APPRECIATE YOUR GIFTS

I feel that urge to write again, and as Mark Twain liked to put it in similar situations, "You must suffer."

Hopefully, a few will enjoy my literary ramblings. Maybe, and hopefully, even profit from them.

An exchange with Janelle Hopkins, a friend who was a kid when I knew her years ago, is now a successful business woman who likes to write and exhibits other talents I pointed out to her were strong in her father, with whom I was a close friend in college and for years afterward. She was surprised to know he was a very talented writer and also a good tenor who would sometimes get into impromptu songfests with Garner Ted and others. As I also pointed out, her mother was also extremely talented in many ways, and I'm sure other close relatives were and are.

We're a marvelous genus! So many potential talents lie hidden in the vast majority of human beings. I often tell Phyllis she should have been a stand-up comic. She has that elusive gift of "timing" that is so important in that profession, and that wonderful abiltity to capitalize on everyday absurdities. I wish she would really write that book about "almost dirty words."

A few have the drive, tenacity and just plain luck to make full use of their outstanding talents, but most never do for any number of perfectly good reasons, and sometimes, excuses. For one thing, there's only room for so many outstanding people to spectacularly succeed in most fields. Many are so filled with talents that they can only develop a few chosen ones, maybe only one.

My friend, whom I've never met in person, Dennis Deahl, is exemplary of someone who should be world famous for things he has written on theology and religion, but he has to content himself with a commanding presence on a couple of blogs and earn his living in massage therapy which he describes as "rubbing people the right way." A few months back, he threatened to give it up and quit. I told him he couldn't do it anymore than I can. Bingo! He's at it just as strongly as ever.

I guess I could ramble on more, but I think my point is clear. Most of us have to content ourselves with whatever we've been able to attain. Sure is nice, though, to sometimes daydream about what might have been if we'd taken a few different forks in the road.

Kinda makes you wish reincarnation could be true.