Kilroy J. Oldster

A theatrical spectacle is inherent whenever family members congregate and reacquaint themselves with powerful universal themes educed from homecomings including hugs, food, drink, conversation, politics, games, music, conflict, terror, mercy, smiles, tears, prayers, misfortune, and self-discovery.

Large families are communities unto their own.

Our daily habits _ honorable and dishonorable, noble and ignoble, vital and vile _ are revelatory. Our sense of self is fashioned partially by what we employ to crank us up in order to charge through every day, or stated otherwise, what vices we partake of and what substances we are addicted to using.

Music has the ability to express in the upbeat every brilliant aspect of existence, while on the downbeat convey the anguish that a human being experiences when apprehending the fleeting nature of time, and the mysterious torture of living and dying. Music stands alone in its ability to communicate the symbols and phases of life, both being and nonbeing.

In its own unique and indefinable manner, music indirectly communicates the joys of life along with the pains and terrors overwhelming humanity. The universal language of music quantities the human experience, its range of variation encapsulates the scale of humankind__ exuberance for living as well as expresses our apprehension of suffering and death. Because music articulates the quintessence of life and yokes a myriad of human events into an expressible format, music is a critical act.

Listening to music, reading literature, writing, and extended periods of personal introspection provide four prongs of the incitements available to form a conscious and subconscious designation of self. Other potential incentives that contribute to self-identity include religion and cultural events as well as painting, sculpture, dance, films, newspapers, television, Internet surfing, web sites, and online message boards.

Each of us is the enactor of our personal saga; we create the phantom of the self. We are the principal character in our personal story, as well as witnesses and reactors to the storylines of other persons whom we adore. We are each the composers of our evolving personal story; we are the protagonist of our personal life story.

Each of us wages a private battle to thrive. Whenever a person fully immerses oneself in life__ aromatic flower garden of pleasures and encounters life__ warship of armor-plated rigors, they blend and bend to make reasonable accommodations for surviving. Scripted and unscripted encounters with superior militant forces bruise us mightily and eventually cut us to the core. Every person__ life contains a minefield of obstacles that function as potential barriers to achieving our ultimate manifestation. The expended labor of continuously hefting oneself over one contentious hurdle after another is what leads a conscientious person onto the path of needing to write in order to create emotional poultices to ameliorate painful wounds.

We hold within ourselves the medicinal materials to mend self-inflicted injuries sustained while traversing the thorny obstacle course of life.

A person__ outlook on life colors their interpretation of specific events. Human beings_ behavioral and thinking patterns enable people to thrive or cause them to live in despondency and despair.

The foundation stone of all philosophy is self-knowledge and being true to thy self. A person must address an inner necessity in order to realize the fundamental truth about oneself, seek self-improvement, and gain knowledge through experience.

In our formative years, every person begins creating a self that can keep him or her company through later stages in life. It requires concentrated effort to create self-hood. The task of creating a fully developed human being is an ongoing process, an open-ended assignment. The goal of self-hood is to evade slipping into a state of thoughtlessness, where we fail to take ownership of our thoughts, deeds, and lifestyle.

Self-healing requires tremendous action, a willingness to go beyond the normative to discover something transcending.

Conflicting egos destroy many relationships. Lasting, stable marriages are a true treasure because they demand that both parties adjust to the constant cellular flux of their partner as they metaphase through changing seasons of life.

Intelligence in a spouse is a timeless quality.

Families share relationships based not only blood, but also the unique affiliation of a terribly long cord when measured in comparison with any other undertaking in a person__ life, from cradle to the grave if you will. These intimate associations create a bond of love, affection, goodwill, and joy that we seek to duplicate when we marry and begin creating our extended families.

We are born with the innate capacity to express empathy. Experiencing our own cuts and bruises, encountering our own difficulties and disappointments, expands our cognitive world and rouses the universal desire to understand and comfort other people in pain.

Parallel to tenderness and cruelty, the cataracts of pleasure and pain are interrelated. Painful and pleasurable sensations instruct us of our physical boundaries. The collective scorecard of physical pain and pleasurable sensations define the evolving self. Our internal clockworks comprised of remembrances of times past, both painful and pleasurable, provide each of us with a telling emotional autobiography. What we primarily recall _ pain or pleasure _ is revelatory. How we act with kindness and tenderheartedly, or hardheartedly and cruelly is equally telling.