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Nothing is more important than anything else [1]
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Date: 2023-05-22
Credit: fcscafiene
A Footnote in a picture book.
In 1978 I was working at the Nashville Public Library as a live character in four puppet shows a week for school children with Tom Tichenor who created the puppets for the Broadway show “Carnival”. On Saturdays, together, we performed marionette shows in the library auditorium for walk-in families.
The remainder of my time was spent making puppets and shelving books. At that time the Children’s Division had one of the largest collections of children’s books in America. It included every Caldecott Award and Newbery Award winner.
One afternoon I noticed a Caldecott winning picture book illustrated by Remy Charlip– The Seeing Stick (Yolen,1977). The illustrations were remarkable. Standing there by the book cart between two sets of shelves I read through the pages. About halfway through there was an asterisk by one of the lines. It referred to a footnote. Footnote? In a children’s picture book? Unheard of.
Nothing is more important than anything else.
At the bottom of the page next to a quantum entangled asterisk were the words, “Nothing is more important than anything else.” A Separate Reality (Castaneda, 1974). I immediately went downstairs to the main library, located, and checked out the book.
I read it. Then I read all Castaneda’s books.
I have passed 75 years in this place called earth. I have pondered that phrase for decades, while I experienced a varied and colorful life, some good, some not so good. That statement is unassailably true. By any measure what we say and do here means little to the universe where we live. All that lay before us will be swept away by the winds of time and forgotten. One seemingly enduring thing, the earth, will one day, too distant for us to fathom, be consumed by the dying star that conspired with earth and water and air to breathe life into all that surrounds us. Everything within our purview is unimportant. It is folly.
If everything in our domain is folly, what is one to do?
I see a different truth in that statement now than when I first read it. Now that I see ‘ more than anything else ’ more clearly, I continue to keep a running list of the ‘important’ things in my life which have only as much significance as I choose to give them. I act on what I have given meaning to as if my life depended on it, knowing full well that it means nothing. That is my controlled folly.
I live surrounded by the incredible beauty of life that springs from the ground as if it cannot be contained, where some creatures fly through the air, others burrow in the soil, swim in the water, or roam the earth. I have chosen nurturing and caring for this place and its inhabitants to the best of my ability as important. What you are reading now and in the rest of my blog are expressions of the essence I have given to this task. My political merch site is another. My family, my friends, my modest garden, my bird feeder are among my momentous list conveying aspects of my ‘path with heart’ too long to name here.
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