Monday, December 03, 2007

Bystander burnout

I want to live in a place where slightly worn white boys with all their teeth, most of their marbles, and a few tricks up their sleeve can find harmony with the world around them. I want to live in a place where big wheeled cars can roar over smooth pavement under blue skies and rumbling motorcycles roll down roads with no intersections. I dream of living in a place where girls grow to be ladies, boys grow to be gentlemen, and grace is something more than a dying, dinner tradition.

I want to live less ordinary. I want to know what it means to live, so that I can lay peacefully down when I learn what it means to die. I want to travel the world, so that I can better appreciate what it means to be home. I want to live in a place where poetry, paintbrushes, and pistons coexist in a balanced resonance with one another. I want to live as a peasant, as a king, and as an ascetic spiritualist on the hilltop outside of town. I want to live a dream and know no nightmares.

I had a dream, not like Martin Luther King Jr.'s, but a dream nonetheless. I had this dream at least a decade ago now, and the details are murky at best now, but I remember being in love with a lady whose face I didn't recognize and can't remember. I remember having been in love with her for what seemed like a significant amount of time. I remember dreaming of this most unusual and unknown circumstance as if it were something ordinary, even comfortable. That was probably the strangest part of the dream and is very likely the only reason I remember it at all. Nothing seems more unusual and mysterious, even impossible, than the idea of being in love for any length of time.

Is that living? Sometimes it is hard to tell. I look at what my fellow humans have done to love, how they live it, and I take some comfort in knowing that I had nothing to do with what so many of them have done. I am not twisting, degrading, or insulting the idea of love. In some ways, I suppose that keeps me innocent, which is certainly better than bearing the burden of guilt. But I have also done nothing to right, elevate, and compliment the idea of love, which makes me as guilty as the so-called innocent bystander to a traffic accident who does their harm in not trying to help the wounded.

As I understand it, love is perpetually being crippled and healed by human beings. Some love in a detrimental and deteriorative way, hobbling an idea that holds the potential to see them racing toward transcendence with a friend to accompany them along the way. Others love truly, wholly, and with their entirety, setting themselves rocketing off into space, leaving contrails for other brave souls to follow. Most run at times, stumble at others, and fall down every once in a while. Occasionally, they step backward, or stop outright, but even in this they are playing a part in the great push and pull that makes up the swirling storm we call "love".

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Now playing: U2 - Luminous Times (Hold On To Love)
via FoxyTunes

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Posted by Erik @ 12/03/2007 08:41:00 PM