I saw a rainbow this afternoon.
It was a huge rainbow.
The rainbow I saw was bright and wide, and very nearby.

As the rainbow appeared, on one side of the afternoon sky, a dark and swiftly moving cloud approached from the east. At the same time, the afternoon sun shone brightly across the sky, out of the west, from beneath the clouds. Sunbeams radiated across the sky from the west at an angle that lit the dark cloud brightly above as well as the sky below it. Although the afternoon was sunny from some perspectives, large rain droplets falling from the approaching clouds were clearly visible. There may have even been bits of sleet among the early winter day's raindrops.

The Grinding Gears of Life

More often than one might expect, as life's gears grind against each other, the age old adage, “the best laid plans …” applies quite directly to trying to live life as a human being on our planet earth, and more importantly to trying to make progress with work on one’s primary life aspirations. It often seems as though one’s very life plans must include provisions for the seemingly inevitable intrusions that nearly invariably arise to lead one’s plans astray. One can only hope as well that such distractions and diversions don’t also lead one's aspirations asunder. There comes a threshold however, beyond which it becomes clear that life, and one’s associated time left to live this wonderful human life that we each have, are limited resources that must be marshaled expediently, before one’s passing decades expire.

It is extremely difficult to resist the urge to gripe now and again. It seems as though there is a lot to gripe about these days. However, might griping have its own positive aspects?

It's fascinating to observe divergence into meta discussion within discussion and conversation, to observe and be aware of the phenomenon, especially when other people seem unaware of what is happening. Whether during online forum discussions, or within the context of face to face discussions, sometimes discussions that diverge into meta-discussions are quite entertaining in and of themselves. Often when a discussion diverges into a meta-discussion, it provides an opportunity, a meta-opportunity really, to observe the ability of the person or people in the discussion to keep track of the primary discussion topic(s) in addition to the subsidiary and divergent discussion topics at hand.