I'm dreaming of...a white Christmas?...No, I'm not. I'm dreaming of something much bigger, MUCH, MUCH, bigger. I'm dreaming of my future. How many people stop to ask themselves what it is in life that they want; and if they do how big do they actually dream? What are the things most people consider they are capable of? Do they think highly of themselves or is that considered selfish or narcissistic?
Visiting friends and family over the holiday season provokes my imagination about what I want to do with my life and how I will remain entertained in my choice of lifestyle. There are many goals I hope to accomplish, but the main four areas I concentrate the most on revolve around Education, Dance, Art, and Writing. Aside from accomplishing personal goals in those areas I have to consider what any accomplishment will fulfill.
Each life exists in four levels of the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. The mental might also be known as intellectual, and spiritual can relate to a person's beliefs or philosophy. To my own belief, to make the most of one's life, they would need to develop a life practice that attempts to satisfy the needs of each of these levels. We need to live with the right actions, feelings, thoughts, and beliefs that adapt to our own needs and understandings of reality. We need to practice lifestyles that are flexible to our own ideas and interests, and when we're engaged in friendships and relationships they should also bend to compromise with the realities that others live with.
Considering my life goals, I don't want to live collecting toys and gadgets that will only satisfy my desire to have ownership over my property. I want to include acquiring emotional satisfaction, intellectual stimulation, and share my ideas about existence with another. I am dreaming of something bigger than just the ideal reputation that the American culture places on people who possess a lot of nifty stuff. My biggest goal in life is NOT to be able to afford my groceries.
So in ways, because of this desire to want more than just a nice house, with a nice partner, and some great stuff, I become separated from that traditional lifestyle where the television is my primary source of entertainment. My choice of lifestyle requires me to be creative. It requires deep reflection and for me to concentrate profoundly upon the needs of my body, mind, and spirit (as separate components as well as a system that contributes to my individuality).
From this comes one of the major life questions about existence, "what are we really doing here?" When a sophomore in high school I had an incredible anxiety attack triggered by such questions. After about a month of re-finding myself again, I answered the whole "why am I here" question with the counter response, "why shouldn't I be here? What's so wrong with me being here? This world is so beautiful, why shouldn't I be a part of it?" Regardless of the answers to these questions (that truly seem incapable of ever being answered) I am here weather I want to accept that or not, and it doesn't seem like I'm going anywhere anytime soon. During the anxiety attack I felt a kind of deconstruction of my Christian understanding of existence as I saw God's purpose for each of us disintegrate into no-purpose-ness. At first this idea became extremely difficult to accept, especially after living my life believing that everything has a purpose in God's plan. But what is God's plan exactly, and why am I unable or unworthy (so to speak} of knowing of it? This is the outer skirts of atheism as I began to consider that maybe there is no purpose to any of this at all? Compromising with these ideas, considering that maybe there is a God, but they take a more neutral stance on what we're suppose to do when we're here as they say, "You figure it out," only intervening when most necessary. Instead we are individually left with the responsibility to yield our own destiny with minimal help from the divine (or maybe acting as co-creators in our own universe). How about that?
In conversation about this topic I said to a friend, "Do you know why I want to do everything? Because there is nothing else to do." In such a universe where a little voice in my head says, "you're just molecules floating around in space with nothing else to do but to exist," the nature of my being says to enjoy all that is, not needing to question my actions as after all, what is there to question? My reasoning for my actions are because "I" chose to do them, rather than giving the credit of my work to spiritual inspiration. I'm not discussing the extreme actions of taking someone's life or harming another person; by all means follow the norm of the culture you choose to practice. At the very lease recognize the ability you hold in deciding how you will/should end up in your own life. In a world of why's, remember to ask, "why not?"
During the holiday season the family drives around the area visiting relatives, noticing how everyone has assembled their homes with lights and decorations. We break our diets being over sugared and caffeinated for a day to be overwhelmed with gifts and credit card bills. We give presents to friends who ask us not to give them anything, as we're sure each year to stuff their shelves with more dust collectors. Imagine a home where the individuals living in it were so sentimental they never broke a single item they ever owned, nor rid themselves of any gift they were ever given. How long would it take to fill their home? Then what do they do? Do you buy a bigger home or just get a shed? I picture myself living in a tiny New York apartment with little to nothing but the necessary furniture and cooking items while my mother criticizes me for not having anything on my walls, saying it looks like a prison. I imagine one day owning a room with nothing in it. The only thing that makes a gift emotionally charged is the relationship we have with the gift-giver. Then the item becomes something to 'cling-to' when the individual is not around. Then we have to have thearapy when the item breaks because one of our children broke that glass my great, great grandmother gave to me when I was a child and it was the only thing I own that ever meant anything to me, and that kid must have intended to do that because Santa didn't bring him a Wii for Christmas. Does this sound overly dramatic?
Lets say Santa put a Wii under our Christmas tree this year? Oh great! Now we have another household appliance that's going to eat up electricity. Won't our relationships be great as we develop intimate bonds with each other as you spend hours each day bowling on the High Definition television screen instead of engaging in deep discussion? 'Oh honey we don't have to talk about our failing marriage, lets just play with our Wii.' We go to visit relatives, but are you checking your watch every five minutes waiting for them to finish their sentence so you can get outta there? What is the conversation like when you talk to others? Do you talk about your thoughts and feelings or just stuff that happened over the year since you hardly ever see each other? You spend close to 20 hours a year together, do you ever talk about the more important things, or does your Grandfather ask you when you're going to get a girlfriend, failing to recognize that you're gay? Do you really know each other? Did you ever know each other to begin with, or have we been stuck playing with these traditional parent-child roles. Makes you just want to relax a bit getting your mind off things with a nice video game, doesn't it? Oh it's nice that you just made the deans list, but I've got to show you this video we just bought of the Rockets. You're going to love it.
It's not fair for me to address such dysfunctional family issues without mentioning a plan to change or better this situation. So what do people in this awakening situation do? Do we just live with it? Do we get angry and yell at them for being ignorant? Is it fair to yell at a blind man because he wasn't watching what you were doing? It's kind of like God's sarcasm was coming out when he says, "So you're awake! Good for you! You lucky bum." I think maybe the compromise is to show up to these environments weather you enjoy them or not, listen to the conversations, but to also take moments for yourself to gracefully state your ideas and opinions. Politely disagree when you do. At the same time don't avoid controversial topics, but instead allow the opinionated individuals have their soapbox; but to respect your own ideas and ask them to consider your logic as you probe them with questions, "okay, well what if...how about...what would you think of...," Never be afraid to call it like it is if someone is acting out line and you can prove it to them in the English Dictionary. "By definition you are acting like...and I can prove it to you," but at the same time you don't need to raise your voice because you have a whole society of English teachers who will back you up being delighted that you are practicing your vocabulary words. And if you are one whose efforts for change continues to go unnoticed cling to hope that you will never grow into such ignorance and you will continue to promote a happy and safe community of people who can feel free to express their honest thoughts and ideas, and are able to share their authentic selves without criticism. Meet them with acceptance and guidance into a lifestyle where our most cherished holiday gifts lives in the presences we as individuals share with one another.
