Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Standing on a little piece of mind


I love to read.  Not just biographies, or history, or current events, but fantasies and fairy tales both childish and grown-up.  I also love movies and television in all the same ways, but sometimes I think the latter makes life harder.

There is a sense of time that can be conveyed so much better in a book than it can in an hour television program broken up by commercials every few minutes.  The same goes for a movie.  Hard times can seem interminable in a two-hour movie, but basically it is a foregone conclusion that the tension will be broken soon.

Real life can be tougher.

There are no guarantees for a happy ending, at least not a traditional one.  There are no time limits for tension producing moments.  There is not always an avenging angel, or charging hero, or even a solution to make things better.

It is simply one foot in front of the other.  Keep going.  Try to make rational choices.  Reach out now and then for a friendly hand or even a nod from passers by.  There is no sound track that rises dramatically when something good happens, or thudding beat to warn of impending danger. 

Life is breathing in and breathing out.  It is finding the feelings inside of myself that carry me from egocentric infancy to what can be a beautiful old age.  The more self sufficient I can become, and remain, the simpler life is.

Standing here waiting for someone else to do something, or make a decision that affects me is fodder for helplessness and for me that leads to depression. 

It doesn’t matter if that something comes from a sweet kind source who is happy to wash my clothes, and drive me around and even buy me things, or a mean ogre who begrudges me every breath I take – relying on others takes away my peace of mind.

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