As many great philosophers have pointed out, we are not here in this world long, and there is no reason not to live from our hearts while we are here. This seems difficult for many people to do. I was shopping yesterday, and an acquaintance came up to me – I hadn’t seen her for two years – and I asked how she was and she told me in great detail how her mother was (her mother was not good, she was in her third year of chemo, she said). She told me much about her mother’s agony, but never said a word about herself or her life. And she did not ask me a single question about mine.  After awhile, I wished her well and broke off the conversation and I wondered why she was telling me about her mother rather than about herself.

As I got into the car another acquaintance came up and he told me about the death of his brother’s dog – the dog underwent multiple heart surgeries and years on medication before he succumbed, and I found myself wondering the same thing. Many dogs die every day, and I would not think of telling friends of my dogs who have died when I run into them on the street any more than I would tell them how my mother struggled and died.

I think these acquaintances were seeking sympathy, and were exchanging the currency of their lives, the currency so much of our society uses for exchange. The world is  grim, filled with disappointment and suffering and despair. The economy is collapsing, the earth deteriorating, the political system unworkable, the future grim: blah-blah-friggin-blah.

That is what we hear, that is what we see, that is how we think. Hi, how are you. My mother is undergoing chemo. My brother’s dog suffered and died.

And yet I do understand. Struggle stories have become the currency of our culture, from politics to the news to the economy. All of us know people in our families who are sick and dying. None of us suffer alone.

We all have stories of struggle. Almost all of us have lost someone or something we love. A person, a dog, a cat, or a horse, a job, a retirement fund. We will all be one of those stories one day, one way or the other.

Those stories are a choice, I’ve learned,  not the reality of all of our lives, not the universal currency.

We could, if we chose, tell one another stories of hope, and of promise.  Simon was mistreated. Simon is well. People are born. They fall in love. They find work. They get puppies and kittens and love and enjoy them. They laugh at good movies, love to go to the mall, find great bargains.  They answer the creative spark and write books, poems, take photos, make quilts, paint pictures, take walks in the woods, cook good dinners, have long conversations, read good books, find meaning in their lives, change grow, strive and work,  shed fear and find hope. These are the stories of my currency, my news, the stories I will tell my readers, my friends, my wife. The stories of my farm, my work, my photos, my life.