Thepettyandprofound's Blog
Just another WordPress.com siteArchive for May, 2013
Waking Life
Have you ever noticed how the moment becomes a distant almost dream-like memory with every passing minute that goes by, or how travel and the sweet memories associated become sweeter and more surreal as the years pass by?
In fact, everything outside of the moment is quite a dreamlike (“life is but a dream”) state, whether we’re reflecting on the past or daydreaming about the future. But perhaps the most curious aspect of all of this is our ability to transform our dreams and thoughts and manifest them into reality. It’s as simple as imagining making a sandwich and then eating it for lunch to envisioning your fantasy life or “dream” mate and then using the law of attraction (or maybe it is “just written”) to make it happen. Whatever the case, as I sign off to go to bed (and drift off into my quite often lucid dreams), I wonder how so many of us manage to go through this mostly dream like thing we call life with such a mundane perspective. I’m guessing that’s the only way we can deal with it without being completely freaked out. If we really sat and contemplated on the constant miracles (hello, birth!) and strange events that happen on a regular basis, it would be hard to work and focus on all the trivial things we have constructed to distract ourselves. But if we let ourselves just take it all in once in a while, we can really experience life the way it is truly meant to be lived: in baffled and fascinated humbled awe. We can also realize that much like those who take active roles in their dreams, we can in fact change the path of our lives and mold them to be what we’ve always dreamt.
Why settle for just pleasant dreams when you can step up to lucid living? There’s a reason Buddhists equate enlightenment (and freedom from suffering) as being “awakened.” They understood samasara and the strange illusory quality of life and also our ability to shape it.
So when you lie down to go to bed tonight, remember there really isn’t a fine line between when your dreams stop and your waking life begins. Dream big.
Road to Glory
I found it a peculiar coincidence that weeks before I booked an impromptu trip to Charleston, South Carolina, I was thrust somewhat serendipitously into a civil war history lesson associated with that very location.
When I was a child I followed my brother around like a shadow so it’s no surprise that at 11 years old I listened to Morrissey, or watched intense films like the partly South-Carolina-based film Glory. I will never forget the way I felt watching Denzel Washington’s character being whipped after allegedly deserting, or the feeling of immense pride watching Robert Gould Shaw (played by Matthew Broderick) lead the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts, a regiment of “freeborn Northern Negroes” organized by Governor John A. Andrew after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863.
Colonel Robert Gould Shaw,
54th Massachusetts, May 1863
(Boston Athenaeum)
But it wasn’t until almost twenty five years later when I recently watched the movie again that I fully grasped the message of this film from a more adult perspective. Discovering the film was loosely based on letters Shaw wrote home, I immediately scoured the library for The Blue-Eyed Child of Fortune (which contains a collection of these correspondences) to dig deeper. Yes, you Kindle-lovers, I still support and enjoy the public library and you should, too. No matter how heavy or inconvenient, there’s nothing like the feeling of anticipation and progress as you turn yet another page further into an actual book.
In transit on a plane to South Carolina as we “speak,” I’ve come to learn that Shaw came from a prominent family of millionaires, attended Harvard and traveled all over the world during his early youth – all this during the 1800’s when you couldn’t just hop on a Boeing 747. To think he died in a shallow Ft. Wagner grave alongside his brave soldiers at only 26, when he could have easily taken the plush and luxurious path he was born into, is an extremely powerful and humbling thing.
We may have our first African-American President in a more tolerant “Age of Aquarius” (incidentally also Abe Lincoln’s sign), but underlying racism and discrimination still very much exist and seem to always bubble below the surface. Black History Month or a long-anticipated Stephen Spielberg-directed film is not enough to remind Americans of the tragic sacrifices made my many of our ancestors during Civil War times.
Maybe I’m becoming one of those old curmudgeons who say things like, “When I was a kid…” but I gotta admit, I do wish we could replace half the reality shows on television with Glory marathons set on a loop like the way A Christmas Story plays on repeat on Christmas Day. Some people need to have reminders like these pounded into their brains like Chinese water torture before they really get it. Wouldn’t there also be a sense of unity if more people knew that 74% of free Northern blacks of military age, 18-45, fought for their country during the Civil War? Before the war ended 178,975 African Americans, one-twelfth of all the soldiers of the union, joined the armed forces of the North. I believe that number would have been even higher had they been allowed to enlist prior to 1863; many would argue that they also turned the tide of the war when the North, forced to meet quota, would have been forced to call up many of their factory workers, deteriorating businesses in the North.
When I touch down in Charleston today, or press my feet into the sand, I will devote a moment to Robert Gould Shaw and the many historical figures who left an important imprint, not only America, but on human kind. I’m not so naive to believe Shaw was a egalitarian saint or know his deepest motives for courageously leading the 54th, but I will say that if many present-day Americans had the choice of living the life of a world-traveling, respected millionaire, or accept a position that would come with ridicule, disrespect, danger and most likely a gruesome death, I don’t know many who would jump at the latter.
That in itself is inspiration enough. The road to glory may be short or long, but if worthwhile, never easy.
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