Humainologie creative dialogue with REVISED ZOOM LINK for Tuesday October 18

“Death is just nature’s way of telling you to slow down” – Dick Sharples  

“They say such nice things about people at their funerals that it makes me sad that I’m going to miss mine by just a few days.”  -  Garrison Keillor  

“At my age I do what Mark Twain did. I get my daily paper, look at the obituaries page and if I’m not there I carry on as usual” – Patrick Moore  

Charlie Chaplin said, “To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain and play with it.”  We can play with our pain by writing poems or stories or songs about it.   I’ll append herewith a poem by Lewis Carroll, in which he makes very light of the passing of life and concludes with a line that really lifts off.   As light as it is, that final line of the poem provides a valuable contribution to how we can think about life/death.  Another way of playing with your pain is to write a book about what you have been through.  For me at least, the mountaineering film “Touching the Void” has been a valuable resource for dealing with my own current situation.  Here is the trailer for that film https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxLcRNPptZI 

and here is a related Wikipedia article.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touching_the_Void_(film)   

Our topic for dialogue on Tuesday October 18 will be Looking Forward to Death and the Related Challenges.  It will be by Zoom, starting at 7:00 PM.  Here’s the REVISED Zoom link:

Topic: Dialogue session on mortality and related challengesTime: Oct 18, 2022 07:00 PM Mountain Time (US and Canada)Join Zoom Meetinghttps://us02web.zoom.us/j/89079130932?pwd=Z2xjUmFBbTRZNDNBT04vVTNmdUVCQT09Meeting ID: 890 7913 0932

Passcode: 12345  

Toot sweet, Arthur

The following poem by Lewis Carroll is an acrostic, the first letters of each line spelling out the name of Alice Pleasance Liddell, the child who inspired Lewis Carroll (aka Charles Dodgson) to write Alice in Wonderland.  

A boat, beneath a sunny sky

Lingering onward dreamily

In an evening of July

Children three that nestle near,

Eager eye and willing ear,

Pleased a simple tale to hear

Long has paled that sunny sky;

Echoes fade and memories die;

Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,

Alice moving under skies

Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,Eager eye and willing ear,

Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,

Dreaming as the days go by,

Dreaming as the summers die;

Ever drifting down the stream

Lingering in the golden gleam

Life, what is it but a dream?