The Pavellas Perspective

(Excerpts from a quarterly letter to my children and grandchildren 20 years ago)

Although I have had many physical adventures in life, from pleasurable to painful and back, my main focus is inward, toward learning and the development of my world- and self-perception. Not everyone will be interested in the workings of my mind and in the things I believe I have learned. Most people will be satisfied only with what their own lives have taught them, for the most part. But, then, why do we read books and watch TV and movie dramas? This is a rhetorical question to be answered by you, if you care to ponder it.

Some people find biographies interesting and useful, a way of learning about the world through the experiences and eyes of others. Such, at least in part, is what I offer in these quarterly reports and in my letters to you and others. But, it is well known, that “a prophet is without honor in his own house.”

So, I amuse myself with these ramblings, without expectation that someone else may find anything interesting or useful in them. Should I get the occasional response, I will be surprised and gratified to have made a connection.

‘Connection’ is what I perceive to be the most important thing and concept in our world. The more I live and travel, the more I see that we are all connected. This is why, despite my introverted nature, I seek that which connects me with other people. This is why I am fascinated with genealogy and the origins of Man and his families.

Also, I find life an ironical proposition. Things are not always what they seem — maybe almost never! This is why I often emit what seem to be nonsensical or silly phrases I play with words and concepts that use words, often to test myself regarding the veracity of my own perceptions and assertions. Words are used more often to obscure than to reveal. I try to make my words reveal. But, I am learning that words are quite inadequate to reveal or describe the most important things in life. These “most important things” are known only through direct experience: Love, God, Nature, Beauty.

But, again, there is this natural impulse to tell others of our deep experiences, to connect. So, we use words; and then the trouble begins: misunderstanding, prejudice, inattention, carelessness, ignorance, etc. We reveal ourselves and are misunderstood or are reviled, or even have our words used against us. And there are those times when beautiful connections are made, however transitory they may turn out to be.

So, we continue. We seem not to be able to help ourselves from reaching out, to communicate, to connect. It is just as we, as a race of beings, are unable to explore the universe in various ways, through space travel, philosophy, and in our own peculiar ways.

These are my words today. I hope they reveal more than they might have obscured.