01UndatedOur children are an integral component of our stories as we are of theirs and, therefore, each child acts as the knighted messengers to carry their forebears’ stories into the future. To deprive our children of the narrative cells regarding the formation of the ozone layer that rims the atmosphere of our ancestors’ saga and parental determination of selfhood is to deny them of the sacred right to claim the sanctity of their heritage. Accordingly, all wrinkled brow natives are chargeable with the sacrosanct obligation of telling their kith and kin the memorable story of the scenic days they spent as children of nature splashing about in their naked innocence in the brook of infinite time and space. We must scrupulous document our family’s history as well as scrawl out our personal story.Kilroy J. Oldster / quote ↗
02UndatedStorytelling is ultimately the only way that we know besides song, dance, painting, and music to share with our tribesmen what it means to be human, express the indefinable feelings that unite humankind.Kilroy J. Oldster / quote ↗
03UndatedHard edges make truth and by necessity, truth is unbending. Unlike truth’s absolutism, justice is a qualitative substance; it is not an absolute tenet. Justice must be pliable in order to meet the needs of more than one person or one group. Justice goes against separation; it is a form of human superglue. Justice is what binds us as people. No human is capable of measuring out or dispensing unqualified justice. Justice naturally seeks conciliation and demands compromise.Kilroy J. Oldster / quote ↗
04UndatedThe more a person knows the less they talk. I shall cease speaking and endeavor to instill a large band of silence inside myself in order to forge a deeper and closer relationship with all of nature. Only when I attain absolute quietude shall I understand the supreme virtue of humanity and understand the meaning of both life and death. Only when I achieve absolute stillness shall I come to a perfect realization of the meaning of existence innate in all things.Kilroy J. Oldster / quote ↗
05UndatedHumankind’s greatest gift is that we are indeterminate beings. Unlike the tough and leathery seed of an acorn, which will grow into a magnificent oak tree, none of us has a predetermined final configuration of our ultimate essence. Our mental temperament is pliable. We make conscious and subconscious choices that govern who we become.Kilroy J. Oldster / quote ↗
06UndatedThe mental mist of ambiguity and the fog of ambivalence hamper human existence.Kilroy J. Oldster / quote ↗
07UndatedNone of us commences life utterly alone. We each carry within our granular mass the protoplasm residue of past generations’ ideas, customs, values, infatuations, prejudices, ethics, and mores. The lees wrought from our seedlings contribute to the social order that oversees a newborn’s future. How we conduct ourselves in the here and now emulates our heritage, delineates the parameters of the present culture, and sets the embryonic stage for the emergent ethos of our future and for the generations of people whom we will never meet.Kilroy J. Oldster / quote ↗
08UndatedThe greatest crime in human history was not the creation of the armaments of warfare and destruction of life, but the invention of hand mirror, which enticed humankind to peer at their surface appearance instead of seeking spiritual salvation. Prior to the invention of the mirror, people saw themselves through other people’s eyes or by looking deep within themselves.Kilroy J. Oldster / quote ↗
09UndatedThe purpose of life is to become acquainted with the deepest recesses of a person’s own mind by reflecting upon what a person reads, witnesses, and personally experiences. Wisdom is a form of power. Lacking knowledge of the world and without comprehending the essence of humanity, we can never know the truth of our own being.Kilroy J. Oldster / quote ↗
10UndatedThe principles of storytelling are immutable, explaining why we see shards of ourselves in other people’s stories. All enduring stories predicate its themes upon humankind’s ability to exercise free will. Without a character’s ability to make choices of how to act, there can be no story. In absence of free will, there is no humanity. Only after God evicted them from the Garden of Eden, could Adam and Eve experience what it means to be human.Kilroy J. Oldster / quote ↗
11UndatedSelf-reflection enables every person to alter the trajectory of their personal storyline by reviewing a series of episodic occurrences and making value judgments regarding the past. How we perceive our history colors the present, our deeds of today script the future outcome of individual persons, and the outcome of many people making conscious decisions using their cognitive processes including the ability to remember and share memories influences the direction of human development and the progress of society.Kilroy J. Oldster / quote ↗
12UndatedAwareness of our lost youth and charged with foreknowledge of our fate is terribly burdensome. Nonetheless, awareness of inexorable forward march of time and comprehension of our transience is a key component of our humanness. Awareness of time serves as a constant jab in our flank. It shapes our sense of being and toys with our mental equilibrium.Kilroy J. Oldster / quote ↗
13UndatedMany aspects of the human condition are beautiful and many others are vile. Betrayal and personal agony represent a maddening part of being human. A person can maintain personal dignity by exercising restraint, remaining true to their conscience, and preserving under difficult conditions.Kilroy J. Oldster / quote ↗
14UndatedWe can combat existential anguish – the unbearable lightness of our being – in a variety of ways. We can choose to work, play, destroy, or create. We can allow a variety of cultural factors or other people to define who we are, or we can create a self-definition. We decide what to monitor in the environment. We regulate how much attention we pay to nature, other people, or the self. We can watch and comment upon current cultural events and worldly happenings or withdraw and ignore the external world. We can drink alcohol, dabble with recreational drugs, play videogames, or watch television, films, and sporting events. We can travel, go on nature walks, camp, fish, and hunt, climb mountains, or take whitewater-rafting trips. We can build, paint, sing, create music, write poetry, or read and write books. We can cook, barbeque, eat fine cuisine at restaurants or go on fasts. We can attend church services, worship and pray, or chose to embrace agnosticism or atheism. We can belong to charitable organizations or political parties. We can actively or passively support or oppose social and ecological causes. We can share time with family, friends, co-workers, and acquaintances or live alone and eschew social intermixing.Kilroy J. Oldster / quote ↗
15UndatedA pensive personality and ambivalent attitude towards power and money can cause other people to take a high production or creative person for granted.Kilroy J. Oldster / quote ↗
16UndatedThe nonessential employees, the type of workers whom remain at home when it snows, are the quickest to complain about how the talented persons of an organization behave.Kilroy J. Oldster / quote ↗
17UndatedEach person must implement their preferred problem solving method to address existential questions pertaining to life and death, living and loving, working and playing, resting and restructuring.Kilroy J. Oldster / quote ↗
18UndatedEvery person is a creator. We create with our ideas and beliefs. Our daily labor creates a worldly cocoon that enfolds us. We mold out of a granite substance not yet hardened the tutelary angels whose ideological formation will guide our passageway through the jungle of life.Kilroy J. Oldster / quote ↗
19UndatedSome people never stop working, especially the demanding type of person whom the world never seems to touch, the indomitable person whom is determined to make the world their own place.Kilroy J. Oldster / quote ↗
20UndatedHuman labor, the manual work that people engage in to build their world, both physical and spiritual, defines the realization of their conceptual realm.Kilroy J. Oldster / quote ↗
21UndatedHow to earn a viable standard of living while giving vent to their desire to perform creative activities is the quintessential challenge for modern humans. Some people settle for jobs filled with drudgery and in their free time immerse themselves in hobbies that provide them with personal happiness. Other people prefer to find work that makes them happy, even if this occupation requires them to live a more modest standard of living. The greater their impulse is for curiosity and creativity, the less likely that a person will exchange personal happiness for economic security.Kilroy J. Oldster / quote ↗
22UndatedWhat work a person does to earn a viable income shapes their thinking patterns, buttresses their sense of self-worth, and affects how they adapt to predictable and unpredictable obstacles.Kilroy J. Oldster / quote ↗
23UndatedOne redeeming feature of human beings is that we must work to sustain our survival. Working attaches people to reality; it creates a survival identity, and provides structure to our life. Work provides a person with a temporary purpose and an accompanying sense of security that there is a fitting place in this world for a person of their temperament and talent.Kilroy J. Oldster / quote ↗
24UndatedA poet warrior realizes both the brutality and the beauty in life, and apprehends that the suffering we tragically endure is partly what makes us human. What also makes us human is the ability to love, the ability to stand in nature’s presence, and to nurture this earthly paradise to tend to our family’s needs.Kilroy J. Oldster / quote ↗