So much knowledge has been around for so long a period. Each day by the hour and minute, more and more, is being added to our well. New discoveries, new words, new things of all kinds. I read, I often study, and I constantly become increasingly aware of how little I know and how many basics I was not cognizant of, until a moment ago. I constantly question myself about the fact that I have lived this long and still managed to miss something along the way that was so damn absurdly obvious. A word or a thing that has been there for centuries, staring at people like myself in the face.
How could I have not learned that simple thing? My God, if I missed so much along the way, how will I ever be able to catch or keep up? The fact is… I’m running out of time.
The idea that any of this is my fault is not the point I’m going to attempt to expound on. Besides… I don’t often expound (I hope). Of course, writing could be considered an expounding of sorts.
“A writer writes not because he is educated but because he is driven by the need to communicate. Behind the need to communicate is the need to share. Behind the need to share is the need to be understood. The writer wants to be understood much more than he wants to be respected or praised or even loved. And that perhaps, is what makes him different from others.“
Leo Rosten
Writer, philosopher, educator, and a good human being.
Writing things down affords me the opportunity to look inside my head and determine whether I am in the advanced stages of either: self-endorsement, infantile amnesia, or just the normal advanced stages of dementia. Of the three suggested maladies, I can rule out dementia because of certain sexual activities that I still maintain a proclivity to remember.
As has been my condition for almost my entire adult life, the folks that I place on a pedestal of admiration, without exception, have two superb attributes. Both attributes come in one single package. Seemingly, you cannot have one without the other. They are courage and imagination.
Again, I present another Leo Rosten quote:
“Courage is the capacity to confirm what can be imagined.“
Da Harv’s salvation is:
Yes, I can. Yes, I will. I see it being done. And an inbred (actual) hatred for the destruction of any kind. Within these revelations, I have found a solution, or call it a salve, for my ignorance. Another author referred to it as: “see it, and then do it”.
Certainly, a proven fact would be the degree of peacefulness that can enter your life through your imagination. Acting on what you imagine not only requires courage, but can also bring an inner conflict, anxiety, and sometimes a degree of pain. If it’s beginning to sound like the formula for growth, you’re latching on to the dictates of all the great philosophers.
“No pain, no gain!”
If a person is experiencing pain, that person isn’t wasting time thinking about how little they know and understand. When I jump into icy water, it’s much colder when I deliberate before the jump. Also, the quicker I get in, the sooner I get out. The same might apply to hot water.
“Lukewarm water sucks.”
Imagination and dreaming are synonymous. An old guy once told me: “It’s your head. Use it. If you dream it, bring the dream to life. Sure, it will take a great deal of courage. But you can get past your fear. Consider that you’re not smart enough to be scared.” (“Kid, you ain’t smart enough to be that clever.”)
You are your own partner. Tell your partner each and every day: “Yes, you can. What a great dream. I saw it in living color. The opportunity of a lifetime. Your lifetime. Gather ’round folks, we’re (my partner and I) are going to show you how it’s done.”
NOTE: all of the above self-encouragement will work equally as well when told to another real-life, live, and breathing partner. (That, too, will take courage and often the diminishing of an overly aggressive displayed ego.)
Tonight, I will dream
On the morrow to act
As if in my own life’s play
With all stars created for me
On this stage that revolves
Stories not yet told
Women and men sharing
While teaching children to be bold
To dream, to imagine, and to see
Going on with courage
To become all they intend to be.
hk
