We build where monsters used to hide themselves.
Longfellow
***************
Welcome to my cage.
-------------------
I think it's possible that we are all born screaming, drooling, pooping mad, which is why, like any mental case, we have to be confined to cradles, cribs and carriages, and growing up is simply a process of trying to get sane. The questions are: Why, with all of our civilization, education, culture and society, does it take so long and why do some people never do it.
Within hours after it's born a deer knows it's a deer and has the fundamentals of survival down already. Whereas we humans just screw up our faces into an ugly mask and scream as loudly as we can. And the only thing we think we know is that if we do it long enough eventually someone will come by to do something. Meanwhile the fawn is cavorting in the forest with glee. Surely we, as the supposedly more intelligent creature, can come up with a better way of dealing with life. But no. We hold on to our insanity for as long as we can.
People do crazy things their whole lives and never question them. They will become so passionate about a ball game as to actually get violent. They will sit for hours and watch a film, which is nothing more than a two dimensional moving mural, and think they're seeing real life. What's the difference between the crazy old bag lady pushing her shopping cart full of who knows what down the sidewalk and the guy who fills up his garage with stuff he will never look at again to the point where there is no room for his car? Bungee jumping. What could be nuttier than that? Politics perhaps.
We are all born with monsters in our heads. That's the only way I can explain it. We have awakened from some desperate nightmare into the bright light of the living. We emerge into reality, bruised and battered, after doing battle with some savage, chimeras and we want to let everybody know about it. So we lie there crying and kicking.
Then, as we grow, we go from lying around to crawling and then to walking, we translate drooling gibberish into actual speech, get something which is called "an education" and join the community of other mad men in the cuckoos nest.
And if perhaps some genius gains enough enlightenment to be able to lead us back into the sunshine of sanity by his clear golden rationality he frightens us. We eschew his company, confine him to the crib of a tenured university professorship and forget about him. Why? Because he's not normal, he doesn't conform, he doesn't think and do the things the rest of us do. He's crazy.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
_________________
May you find what you are looking for.
********************
6 comments:
Well said DB. Not that it is in any way essential but I concur
Linda
Perhaps we are born with very little, a state of mental lapse (hence the drooling and lack of bodily functions), and as we fill that empty space, we grow and mature, learn cognitive thought and compassion, and become human :o)
Just think how far more advanced we would be if we had just got up on our wabbly legs and walked like the fawn.
I liked what Char said; this entry has a lot of wisdom in it, DB. We need to stop whining/crying and get up and do something and if we fail in doing something, then we need to get up and do it again, learning what we did wrong and striving to keep getting better, something like I'm sure the fawn instinctly knows to do
betty
I enjoyed reading this DB ~ and entirely agree with what you have written ~ it is all so true :o) ~ Ally x
I love the line about being born with monsters in our heads. I think many creative types have learned to let that monster out just a little bit...hopefully they are able to rein it back in!
You'll appreciate this. Ken and I were out working on the garden this afternoon, and I was using a pitchfork. I struck a pose with my pitchfork, and put a solemn look on my face. I said, "Who am I?" Ken immediately said, "American Gothic." Yes, that's just one of the many ways we have fun! :D Hugs, Beth
Post a Comment