"Listen to the Warm"

Being privy to the demise of a relationship is tough stuff.

What role do you play?

What words do you use to comfort, persuade, cajole?

Who do you comfort? Do you choose sides? How can you maintain neutrality?

After the past couple of days, I have new respect for Sweden.

Problems seem so clear to the observer. Why are we not given the ability to view ourselves as an outside observer? Why are certain things hidden from our sight?

Wouldn't life be, well if not simpler, less catastrophic? Not so dramatic? Things would just simmer rather than boil over leaving messes that take a long time to clean up. Sometimes continual scouring does not remove the mess.

At what point, if ever, does a person truly learn and understand themselves? When, or if, do we arrive at the ability to be loving to ourselves and less judgmental? When do we learn to apply that to others?

Must history always repeat itself?

I believe so. Why?

When you are talking over the other person all the time, you are not paying attention to the present to be able to identify it as the past.

What to do?

Listen.

A lot.

And often.

Listen to the Warm recited by Rod McKuen, the RCA years 1965-1968.