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I was thinking about the phrase, “in your wildest dreams…” and realized my wildest dreams are pretty damn tame. Something to work on for 2010.
Recently, someone accused me of being deliberately misleading, saying that I couldn’t be trusted. He was calling me a liar. That accusation shocked and hurt me. I spent most of that evening and the next day with my attention bouncing between outrage, the desire for vengeance, then vindication.
What I realized after digging into my feelings was that, although this time (the incident he specifically referenced) I was not lying, I have certainly lied in the past — to many people, about many things. It’s hard to identify to oneself as a liar; most of us self-identify as honest, trustworthy.
Being honest to myself, dropping the ego and admitting my transgressions is very difficult. I can see now what he saw. No overt lie, but acts that were never true to myself.
“Liar, Liar, pants on fire!” – paraphrased William Blake, “The Liar.”
I’ve been a poet for only about a year, so I’m not sure yet if introspection is good — or bad — for the craft. I tend to think it’s bad, since it pulls all of your attention inward and all you end up with a self-indulgent, whining poem.
Today I’ve been thinking about my age and the year it is now (geez! 2010!). I remember many very old people saying things like, “I never thought I’d see that as long as I lived!” They were referring to events like the first man on the moon, Obama being president, etc. I’ve been trying to think of some things that would cause me to say that and I can’t come with any (yet). Maybe I’m just optimistic or read too much fiction.
I don’t think my lifetime has had any really mind-blowing technological jumps (yet). We’re overdue I’m sure. I just don’t want to be the kind of person who can’t see the sliverest of possibilities. There are plenty of things I would love to see, though, that have some measure of improbability:
World peace: no one hungry; no one hating another because of his idea of that other; more flowers; random dancing; group singing; no acne; no tooth decay (we can put the dentists to work as maybe scupltors); even easier travel — maybe teleportation! Oh, yeah, and finally my own jet-pack!
There’s a wonderful, poetic paragraph (admid all the other wonderfully written paragraphs) in Ms. DiCamillo’s book, The Magician’s Elephant, “But that is impossible,” said Peter. “Magic is always impossible,” said the magician. “It begins with the impossible and ends with the impossible and is impossible in between. That is why it is magic.”
She has written a lovely book, one that you could pull down from the shelf at any time over the years and read any paragraph of it and be inspired. It’s a story like a string of perfect pearls: each character is right and sweet and hopeful. Each is a dreamer and a believer.
Read and enjoy. And thank you, Ms. DiCamillo.
I’ve been trying to think how inertia can be a good thing. I get up and go to work and take care of the cats and do the laundry and shovel the driveway when the snow piles up… but I’m not doing anything that moves ME forward. I started looking for an image to put with this post and found this model of inertia.
Interesting how the delta of those factors all work against each other to keep the object inert. Or, in my case, keeps me out of classes, away from writing, not exploring or traveling…
Fortunately, I am blessed with friends who let me explore my beliefs long enough and deeply enough to find the source of the inertia. The belief I found doesn’t really matter. What matters is that, the moment I found it, the inertia broke.
Poetiosity 