Dreams Are A Dual Edged Sword

I’ll always be a dreamin’ man
I don’t have to understand
I know it’s alright.
~Neil Young

The only thing that has changed the status quo is a person with a dream, a pursuing the dream with the singular focus, the dogged determination of Ahab hunting the Great White Whale.

I have dreams. I believe all people have dreams. To dream of a different tomorrow is an ability separating us from the animals. Some dreams, like Ahab’s are to destroy. It was a dream that destroyed him. These dreams turn people into savages. Others dream for a better tomorrow and some even make it happen. Dreams are a dual edged sword. I recommended you and I yield our dreams for good lest the destroy us.

Suffering Belongs To No Language

Sofrer não é em língua nenhuma. ~Adrelia Prado
(Suffering belongs to no language. ~Adrelia Prado)

Suffering and joy. Joy and suffering. The experience is the same in all languages, for peoples of all colors, for peoples of every faith, for all genders, for all ethnicities, for all sexual orientations. The emotions are universally felt, universally experienced.

How can we who have suffered inflict it on anyone else? How can we who have experienced the exhilaration of joy not wish it for all humanity?

Why is it so difficult to understand humanity is but one species blessed with variety of color and language and customs – all worthy of a place at the table of life? Why is it so difficult to understand all people are part of a single organism and suffering in one hurts the entire being?

Color Is Insignificant

I believe when the kingdom comes
Then all the colors will bleed into one
Bleed into one.
~U2

I find it amazing something as insignificant as color can divide people into opposing camps with a strong leaning toward oppression or violence as a solution. It makes no sense to me. Were our eyes designed to see in a different spectrum, ultraviolet, infrared, or x-ray, a spectrum where black and white and red and yellow all looked the same, a spectrum where the thin epidermal layer showed no differences to our eyes, would life be any different? What would then become of human society?

We would likely find a way to separate us from them, to segregate so one set held sway over the others. It’s a sickness of the human condition this need to categorize fellow humans into superior us and inferior them, the ins and the outs becoming the haves and the have nots. It’s a defect in the human psyche. One day, I fear, the defect will result in the demise of humanity at it’s own hands. Hopefully, the insects will evolve into more rational creatures.

This Ain’t No Disco (007)

Lipstick on a Pig

My one fear when purchasing a white sports coat is that it would make people think of  John Travolta and the disco era even though it did not sport the wide lapel indicative of that era. I was/am firmly entrenched on the disco sucks side of the fence, claimed allegiance to the Insane Coho Lips, and was present during the Disco Demolition fiasco at Comiskey Park in 1979.

I dig the white coat. It wasn’t until I saw this picture that I realized how much I look like the American Flag or French Flag or Russian Flag or any of the 20 red, white, and blue flags of the world. Next time, I think I will pair it with other colors.

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Words are Seeds

0 que em ti forem palavras, nos outros serão raizes. ~Renata Pallottini
(What were words in you, will be roots in them. ~Renata Pallottini)

Words are seeds, seeds that can grow lovely flowers, towering trees, or nettles that choke out life, poisonous plants that kill or stunt growth in the soil of the human soul. We have the power to sow flowers or sow thorns, sow love or sow hate. We have this choice with every word seed we utter.

How much better to dance through a field of tulips than to stumble bloodied in a field of thorns. We can plant fruit bearing trees or vines that suck out life. It’s all in the power of our words. Choose them wisely.

Walk Toward Fear

I write against fear. Against the wind with claws that lodges in my breath. ~Alejandra Pizarnik

It is possible to have two very different responses to fear. To shun or embrace, to avoid or explore, to hide or expose.

Shunning, avoiding, hiding means to never know what’s on the other side. It is to remain ignorant. In the worst case, we get ‘ism’ behaviors – racism, sexism, etc. – where people encounter the unknown and choose to dehumanize –> vilify –> attack –> destroy.

We Are All Duality

Yin and Yang. When male and female were balanced, there was harmony in the world. When they were unbalanced there was chaos. ~Dan Brown

Walking up the steps from the depths of the subway this morning felt like the Morlocks entering fresh air noses twitching at the scent of food, human food, humans as food. I am dressed like the Eloi, a servant group who wore all white. I am wearing white jeans, a very light red shirt that could easily pass for white in the bright sunlight.