Truths, Half-truths, and Sea Stories

It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment.

Carl Friedrich Gauss

During a health emergency the scale the world has not endured since the Spanish Influenza of 1918, many have taken advice to remain in a “voluntary” quarantine. My business is at a standstill. We have sufficient access to everything that meets our basic needs. But what does one do, if you are not ill and much of your time is spent close to, or at home?

Through access to the Internet, and several texts I have held onto for twenty years, I am taking a refresher in the Russian language. A bookcase holds books on the visual arts and photography. With the news that two of my relatives have passed this year, I am going through old photo albums of parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles long deceased. When that becomes grieving, it is time for other pursuits. Walking the dogs, and tending to the flower garden and fruit trees. My wife asked me for a little car maintenance today – changing a burned-out taillight that a passerby noted on her drive home.

When you are engaged in the enjoyment of learning, you may find little time to catch up on celebrity deaths, Trump’s latest self-congratulatory pronouncements, or dozing in front of the television.