Oh Shenandoah

I'd pray at the church of Aaron Sorkin if he was a religion. I know I've said this previously and I stand by this even more so today, the man often writes the way I feel. Extracting emotion and passion with seeming ease that leave me wondering if perhaps he is tapped into my head sometimes. If I can capture a tiny fraction of his lightening in a bottle when it comes to crafting prose I'd consider myself lucky. If he was a religion, I'd bow down...At least momentarily.

Combine his themes, style of writing and the usual great music to accompany his vision and I always find something to think about and often to write about. As he would have opined, good writers borrow from other writers and great writers steal outright from them...I'm borrowing as much as I can.

At first listen, the folk/country song Oh Shenandoah would be a love song about the meandering river, and it may very well be...but I wonder if it isn't about other things a tad more existential, living a life say, being open to where that river runs but remembering where it came from. Listen to Tennessee Ernie Ford sing it Oh Shenandoah and now listen to this version that was used on the show The Newsroom Oh Shenandoah  It's hauntingly beautiful and plays against a back drop of tragedy and joy. It's a tear jerker and between them both it is a very different song. Again, masterfully chosen works of art paired to masterful words acted by masterful artists.

My take away is about living life intentionally or as intentionally as possible since I think it would be a near impossible thing to do so all the time, life is too grey to plan everything out in advance. Not knowing which of the roads we will take tomorrow, how can we assume we will always be able to make intentional choices? This past week work life has been thrown into chaos...no one, least of all me, knows what will come tomorrow. But that doesn't stop me for making choices that point me in the direction that I wish to be going....it just means I need to be fluid and think things through. Try not to act rashly if you get what I mean. In the end there will always be roads not travelled and it does no good to fret over it after you have made your choice. The "river" will run it's course regardless.

Rivers run swift into seas that run deep, the constant ebb and flow, giving sustenance to life and sometimes taking life away. All we can do is build a better boat, be better sailors or simply know that water, in the end, will find a way.

Ciao
D