OSW,

As usual, I agree with Poirot on this topic: the transient beauty of a flower, the joy of life in a sparrow or peewee, the serious preoccupation of a beetle to get over a log; just the wonder of life, the gift of life. The enchantment of beautiful music (or a beautiful painting or photo, if you're inclined). And beautiful women: what would life be without such miraculous creations ?

Not to mention the friendships and experiences one has, the intensity of deep love for someone, the exhilaration of discovering something new or illuminating about the world, the exultation just knowing that there are (or have been) wonderful, brave people in the world like Malala Yusufzai, or Martin Luther King, who will forever inspire us.

Life is so precious, but in addition to all the influences and reasons above, it's up to each of us to figure out what is wonderful and entrancing, what can keep us driving forward.

Best wishes,

Joe

PS. And then there's us OLO ratbags out here too ! You, and each of us, contribute to a vibrant 'community' of talkers and arguers, getting up each other's noses, giving us something to think about, forcing us to develop our ideas and putting meat on our assertions.

It's all good !

G'day to you LOUDMOUTH...

Well Joe, what can I possible say to you. Your first two paragraphs are absolutely inspiring and challenging. As a matter of fact I did read POIROT'S thread, where she described much of what you've just articulated here. There's much to be said for such an evocative description of one of life's simplest, most basic of activities. The trouble is Joe we all live such busy lives few of us even have the time to notice such a beautiful event, let alone acknowledge that it's occurring daily ? And even few of us actually have the time to witness it happening, and that's awfully very sad !

You should be roundly commended for it Joe, you do have such a nice 'turn of phrase', and I can only wish that I too, could express myself as eloquently as you and POIROT ? To possess such an enviable talent makes me positively green with envy ! Thank you, both of you.

Sorry sonofgloin I'm afraid you have that one very wrong. Many horses take personal likes & dislikes, & would kill if allowed.

I have had a number of horses that would beat up any other horse that came to close to their favourite friend. This was with mares & geldings.

With most stallions, they would attack each other on sight, mating season or not. I know there are some stallions, probably raised together, that can run together out of breading season, but I've never owned one.

In fact with my old stallion, it is still essential that you don't let him see himself in a glass door, or large window, as he will attack his reflection on sight.

We had to be careful at events, not to tie him near any thing he could see himself in. Even the windows of a large 4WD wagon would set him off.

We managed to train him not to attack his reflection, or even other stallions when he was being ridden or led, but watch out once you tied him up, or let him loose.

Joe,

"....the transient beauty of a flower, the joy of life in a sparrow or peewee, the serious preoccupation of a beetle to get over a log; just the wonder of life, the gift of life. The enchantment of beautiful music (or a beautiful painting or photo, if you're inclined). And beautiful women: what would life be without such miraculous creations ?

Not to mention the friendships and experiences one has, the intensity of deep love for someone, the exhilaration of discovering something new or illuminating about the world, the exultation just knowing that there are (or have been) wonderful, brave people in the world like Malala Yusufzai, or Martin Luther King, who will forever inspire us.

Life is so precious, but in addition to all the influences and reasons above, it's up to each of us to figure out what is wonderful and entrancing, what can keep us driving forward."

I do declare that is one of your more inspiring posts - and one in which I take pleasure!

O sung wu,

"....The trouble is Joe we all live such busy lives few of us even have the time to notice such a beautiful event, let alone acknowledge that it's occurring daily ?..."

I believe that is an affliction of modern Western life....all our mod cons and yet we race around at ever increasing speeds...well most people do...

I deliberately try and keep life as simple as I can in order to avoid the mad rush, but one has to step slightly away from the herd these days to achieve such a thing, I've noticed.

Cheers guys : )

Hasbeen>>Sorry sonofgloin I'm afraid you have that one very wrong. Many horses take personal likes & dislikes, & would kill if allowed.<<

I know exactly what you mean...horses can be bastards with their likes and dislikes, almost human....but I still put it down to group domination and social hierarchy rather than one horse not liking what another does.

Along the same vein, someone once suggested that because elephants grieve over a dead herd member, they have an equivalent consciousness to humans. Elephants do huddle around the fallen member; they prod and push their mate for hours trying to animate it. That they do it for hours suggest they do not understand mortality and they are reacting to a difference of circumstance...did move....doesn't move.

I don't know if I'm right but I get the feeling that perhaps there's very few posters here who've ever been forced to confront the reality of life, death, and the existential anguish that drives so much of the pain and suffering in this world?
Suze as a police person has dealt with much that I haven't obviously but in my time I've had to deal with corpses and new-borns, picked up pieces of children from the road at an accident scene, dealt with both successful and unsuccessful suicides, and I've sat with the dying and those driven to utter despair by some of the worst things you could possibly imagine in this life. Disease, rape, murder, child abuse, suicide, I've been confronted by it all, as has Suze, so perhaps that gives us a depth of experience and understanding that many just cannot imagine? It certainly gives one an appreciation of life and the pleasures it offers, we treasure much that others take for granted.
When you've had to deal with that sort of experience for a few years the "big" questions of the why's of life itself tend to rather pale into insignificance, they're interesting but you can't really get too excited by them, life has been just too "REAL" for that to matter overly much.
For me, the "point" of Life is simply life itself, live it, treasure it, and be grateful for whatever joy it grants you along the way, the wolves are at the door for us all, lurking just out of sight but ready to pounce at any time.
Anything else is just pointless mental masturbation.