains are better described as momentary inconveniences – month here, year there, but nothing long lasting or improbable to live with. - Mark Kolke

March 16, 2011

Some things come to an end.  When we explore, venture – then retreat, are we going after something that was never real – an illusion of something that can never be, or are we falling just short of something fantastic because we weren’t quite prepared for taking chances . . . or even a single chance?  There are so many ways, your way, my way, some other way. – Mark Kolke

March  15, 2011

Consider this:  in all things you know, and in all things you don’t know – that collectively they fall into two groups; ‘the possible’ and ‘not possible’.  Is it then worth considering that most things in your ‘not possible’ grouping, really are in the wrong group? - Mark Kolke

March 14, 2011

We can’t un-do, fix it, right tipped boats or restore derailed trains of thought to anything remotely resembling original tracks.  Pathways confront - prompt questions, far too swiftly for comfort. Which route to take? Impatiently, rushed, rather than waiting to see which path chooses us, which begs our time, attention . . . - Mark Kolke

March 13, 2011

Stupid, useless, of no affect – my outrageous self-righteous anger comes from somewhere deep within each time someone close or someone I care about leaves too soon for my liking; grieving loss of expectations - ones beyond what we would say, if only we had a chance, for one more chat, with them, what we would say if we could just have a few minutes to shake hands and say so-long? - Mark Kolke

March 12, 2011

Imagine – your opposite scenario; imagine life not lived as you’ve lived it, but one opposite your desires, opposite your experiences – then ponder coping with that life where choices are not made, but thrust upon you by circumstance.  Nothing is as you’ve had it. Nothing. Imagine that! - Mark Kolke

March 11, 2011

Ask yourself, seriously, how many times will opportunity knock before it goes away because we didn’t answer the door?  How many chances do we get?  Unlock the door.  Tape a note to it that says ‘please come on in .. the door is open’. - Mark Kolke

March 10, 2011

The division, between work and play – like the boundary between good and nearly good, or between bad and nearly bad has so much to do with context, with who we are talking about -  whether it is fresh meat or old cheese, sweet surrender or mountain climbing to get to some new place of peacefulness, of satisfaction, of understanding ourselves and each other . . - Mark Kolke

March  9, 2011

We cannot experience differences in our lives if we can’t first imagine them. When we dream of successes or riches, opportunity or spectacular connection with a soul-mate – we are imagining it to be true, as if imagining is part of the journey. What does success look like? What defines failure?  Now think, what is the opposite of that?  - Mark Kolke

March 8, 2011

Future, purpose and meaning – to find it was walk a charcoal sketched road on a blank paper – drawing twists, turns, events, people and circumstance that get our attention; altering life's path or for laughter or more . . .  - Mark Kolke

March 7, 2011

Some days there are no words left - some days we face scary, face exciting, but some days go the other way for many of our fellow citizens here on planet civilization.  My job today is to point out some things - not to get you down but to get you thoughtful, about those who start their day with shakes and chills and deepest kind of down - to remind that we are all, but a step or two away from where they are, that we are they and they are we, in so many ways. So easy, to judge the path of the other person, those on the other side of some great divide – but really, aren’t we all just a big chain, only as strong as its weakest links? - Mark Kolke

March 6, 2011

This morning, other days too; someone laid to rest – life done, battles won, lost, along the way – of no import now; when done struggling in life, we are done.  Arguments, struggles, no longer matter, conflicts less than trivial, best forgot, along a long path . . . -  Mark Kolke

March 5, 2011

I doubt so much, think lots about much and get too focused on so much time restricted activity – need to be free more, wander more, explore more, dare more, let my thoughts wander bare in a world that seeks to cover scars and bandage wounds – yet I need reference points, they anchor me, to a sense of my being and values, or I have nothing at all to offer anyone . . . - Mark Kolke

March  4, 2011

What makes a perfect start, to a perfect day for you; is it waking up, getting up, or doing something in particular?  Surviving is the first step, thriving comes later – and for those who see only darkness, maybe we can share some of our strength, of only composed of morning sunbeams, shedding light on dark corners. - Mark Kolke

March 3, 2011

Today could, so easily, be an uninteresting day, just like so many other uninteresting days.  You know, the kind – ones we waste, or throw away, or spend doing things of little value – going through motions we’ve gone through a thousand times before; unless we change that. - Mark Kolke

March 2, 2011

There is nothing so gloomy or dull or negative or disappointing, that cannot be fixed with a mood swing. Don’t worry - mid-life crisis not required, nor menopause – just trust a mood change, believe it can make a difference in your whole day or, possibly, in your whole life. . . . grab your mood, by butt-cheeks, swing it in some other direction.  - Mark Kolke

March 1, 2011

Yesterday I met many people for the first time.  Most I’ll never meet again, most of those connections will be quickly forgotten because they never scratched the surface of knowing, others will alter lives; I know it.  But which? Will mine be one of them? - Mark Kolke

February 28, 2011

Disagreements need not rage on; often there is no other path, especially when someone else is standing ground, on my path (they think it their path), stubborn equates to irrational, speedy moves without regard to logic or full set of facts, rarely done in calm. - Mark Kolke

February 27, 2011

There is intelligence in a day like this – wisdom lurking to be found, uncommon thoughts, bent moods - door swings (or blows) open, the day comes in, trust it. - Mark Kolke

February 26, 2011

Life is good enough to wake up to, every day.  Sure, our stories are often dull, humdrum to some, yet to someone else they will fascinate and illuminate.  We all have much to learn, but we also have much to teach. So, tell your story to someone. They’ll be fascinated, want to listen – and they’ll tell you theirs. Just listen. I mean, really listen, with ears open and mouth closed . . . sounds and ideas will roll in like a fresh tide. - Mark Kolke

February 25, 2011

Someone will be happy when we think they are sad. Someone will be mourning when we think their brave face is just normal. Someone will be dejected and try hard not to show it. Someone will have a great idea nobody wants to listen to. Somebody will be trying, very hard, to get through to you.  Will you be watching, listening, noticing, caring about their performance?  We are all in the audience. We are all on stage. We all are, all the time. - Mark Kolke

February 24, 2011

Imagine life’s banality if we each acted/reacted same way, to every situation of facts or feelings; that would be so bizarre, yet when I encounter people I can’t figure out, I am intrigued. What did I miss, what am I missing?  Did I miss a clue, forget to listen carefully for some lightly dropped hint, or key indicator? Where lies the solution? - Mark Kolke

February 23, 2011

I try to have empathy for another’s life – especially when figuring out my own seems like a full time job some days. Not most, but some.  Some events (or people) help us move - from thing to thing, issue to issue, person to person – catalyst, something added to move the chemical reaction along. - Mark Kolke

February 22, 2011

Some people come to us, enter our lives, or simply breeze by for some reason. So it seems. They don’t tell us which they are going to be on arrival, but time tells, because in time we know.  It might be a few days later, years, or decades – there they are, in our lives, smiling back at us – as if we’ve both always known. - Mark Kolke

February 21, 2011

Here is the morning; welcome, the peace, the silence, the stillness . . . sometimes so full of yesterday’s joys and today’s plans – and just as often, just running on empty, searching. - Mark Kolke

February 20, 2011

Ask this: if we don’t stretch to know someone, some experience, some idea, some thought we’ve never known before, will we ever know what may be – there, an inch outside our entire experience, or a foot away . . . and if we get brave, a mile, or a thousand or a million thousand miles outside our experience might just be where our experience ought to be where life explodes in grandeur, where tender lives . . . or rests, or sleeps tonight? - Mark Kolke

February 19, 2011

At my age when playful youth is revisited – then countered by serious approach, not wanting to do things wasteful or frivolous because too much time has already been lost, forgotten and downright wasted - fearing waste of any more through poor choices.  - Mark Kolke

February 18, 2011

There is no time like this time; it will never come again, so my decision is to make this time different - otherwise I end up with more of the same unhealthy procrastination that has marked so much of my work life ... and personal life ... with a real approach, not so much to change, but to make time only for doing things I feel a strong need/desire and compulsion to do – and to try some new ways to find a genuine new way. - Mark Kolke

February 17, 2011

We are not lab rats, actions/reactions to stimuli, not recorded or compared – we measure failings and triumphs against past experiences – and against little else.  When we have trouble understanding, we ask a friend, not a stranger. When we struggle against an obstacle we ask for help from someone who knows and understands less than we do, yet somehow we expect a cogent answer and instruction on what to do next. Aren’t we weird? - Mark Kolke

February 16, 2011

We should expect life to slip away, in inches, or in one fell swoop.  That’s not desirable, but it is reality. Having each day give rise to another, each year leading to another – is a rare gift.  There can be no better good fortune, just as losing it can be swift injustice – it is life.  How many times in life, or each day, does an awesome opportunity go whizzing by – in plain view – and we miss it, miss out, miss it completely? - Mark Kolke

February 15, 2011

But there seems to be no time, to calm between notes of life’s song to find the answer out – too much to do, no time to waste, no extra minutes to throw around – the race is on, the chase is the way we live – rushing, mushing, an Iditarod of life, envying the lead dog’s view. - Mark Kolke

February 14, 2011

What if, what I want and seek is something I already have?  Then why seek it?  What if, the things I believe will make me happiest, won’t?  Then what am I doing?  It’s Monday, no need to figure it all out today, there is a full week ahead . . . - Mark Kolke

February 13, 2011

Know me by this – I am real, flawed, happy, excited, sad – it seems like a normal day, usual week, typical month.  Priorities are clear. Phone rings, or it doesn’t. Whatever happens depends on what I do, what is happening or going by, and my reactions.  - Mark Kolke

February 12, 2011

Life, is a banquet – a buffet of treats. We get to go through the line once.  What are you prepared to pass by? - Mark Kolke

February 11, 2011

Every way needs to be tolerated, every person’s journey deserves respect, we are all on some path to somewhere or someone – there is no right, no wrong, no every, no any, no sure thing, no easy way . . .  - Mark Kolke

February 10, 2011

Event or person intervenes – saying or doing something we find unacceptable, ‘not how we wish to be treated’ or imbalance indicator, that suggest going forward is a really bad idea. Taking stock, taking ourselves off a path that was both comfortable and compelling is not easy.  The best thing to do, ‘in our best interest’ - but believing that makes it no easier. - Mark Kolke

February 9, 2011

I think we all tend to continue doing what we tend to do, out of habit, out of comfort – without as much logical thought as we would apply to any problem we needed to solve.  I often wonder, as I look at sticky notes on my mirror – if the models for how I live my life, market my services, manage my relationships are wrong?  You know, good ideas, noble motives, but the wrong structure, focus and expectation paradigm. - Mark Kolke

February 8, 2011

I have found some peace – or it has found me - an easier peaceful feeling about me these days; I’ve learned it from someone, maybe I’ll teach it to someone else – or possibly just give it away if it feels uncomfortable after a while, but for now it feels good.  Like a soft old sweater.  What am I?  I am happy.  To say that; just that, that I am happy. - Mark Kolke

February 7, 2011

Someone commented to me that they liked me but couldn’t handle someone who functioned on my level (I think it was a nice way of criticizing my speed and direction .. which I think is forward, fast and furious) – but seriously, is there another level, really?  I think I came from the factory with only 2 speeds; #1 - full ahead, #2 – dead. I'm trying to stay in first gear. - Mark Kolke

February 6, 2011

The first hour of every day, you, like me, wake up safe and warm – out of the weather and meander around a safe cocoon, reading a paper, sipping coffee, our routine rarely interrupted by reality – we risk going out into a world where traffic might snarl or people might too, where we rub shoulders and sometimes encounter a cold shoulder – but our prospects are largely good, our optimism brimming, no end in sight . . .    As you pause over coffee and paper, remember not everyone starts their day safe and warm, with expectations of a happy ending; some are down some dark alley huddled against the rain, teeth chattering, but they could just as easily be sitting in the chair next to you, or the chair next to the chair next to you (if you get my meaning). - Mark Kolke

February 5, 2011

The theatre falls dark, at the end of the day.  Are you on stage, or witness?  Is there loud cheering, or eerie quiet?  When each day begins, it opens like the rising curtain on our spectacular show.  There we are, centre stage – the stars of a solo performance.  The audience awaits our stage presence, poise, our opening monologue – and our finale many hours later, the in-between-parts they witness like so many flies on a very big wall.  - Mark Kolke

February 4, 2011

Trying on new people, like trying on new gloves and using new tools at the same time – we want to see if they fit, and we try them out, to see if they work. - Mark Kolke

February 3, 2011

We are, as always, somewhere in the crucible of change – often unclear about which thing, idea, policy or trend is the next hula-hoop … or the next Berlin Wall coming down.   I have changed – but probably far less than I would like to think – as I press against ideas, bump into principles and wrestle with issues and people who have those ideas, principles and issues with different slants than mine. - Mark Kolke

February 2, 2011

If I am really serious about my priorities, I can have no time for anything that doesn’t connect to my search for the truth or aid my journey.  - Mark Kolke

February 1, 2011

Anything is possible. Everything is possible.  Nothing is possible.  Choose only one. - Mark Kolke

January 31, 2011

We collide, with each other, right our wounded sensibilities, learn, avoid further crashes – try to conquer obstacle or adversary. Not about the adversary, but ourselves. Some scale mountains, others climb short ladders, but, for all, some climb or stretch to make a decision helps us over crevasses, to climb debris laden steps unflinchingly. - Mark Kolke

January 30, 2011

When the tally is done, at the end of our working lives, or at the end of us, surely that which matters most will be whether or not we mattered, or were relevant, or mattered to someone – without so much regard to whether we felt self-satisfied with the results.   I’ve been doing less starting, more finishing - taking up less space and time to do more that is worth doing – and picking some things, and truly finishing them. - Mark Kolke

January 29, 2011

Unsure if the last thirty years were a waste, or completely necessary, I suspect the later; gives me comfort because the idea of having wasted a large chunk of my life is discouraging at best,  and downright depressing otherwise. Think about that for a little while.  Now THAT, is a stress test. - Mark Kolke

January 28, 2011

My pursuits, are clear – family, dog, lifestyle, writing, golf, cooking, finding the right partner, making something different in the world that will last longer than I do and have lasting value. That’s all. That’s all I want. And, I want it all. - Mark Kolke

January 27, 2011

Contradictions of what I think about/care about – when I attempt to reconcile them with my own actions – realizing my reality, and my future, is of my own creation – to see that the world around me, as much as the tiny one close to me, is my own doing; to conclude that we are all the creators as well as the inhabit-eurs of our own lives . . . welcome to my brain – playground of ideas, sweatshop of struggle, dreamer, journeyer, cook, lover of women, son, father, over-grown five year old, writer, friend, marketer, worker bee – a place for facing reality and passions blended with some cling to idealism - let that be my epitaph. - Mark Kolke

January 26, 2011

It occurs to me that we are possibly destined to repeat things – ones we didn’t get right, to repeat them again and again – each time, taking a new lesson from that experience, putting some new footprint on the measurement of the moment, some nuance that will, once and for all, keep us from repeating experiences that fail us, over and over, again and again. - Mark Kolke

January 25, 2011

Writing - my raison d’être – some days seems my only reason for being or, better said, my only way to explain my reason for being.  Facing facts, being me, who I am, seems to be leading to some place; I’ll see how the journey goes. I’ll report back.  I won’t race, I don’t want to miss anything or anyone . . .  - Mark Kolke

January 24, 2011

Morning’s focus – mine – is on talking less, listening more, understanding more, explaining less, doing more, thinking less, working up a sweat rather than working out a problem. Today will be light, I will be effective at something I know and something I don’t know; I’ll greet my future and my past, I’ll look forward and gaze back at the same time, I’ll try for some vision – the bifocal view of what is right in front of me, and the future that is out there somewhere near the horizon. - Mark Kolke

January 23, 2011

There is no better antidote for trouble than hope, no better bandage for our wounds than imagination and no better fuel for our existence than the idea, the notion, the dream, that we can make life better for ourselves and for others. Ordinary people need – require – and thrive on imagination too, and perhaps need it more.  We can look for excitement, new mountains to climb, rivers to cross and streets to walk down at home or far away; the view from here, or there, alone or as part of a team – with our mental baggage unpacked and put away, we can pack up our dream/imagination in a minute and catch the next flight . . . to wherever our mind goes. - Mark Kolke

January 22, 2011

You’ve heard the term, bad timing. I’ve often wondered – ‘is this not just the perfect situation, if it weren’t for lousy timing?’; re-think always makes me wonder if it’s the thing/situation/person that is wrong, or if timing is just the excuse.  But, what if I am wrong?  Can I afford to give up on a win, toss aside success or forego a spectacular life - simply because of timing? - Mark Kolke

January 21, 2011

Expressing what I want – or what you want – is not hard; determining what we are prepared to do about it, that’s another matter, because it hinges on what we are prepared to give up, to sacrifice, for it.  If we aren’t, then how important was the goal, how highly did that issue/priority rank in our life?    Dreams don’t come true through dreaming.  They come true by doing.  - Mark Kolke

January 20, 2011

Every now and again, life brings experiences we cannot change, or want to, to show us a new way, to set the bar higher than it has been set before – and then, I believe, we spend the rest of our life looking for another bar just that high, or perhaps a little bit higher.  - Mark Kolke

January 19, 2011

Imagination may be many things – as a weapon against reality if serves to help us cope, but it is much more important than that.  Imagine, what it would be like, if we could not imagine things – as they might be, as we want them to be, as we will try to fashion them . . just imagine.   Now, imagine, what it must be like to have that snuffed out, stalled, stopped, stifled or shoved so far down you that you cannot bear to get up, look up or think about getting up. - Mark Kolke

January 18, 2011

I walk out in the world. It is still there, did not look lost or lonely – nothing seemed out of place or stressed, yearning for change. World, its waking birds, trees (even ones plunked in their spot by landscape architects) do not appear out of place, displaced, disoriented. None.  I look out to the world.  It is still there, spinning, without change save daily subtlety of weather/season change, warming temps and small actions of its citizens, most of no consequence for the world.  I think about the world.  The world does not think about me, care about me or pay me heed. Independent of me, of all of us really, it goes on without us, every day. - Mark Kolke

January 17, 2011

Sometimes I take a step forward – absent sufficient deliberation; second thoughts don’t serve any purpose, because step WAS taken, next step comes next; direction, speed and re-fixing goals or destination comes into play, but accepting truth of my choices, however deliberate or hasty they may have been, they are my choices. I move along, in small steps, with a little bit of ouch – but moving forward just the same, toward a peaceful feeling.  - Mark Kolke

January 16, 2011

As I see it, world and I (or we) are independent operations; world will not recognize me or treat any of my issues as priorities or with any deference at all. My choices, then, is not about the world I venture out to engage, but about the person I send to that meeting.  Life’s messy-ness can be viewed as a problem or an opportunity. I choose opportunity. I can learn from the stupidity, haste and waste – but I can’t let it discolor my rose tinted windshield.  Yesterday cannot be re-anything-ed. - Mark Kolke

January 15, 2011

We all get ‘em - moments of grandeur, triumph, disappointment; fortunately, most of our falling short moments - neither newsworthy or notorious, are just ordinary people dealing with extraordinary challenge, without much help beyond our own compass, passion, commitment and will (or won’t) power.  Moments in melancholy limbo should be brief dips in the pity party pool. For the deeper dips, maybe we can lend each other some strength. - Mark Kolke

January 14, 2011

There is a time . . . there is a place for it - there is value in taking time, to take time, to know ourselves better than we knew ourselves before; too often, treadmill, rat race and freeway of busy lives don’t afford enough back-water time - to rest, reflect and re-grip our hold on the issues that drive us, or that drive us crazy . . - Mark Kolke

January 13, 2011

Traveling far, or light, is not so important as seeing something clearly, wherever we are. Clichés of long journeys beginning with single steps have their place, but for me it is not about the going, or the going far, it is about seeing . . . something we don’t have to travel for, because it is right here where even the most visually impaired can see clearly. I continue my search for meaning every day, finding gems – rare, but a few. The search, then, is not out in the world or of the world – but within me; for that, I can search without walking far or going very far . . . - Mark Kolke

January 12, 2011

Changing, or staying the same, is like separating need from want, because these choices are so interwoven with people and issues – seeing the forest for the trees becomes virtually impossible. I think I (we?) sort things out best when I simplify things, break things down to the very basic ingredients, singular issues, fact, another fact, the things I can be sure of.  - Mark Kolke

January 11, 2011

Search for truth – for reality, for people who get it, and in that process, avoiding those who don’t – is a delightful but exhausting exercise.  I watch, listen, see . . . words come after observations, not before, but I continue to learn more from the absence of words than from the use of them because they are just as often used to conceal as they are to reveal.  There are lessons (sometimes perverse pleasures) taking in the incongruities of life; truths are often apparent without words being spoken.  - Mark Kolke

January 10, 2011

Yesterday I was looking out the window . . working. I was holding the couch firmly in place on the floor .. working.  I was thinking hard about doing something . . working.  Thinking hard, but without moving much. I found rest and resolve. Only time can tell us where we’ll go - whether we flow like a river spirit rest like a lake, life is forever flowing to  somewhere, someone, somehow I can avoid the hazards if I stay on the couch, but if I want to taste the exhilaration, I have to play the game, take the risks and give it my all. - Mark Kolke

January 9, 2011

Life, landscape, punctuated with scenes, spectacular loves and experiences, make us, put us together - memory moments we relive when it’s quiet. I cannot imagine what it would be like to not see it, not hear it and not feel it – because I hope I could, you know, without those senses, still see the emptiness and hear the pulse of the day . . . like despair in the bunkers and joys on the fairways. - Mark Kolke

January 8, 2011

We don’t need someone in our life or to run our life, but we want someone to live our life for and with – and without that we are alone and lonely, no matter how many people occupy a dwelling.  Some would argue this is about faith, religion and philosophy. I would argue it is about self.  Understanding self. Nothing else. Nothing more. Nothing less. - Mark Kolke

January 7, 2011

Imparting knowledge, ours, to anyone – makes life here worthwhile; leaving something behind lives on in someone’s life as importantly (or more) as inventing the best gadget ever; we are here to season, assemble, enjoy, give-to and take-from life.  If it gives back to us too sometimes, but that’s just a bonus. - Mark Kolke

January 6, 2011

The completely irrational path relationships take, how people come to know one another - from magical yet innocuous beginning – understanding, if we can, what motivates them, why things unfold taking us to ultimately logical though totally unpredicted destinations – to this place, where we are. These events/results could never (and should never) have been predicted, planned, designed or sought given what we once knew.  These ideas, shared learning …  awesome combo - humanity, magic, fairy tale and some of the smartest choices I’ve ever made.  This got me thinking – about tasks on my table, ideas I have, calls I’ll make today, new friend I’ll meet tomorrow, route I plan to take, my next adventure and each NEW THING I start – whether rational approach makes any sense at all.  Safe, sure. Thorough, of course.  But will it be thrilling? Will it be a ride worth taking?  - Mark Kolke

January 5, 2011

Life is not fair to any of us; but we exercise our autonomy, we do things for their own sake – things that matter.  Our purpose is most often a narrow focus, on simple tasks. The rules are unclear, solutions not obvious - but there have been times, I’ll remember always – when someone taught me something I would never have known if it were not for them. Some people stay in our lives, others come and go – and sometimes someone leaves, moves on. - Mark Kolke

January 4, 2011

Some tasks, and friends, are a form of investment being made; we expend time, calories or cash – every choice, coming at some price if it is to bring some reward.  Even when we lift something light, we burn some calories. If we lift something heavy, and do it poorly we might hurt ourselves, might alter our health for the rest of our lives. These life/health altering events are true of people too sometimes, but worth risk. In ‘heavy lifting’ of all kinds, there is a price to be paid. - Mark Kolke

January 3, 2011

I can’t swim. No life-guard on duty; time to swim or sink, both feet, deep end of pool – and I plunge, into life, into mainstream, into the ditch, into work, into play, into passions, into despair – take your pick.  Most of us pick only one at a time.  Look around - see how many people do more than one.  Is that you?  I think not. Most of us get single tracked, driven, on the path – without peripheral vision – one route/rut at a time, take your pick.  -  Mark Kolke

January 2, 2011

To blend what just happened, with what happened so long ago, a recipe for success or disaster is always uncertain – but every time we mix ingredients and people for the first time we get a result that, when at its best, is best served for breakfast on Sunday morn. - Mark Kolke

January 1, 2011

Pssst! . . . Past, where lessons are kept, can teach. Really, looking forward, there is so little new to learn that has not already been learned - catalogued, recorded and archived. Still, we read the newspaper before a history book, horoscopes before wisdom quotes and we listen to our own old tapes rather than facing clear facts with sober logic because – as we all ought to know by now – it is our emotions, together with everything Freud and Jung had to observe, that drive us. - Mark Kolke