What matters most

As so often happens, it was just a flash of one of those TV news headlines that caught my attention. It was on Good Morning America, and the promo for an upcoming story said

"MAN SHOT BY DANCING FBI AGENT SPEAKS OUT"

It wasn't until we saw that story that most of us even knew the Federal B of I was hiring 14-year-olds as agents, because anyone over 15 (except Plaxico Burress) knows better than to stick a gun in one's pants and go to a go-go. 

They should have been playing that "Disco Duck" song at that club in Denver. "Disco! DUCK!"

My point, and thanks for waiting around long enough to hear it, is that armed law enforcement agents ought to take themselves a little more seriously. Only a fool does backflips with a gun in his pants. And you'll notice, I said "his" pants. I can't remember the last time I saw a story where a woman acted similarly foolishly.

And then the Kate Spade story. I know she was enormously popular in the field of purses and women's clothing and had sold her line for 2.2 Billion With a B dollars, and yet did not find either happiness or a way out of the gloom of depression. Gee, maybe it is true that money is not the ticket to happiness, and what is also true is that when someone we love is fighting mental illness, we have to get closer to them and send unceasing love and support. These things need to be taken seriously.

I guess what's on my mind today is that some things need to be taken more seriously, such as gun safety and emotional disturbances, and we can find the way to do that by taking some of the things we take soooo darn seriously a little less so.

Like a little mess in the corner, or an untucked shirttail, or the need to attend every single "important" social event. "Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it," said the wise Oscar Wilde, who knew a thing or two about everything, and only lived to be 46.

The worldwide king of taking oneself too seriously.
Bono's real name is Paul Hewson, but he calls himself
"Bono Vox" because that is Latin for "good voice."

So that's my goal: pay more attention to what matters, and let the rest sort itself out. Not shooting other people, for instance, matters. Never hearing another U2 song in my remaining years does not matter one whit to me.

Oscar Wilde also said, "What a pity that in life we only get our lessons when they are of no use to us."  I'm going to try to use what I learn more and more.