In The Sand

When men yield up the privilege of thinking. the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.

Thomas Paine
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Hello Ken
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I am a difficult man. I insist on thinking for myself and I expect everyone else to do the same. I want people to do the things they can't do and find the thoughts they don't know they have yet. False hopes?

My friend Ernie and I used to play war games. Not out in the back yard with clubs and stones, but huddled respectfully over a paper map, moving little pieces of cardboard around and throwing the dice. One of those games was about tank warfare in the desert. I got to hide tanks in the sand, only noting on a piece of paper their exact location. When he tried to cross the desert a tank would only make it's appearance when one of his pieces came with firing range. Then the fight was on. On the other had he could successfully cross the playing field and never discover any of my tanks. But if I placed my tanks in strategically appropriate places that wasn't likely.

For a year I worked for a theatre company that performed short plays followed by discussions for schools in and around the Washington, DC area. For one of the plays I had written a musical score, which generated a lot of discussion pro and con. After one performance a young fellow came up to me as we were packing up to leave. He told me what he thought the music meant and then said that he was probably wrong because he was a level so-and-so student and couldn't understand those things.

I was enraged. I stepped off the stage, went over to him and told him that his critique of my music was right on the mark and never to let anyone tell him he couldn't understand something. Or, I said, let them tell you but ignore them. Imagine a school in America trying to put a lid on some young person's head by telling him he is incapable of understanding something and thinking for himself. Whoever did that should be arrested and jailed.

"I can't do something." Yes you can, you just don't know it yet.

There is a bottomless well of wisdom already existing in the human mind. Most of the time we are not conscious of it. But when we focus our thinking on a problem or question the thoughts that come up in the ladle are part of that universe of knowledge. We wonder where those thoughts came from. They may take us by surprise, but they were always there, hidden in the sand, waiting to be discovered.

I say dip the bucket into that well everyday and find out what you know. These days it's more than a "privilege," it's an obligation.

Dana Bate
Your Loving Vagabond
Never Give up
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AUTUMN QUESTION

What event over the past year changed your life, a lot or a little?

Only 3 answers so far.

dbdacoba@aol.com

I await your answers.
DB
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