Unlikely Notes of a Banker: Questions and Quandaries

By Clark H. Woolley

Very likely, the notes of most bankers do not reflect a path toward understanding. Clarks journey began decades ago in college, when he considered going into the ministry and received a liberal arts degree, concentrating in the Department of Religion. In the years that followed, Clarks understanding evolved, and throughout most of his thirty-five-year career in the financial services business, he wrote notes and collected articles of personal interest, primarily related to psychology and philosophy, seeking an understanding of who we are in this world.
Clark is a native of Wilmington, Delaware, and, after college and military service, he was employed at a bank there for over two decades. Around age fifty, Clark decided to make an effort to work where he wanted to live, instead of having to live where he was employed. He left a secure, well-established executive position, and moved on.
Clarks lifelong love of nature took him from the East Coast west to the Rockies, where he spent much of his free time hiking and climbing in the mountains (the San Juans and the Tetons), often enjoying being out alone. His first move was to Telluride, Colorado, and then on to Santa Fe and Jackson Hole. Except for a detour into the real estate business in Telluride, his career in financial services continued. Wherever he moved, his ever-expanding collection of notesalong with numerous underlined, marked-up books with turned-down pageswent with him.
Finally, in retirement, Clark had time to organize and communicate his thoughts and ideas, his notes, into this book, which shares his journey toward understanding.
Clark, a graduate of Princeton University, veteran of the Marine Corps, and retired banker, now resides in Aiken, South Carolina, but spends his summers in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Apr 12, 2017
• ISBN: 9781504378178

Clark H. Woolley

Throughout my forty-three year business career there was another long journey. As a child, Sunday school every Sunday, and, later, church every Sunday through my teen and college years. At one time considering the ministry, I majored in the department of religion at Princeton for my B.A. degree. Since that time, over the years, my interests evolved from western to eastern religions, and on to psychology and philosophy, which have been my avocation for decades, as I was motivated by my desire to understand life. Whether having a neuropsychologist as a daughter helped in this process, I cannot say, but it gave me someone to talk to. I also enjoyed a physically active lifestyle, in competitive sports, and, having always been drawn to the mountains, hiking among them, often alone. After working in Delaware, and then enduring long winters for years in the Rocky Mountains, in Telluride, Colorado, Santa Fe, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming, my wife and I now enjoy the mild weather at our home in Aiken, South Carolina.

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Copyright © 2017 Clark H. Woolley.

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The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

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ISBN: 978-1-5043-7816-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-7817-8 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 04/11/2017

Contents

Preface

The Question

Is Change All There Is?

Why Does It Hurt So Much?

I Always Do What I Want to Do

Am I Me?

Hope Springs Eternal?

Do I Seek Meaning or Do I Live It?

Moving On

Notes

Preface

In a very broad sense this book is about perspective, how we see ourselves in the world. It is not a book about answers. It is a challenge to many of our basic beliefs and assumptions, with observations of philosophers, psychologists, writers, and scientists along with ideas from my own perspective. The primary objective is for these ideas to be a catalyst for your personal thoughts and answers, the ones that make sense and have meaning for you in your life.

Note: When referring to myself, I use I—except when I am differentiating myself from the concept of the separate, psychological, controlling agent I.

The Question

Once a second somewhere in the universe a star explodes with the brilliance of an entire galaxy.¹

Ron Cowen, Galaxy Hunters

Why do my eyes glaze over and I lose focus when I hear of magnitudes beyond those I can imagine? How great is the distance of 250 million light years? This is not a large distance relative to the entire cosmos as we know it; it is only 2 percent of