Gatsby's Green Light

So my favorite book of all time is The Great Gatsby, it has been since I first read it 25 years ago.  I can say that was the first book that ever spoke to me... and throughout time it has always come back ever present in my life.  My favorite quote is from the end...  because to me it is really where I have been sometimes in life or more appropriately how I understand this adopted verse...

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning--

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

I, like Gatsby or Fitzgerald, believe that the future will have to be better - even sometimes when our hopes and dreams are behind us... we still press on - still strive. But the Daisy's of my world aren't always human, they are the dreams and experiences I want in my life as well.

I have placed a green light on my being now for the last year...  Trying to, calling for people and experiences that I yearn for.  I have to say it does work and more importantly it takes work to accomplish this.  You see even the green light is fickle, and what you call and what arrives sometimes are two different sides of the same dream and its up to you on how to interpret what comes to you.

Now I know this all has an air of metaphysics.  Sort of the belief that we have the unspoken ability to call things to us or away from us.  I believe we do have that ability.  Ever notice the thing you most want is the hardest to get, yet when you don't want it - it is available in abandon? 

I think there is a message within this ability about balance... We all should strive to balance what we want versus what we need...

Some people, most of us in fact (I use to be one of them), don't have that ability all the time and an inequity occurs. 

I have watched with almost puzzled amazement people and how the quash their dreams.  I think I was amazed because I did this too.

One friend of mine is gifted in music, yet she let the world beat her down and not only has abandoned her craft but has basically reviled it as a way of dealing with the trauma.  Another friend of mine in plain words is simply beaten down.  Dangerously close to submitting to a world that has drawn him into a corner - a million miles where he should or wanted to be.  How many of you out there "give up" something for the greater good but in your heart of hearts knows that what you long to do?  Or more importantly have to do...

Now as we all "grow up" we make these sacrifices - some more than others - to appease the situation of our life.  But shouldn't there be a balance?

So I came up with an idea - that I would like to put out there...  I think we should all challenge ourselves - starting today...  What is something that you have always longed to do or use to do and stopped that had real meaning in your life?  Is there one thing that you can start working towards today that will appease the inner needs that you have?  Basically I am asking you to turn on your green light and call for something and see what happens...

I mean let's face facts - you have proof that it works - you are reading this after all aren't you?  This is one of my green lights - I have called and for whatever reason - you have read...  That is pretty amazing...   So what do you say?  Are you willing to walk with me on this little journey?  Can you find it in you to call upon change?  I hope so... 

Till then know this... This not so little boat still beats on against the current - and will for as long as he has breath in his body...

Dangerous Games?

So today I was having a conversation...  discussing this very blog. 

You see many of you have asked me why take to the internet now in your life?  I mean its clear, there were significant events over the past year that have changed the way I think, but also it is my sincere hope that someone randomly might read this and find out there is some hope.  By putting it "out there", and being frank about how I feel - I hope that not only does it give perspective to some people but maybe cause some positive change (one way or another) for others.  You'd think I was posting state secrets but instead I am posting secrets from within. 

Perhaps put simply why is expressing emotions or deep thoughts such a dangerous game?

Socrates said it best, "The unexamined life is not worth living."  I needed to grow up, own up and rise up in order to begin the process of introspection.  What I have found is that the process for me and what I go through feels like a journey. 

Imagine if you will waking up in a room with no lights or windows... you fumble around in the dark for a while trying to figure where the walls are, where the light switch is, is there a door or a window.  That's what it felt like about a year ago.  For the first time in my life I put the brakes on the distractions that surround us and instead focused on the issues with in.  It wasn't easy at all.  But when I found a door out of that solitude it was like the brightest light shining into the darkest place.  And when the light hit the room, I saw my captor, myself, looking back at me in a mirror.

I have fought my way out of that room...  Scars and all I am very very proud of that.  More importantly, nobody can take that away from me.  My final act in saying good bye to that place was closing the door forever when I found the courage to walk out of it for good.

Once out of that cell, and to this very day I am hacking my way through thickets of emotions, which left unattended have grown to be pretty dense but I know how to get through them all.

All those references seemingly cause panic in some people.  The mere fact that I am publicizing them more so.  The truth of the matter is those who fear it, I fear, are locked in the very same room I use to be.  For them it is easier to keep their eyes wide shut and fool themselves into a sense of completion.  It's like they are torturing themselves, fooling themselves that their room is "ok" or safe, unaware that they have fallen into their own well laid trap, Sartre's "No Exit"comes to mind... 

INEZ: Mere chance? Then it's by chance this room is furnished as we see it. It's an accident that the sofa on the right is a livid green, and that one on the left's wine-red. Mere chance? Well, just try to shift the sofas and you'll see the difference quick enough. And that statue on the mantelpiece, do you think it's there by accident? And what about the heat here? How about that? I tell you they've thought it all out. Down to the last detail. Nothing was left to chance. This room was all set for us.

Know this I will always shatter that illusion by the very nature of who I have become.  And I am those people's mirror now reflecting back something they do not want to see.  So some people simply glaze over the wrong issues, there I said it, and sad how it isn't a shock right?

So I promise you this will not always be a dull thud of a blog, fun is on the horizon...  I just think that expressing yourself, in any venue, should only be met with an open mind and nothing else...