Sunday, August 21, 2005

A Wonder-Full Life

In college we used to say, “All babies are born stoned; then the world beats it out of them.” We were probably just paraphrasing our music. Pink Floyd said it metaphorically, “All in all, it’s just another brick in the wall.”

My standard operating system was developed at home and refined at school. Don’t run in the house. Use your indoor voice. Do your work before you play. Color inside the lines. Sit up straight. Be polite. Each basic command was entered in my head. If I do these things, I will operate properly. If I do not, I will crash in the time-out corner. Not that we had a time-out corner back then.

But hey, I also learned about family, and fairy tales, and heroes, and angels, and creativity, and planets, and fairness, and inventors, and imagination, and artists, and poetry, and ideals, and so many awe-inspiring and wonder-full things. These concepts captured my soul. They are my hidden system files—my read-only, undeletable files. They underpin my world view.

I’m bombarded daily with data that challenges that view. But she’s supposed to be your friend. Data. He had that information. I gave it to him. Data. You’re too tall. You intimidate people. Data. There have been more bombings in London. Data. Why not come up to my place and see my etchings? Data miner. Still data. That’s all it is—data. I don’t have unlimited memory, so unnecessary negative data doesn’t get saved—period.

It took me a while to figure out that last part. For a while, I tied myself in knots, trying to decide whether I was a fool. . . . I can see that as a species we do some despicable things. What if the world is the awful place that keeps presenting itself to me? Bits and bytes of negative data chipped away at my world view and therefore at me. My
Winnie-the-Pooh self was caught quoting Eeyore. “Pathetic, that’s what it is. Pathetic.”

But try as I might, I couldn’t—still can’t—give up on the world. I still believe in family, and fairy tales, and heroes, and angels, and creativity, and planets, and fairness, and inventors, and imagination, and artists, and poetry, and ideals, and so many awe-inspiring and wonder-full things. They were written on my soul as a child. I can’t delete them, lucky for me. I might have wanted to once, but not now, not again, not ever.

Duncan says that the world needs incurable idealists like us. He says we balance out the hardcore cynics. It has to do with joy, and hope, and possibility.


I like the thought of providing balance. So I hold tight to my world view, even though I know that people can do despicable things. I don’t want despicable people choosing my world for me.
My world needs people who believe in it as much as I need people who believe in me.

It’s a wonder-full life being Winnie-the-Pooh. It comes with an awe-inspiring view.
—me strauss Letting me be

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Greatest "about the author"

"ME" Liz Strauss said...

Thanks.
Funny, how in differnt ways along this blog, people keep complimenting me for telling the truth.

smiles,
me-Liz

Anonymous said...

That's a great philosophy and the world needs more people with positive outlooks such as you have. Beats mine.

I am afraid in a world of fairy tales, I would be the one who gave the Brothers Grimm the hallucinogenics.

"ME" Liz Strauss said...

Funny, I like the world of fairy tales, because there I know I can always shut the book. In the real world that's not always the case.

Loved what you wrote on Mark's blog.

smiles,
me-Liz

Anonymous said...

Keep dragging us cynics back to the land of dreams Liz. We may go kicking and screaming but we'll go. We all secretly want it, to be a child again.

BTW, you asked me (on my site) if I could finish the third version of "The Three City Pigs." Is that all you have is the title and I should write the poem or did I miss a link to the poem somewhere?

"ME" Liz Strauss said...

Cynics are just dreamers who got the dreams beat out of them. "No worries I'll protect you," she said in her best superhero deep voice, with her chin pulled back to her chest for effect.

The pigs are a working writer's project that's a pain in the bacon.

Anonymous said...

.oO(Ain't she pretty?) :D

"ME" Liz Strauss said...

I just know you're talking about the view. Yeah, it's a pretty view from where I sit. :)