Precedence and Precedents

I'm realizing in bursts that learning is more of an accumulation than a gathering. Our memories, our enlightenments, our lessons, our repetitive stupidities don't form a collage so much as a pile or set of piles. We are presented with experiences that are too much to abide, too much to compass, but we walk away with something.

In the political arena, everyone knows that fortune favors the brave (until they become part of the bureaucracy, but that's another story and an ironic corroboration), so long as the brave consider themselves fortunate when they're handed even half of what they're asking for. Example: Ashbury Park may have gotten shut down in issuing same-sex marriage licenses, but NJ civil union legislation followed.

Learning causes conformational changes in worldview and thoughtview; the brain redirects its own pathways. Thresholds matter. What wasn't learnable before is learnable after a certain line of experience or learning or maturity has been crossed.

It also strikes me that changes happen in clumps. Another kind of threshold is crossed and changes pile on by the bucketful. The BF and I decide to be together. Friends move away. Other friends become closer. Brilliant writers are rewarded. Termination-dates hop around, but come closer. The overall flux become palpable.

Times of flux like this are times I've learned to not only go with, but to take advantage of. The sails are full, why not set off in the direction of all those other changes you've wanted to make, those things you've wanted to learn, those people you've wanted to pursue or reconnect with?

May you live in interesting times. May you take advantage of interesting times.