Paul Fletcher Murray

Paul Fletcher Murray

Biography

I don’t think I’m as important as the people I have lived life with and known.

Shallow, the profound. The simple, the complex. The loving, the cruel. The brilliant and the pedantic.

I am a family man.  Came from a big family complete with fighting, love, misunderstanding, respect, and joy.   There was always a game.  There were so many visits to the Emergency Room that the hospital got to a point that we could check ourselves in on the “Murray Boys’ Account”.

We were pursuing great inventions and willing to put it all on the line with our little 8-year-old bodies. I can never thank my brothers and sister enough for the adventures they took me on.  You’ll read some of those.

And of course, I can never thank my wife, my children, their spouses and my grandchildren for helping me grow in selflessness, power and courage.

To me life is a painting that is done so quickly that we race along inches from the brush watching the colors change, the lines swirl and straighten and plunge and rise and collapse, through light and dark, all the colors and tastes and sweetness and bitterness, the feelings of communion and rejection. 

In a way I find that I am a reflector of common beliefs that spring from that experience.  Often I hear that they are what my friends already have.

It is rewarding to hear back from you when I publish a story. It is like hearing a symphony burst forth as it picks up my tune after I have finished my solo.

I have traveled enough to see that everyone has a way of doing things and that there are different approaches to life.  But underneath these differences are basic similarities.  Humbling similarities.  The joy of a child’s birth shakes the rich and the poor, the brilliant and the stupid.

The intricacies of a simple flower outstrip the most grandiose work of art.

I have had the bliss of spiritual peace and thoughts that are devastatingly beautiful in their simplicity and power.  I have tasted realizations that take me nearly to heaven.

The thirst for a game to play, the thirst to improve ourselves, the thirst to contribute to others in a meaningful way resonate throughout man’s actions and show the paradoxes of life.

Life is change. Challenge. Growth. Excitement. Failure. Success. Hope. Depression. Self motivation. Self destruction.

The thirst for change never stops.  We demand the feast that will make us only hungrier.

There is no peace until death.

Life is a game fought with all the passion we can muster and the willingness to take as good as we give.  But there will be no peace.

As my friend said, “Life’s tough. Get a helmet.”

And I would add, for the other side of the coin, “Life is beautiful.  Immerse yourself in it.”

Cat Stevens said, “If you want to sing out, sing out….”  I would add “If you can’t sing, at least hum.”