Far and Away

                I had a post typed out.  Sadie had even commented on it.  Sorry Sadie.  But I’ve decided to change it.  Significantly.

                Now I suppose that you could say I’ve been looking up for my entire life.  Always looking to my dreams, only focusing on how to get there and how wonderful it would be.

                But when that goal is taken from you (not by money, by something else more cursing than that), it gives you a chance to look down.  You see where your feet are and you figure out what you really want.  Now that I’ve spent my life looking up it’ll be difficult adjusting.  There will be a piece of me shouting to pick up the pace, but…the truth is it’s time to slow down. 

                Money is nice, in its best form.  Its best form is as something to provide for the family.  And then, when you’ve got enough of it, you can buy a new car, or a pool, or something to enjoy.  And when you get a lot of it…well shoot you can pretty much buy happiness, as long as you haven’t let that money corrupt you.  I’ve got nothing against money.  In the line of work I was shooting for I could’ve had quite a bit of it someday (or I could have died, but I wasn’t planning on that). 

                The trick to money is, honestly, being honest about it.  It can corrupt you, if you let it.  I suppose that’s where all the hate comes from.  But, in truth, it’s time for all of us to stop for a moment, look down and find our feet, and decide what we really want.  Then we can pursue it, regardless of the money it requires.

                “Far and Away” (starring Tom Cruise) is about an Irish immigrant, poor as dirt, trying to find his way to Oklahoma.  And you know what?  After trying to suffer through life boxing to buy his way to Oklahoma, he takes a moment.  Then he runs, and, sure enough, will eventually make it to Oklahoma in time to claim himself a spot of free-yes free, as in no money required-land.  And a little piece of land, with green pastures that roll just a little, and a stream running through the fields, is all he ever wanted.  Congratulations, Joseph.

Dreamweaver

                Salutations!

                I think that’s the first time I’ve ever used that word.

                This week we’re going to talk about dreams.  

                Most of us have a dream.  Most of us want to see that dream fulfilled.

                Some of us have a little trouble with that.

                Plenty of people reach their dream.  Some get a piece of it, perhaps a bit more humble than the full dream.  Some people realize their dream isn’t all it was cracked up to be and they decided to live simpler.  Then there are the people who simply don’t have the time, they can’t put together the materials, they miss their one opportunity, etc.

                And then there are the people who have a dream their whole life…

                And then they’re told they can’t.

                And those of us who simply won’t reach our dreams often look for ways to remember what has never been.  We may turn to writing, like Sedaris.  We try to recall memories that we have never lived.  It can sober even the most avid dreamer to know that sometimes there simply isn’t a miracle waiting for you.  You look up and see a smile and think, “Gosh, I wish I had a reason to smile like that.”

                I have a little saying of my own.  If you have a Plan B, then you’re admitting that Plan A won’t work.  Last time I had a Plan B was at the hospital 5 weeks ago.  They decided to numb to veins just in case the first try didn’t work for sticking in the IV.  They stuck the needle straight through my vein, causing some beautiful swelling and bruising that lasted for days.  And it’ll be a couple months before I can use that vein for IVs again.

                In my experience, Plan B sucks.  I can’t remember a time where Plan A worked when I had Plan B to fall back on.  Then as soon as my parents asked me to have a Plan B in life, it began to look like Plan A-my dream-would be shot down.

                And so I write-or, at least, I try to.  I’ve never actually finished a book.  The most I got was 40 pages on Microsoft Word, and then I backspaced it all because it sucked.  I try to feel what I’ve never felt, see what I’ve never seen, know what I’ve never known.  I read nonfiction so that I can write better fiction.  I watch movies to see the emotion.

                I’m sure David Sedaris wanted to feel those excitingly dangerous experiences in Africa as Hugh had.  I’m sure he had a dream of excitement, but the stars simply never aligned.

Major Tom

                The environment is a tough subject.  I feel like a lot of people take it way too far.

                And I mean over the river and through the woods to infinity and beyond too far.

                For example, there’s the group of radical environmentalists who signed a petition to lower the temperature of the sun.

                That kind of leaves your head tilted with a funny look on your face making a “wuhhhhh?” kind of sound emanating from your mouth.

                Me?  I recycle, but not because I especially worry about the environment.  I’d just rather not run out of resources.  I’m a massive fan of alternative energy (if you didn’t get the pun there I’m ashamed of you) because it will leave the unrenewable stuff for when we need it.

                Call me crazy, but I’m one of those guys who supports entering the age of Star Trek.  I think it’s about time we started mining resources on nearby planets and exploring the worlds around us.  Some scientists are saying we could be mining the moon in under 20 years.  In case you haven’t noticed, I’m extremely pro-America, but I’m also pro-human race.  I hope to someday see us figure out how to warp across the galaxy.  In my time that’s far-fetched and I find that disappointing, but I don’t plan on dying anyways. 

                As long as we humans aren’t replacing ourselves with robots or ending up like the people in WALL-E (along with a few other aspects), I don’t think that the human race can push too far.  As long as we don’t forget who we are, where we’ve come from, and all that hard work it has taken us to get there, I think humans can go a long way.

Go Your Own Way

                While others might say the fates are against them, I disagree; I think they provide a challenge.  There is a special challenge behind each disadvantage, each obstacle, each deterrent, each racial slur, each stereotype, each little thing that can frustrate us.  Racial profiling has been a difficult thing to overcome.  Not only is it perpetuated by those who believe the stereotypes, but by those who live up to them.  And those who live up to stereotypes make the lives for those who don’t more difficult.  Those people who choose to live differently have to face the challenge of being profiled for how they look.  Jeannette Walls was dirt poor, white, and scarred by fire.  Somehow, though, she took on that challenge and overcame the expectations.  Her family was jealous.  Jimi Hendrix spoke to the masses, spreading his rock and roll message across the United States and even beyond.  He was black.  In fact, most early rock and rollers were black, but they created a sound that even white people had to love.  Humans, as a race, accepted the world as a challenge.  From the earliest tools to our ever increasing endeavors into outer space, we’ve never let anything limit us.  The mentality of taking life as a challenge has led to success throughout the world, and it is that mentality that has the potential to break stereotypes.  It has been done by individuals before (including the all-powerful Morgan Freeman).  Brent Staples has been tested by profiling and will most likely be tested again, but he has stepped outside his race’s stereotypical lifestyle and chosen his own.  However impossible the odds, records, limits, stereotypes, and more can be broken.

                 “The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.” 

                -Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

P.S. The song today is "Go Your Own Way" by Fleetwood Mac

Sunday Bloody Sunday

                What do I even talk about?

                I’m afraid this won’t be a very good post.  The only thing I can really connect this to is the George Zimmerman trial. 

                OH NO!  We’re bringing that back!

                One side of the coin argues that George Zimmerman shot Trayvon because he looked shady.

                The other side argues that Zimmerman fired in self-defense.

                I don’t know if anyone else knew this, but the picture they showed of Trayvon on TV was from when he was about ten years old.  Few people look shady when they’re ten.  The media and those who provided the picture wanted Trayvon to seem innocent, whether he was or not. 

                This is a problem in the world.  The media is afraid of extending stereotypes, and therefore the news isn’t really news anymore.  At the exact moment they’re trying to act unbiased, they’re really making it worse.  The news ought to tell it like it is.  Instead of making Trayvon look like a ten year old they should have made him look like the young black man he was.  People wanted Zimmerman dead because they felt so bad for the poor boy on the television.

                The story this week focused on a man who people were often afraid of in public because he was black.  The stereotype does exist, he proves that.  But at times stereotypes are well grounded.  They definitely don’t apply to everyone, but what if he really was dangerous?  What if he was dangerous and the woman had done nothing? 

                I’m not going to draw a conclusion or say who I agree with when it comes to the Zimmerman trial.  There would be people arguing against me either way for no reason.  What is done is done.