Sometimes the only way to move into the future is to spend a few moments visiting the past.
That is because there are moments, incidents and or things that prevent you from having the conversations you ought to have.
You know the ones I am talking about, they’re with the people whose opinions you value the most and whose regard you care about.
It is kind of funny to me to think about how hard some of those can be because in theory if you are thinking about the person(s) you share your biggest secrets with it should be easy to talk to them.
Should be easy to talk about the hard stuff as well as the easy because you have done it a million times before and yet sometimes it is not.
Sometimes you get confused and or lost and it makes you feel insecure and uncertain so instead of reaching out you sit back, watch and wait.
Dreams Of People & Places
Got Three Dog Night singing An Old Fashioned Love Song and this idea about sitting in room with Paul McCartney, Pablo Neruda, Pablo Picasso and Mark Twain.
We’d share lines and lyrics and I’d dare to throw out a few of my own just to see what they think.
I had a dream. I dreamt of a place that I had never been to but always wanted to live in. You were there…
that to be apart is to feel an ache that no drug can touch and to be together is to know the meaning of union.
Maybe they would look at me and shake their heads, accuse me of being some kind of lunatic or unreasonable fool.
Or maybe they’d say I’d stumble upon something worth fleshing out and expanding upon.
It is hard to say because everyone in that group except Sir Paul is dead and he isn’t taking my calls.
You might call me silly, dumb and or stupid.
You might suggest I choose an alternative course because instead of walking the trail I chose to find my own and that is not easy, smart or safe.
I could hit you with the quotes from people far smarter than I about why a man ought to follow his heart and see where the trail leads but I’d rather say I chose to do it because it made sense to me.
I’d rather say I make breathe or choke based upon the choices I make. I’d rather say that I followed my own north star and found my way to the other side.
But then again maybe offering the Lao Tzu quote above is a simpler explanation for why and how I do what I do, not that anyone asked or needs to know.
The Conversations We Ought To Have Part 2
The beauty of air travel is that when you find yourself forced to sit next to a stranger inside a flying metal tube you have those challenging conversations you don’t always have.
During one of the what feels like 8,000 recent flights I have taken I had one of those heart-to-hearts.
Mostly I listened but when I was asked for my opinion about what to do I offered two remarks:
Follow your heart and remember that sometimes it is good to feel nervous about what sort of response you are going to get in a conversation.
Sometimes that electrical shock that runs through you at the thought of a positive or negative response helps you to remember you are alive.
It helps you to recognize that you just might be on the verge of moving from the ordinary to the extraordinary.
Of course in order to do it you have to get beyond your fear and just say what has to be said so that you see what happens.
Otherwise all you have is your hopes and fears and no concrete answer to which way the chips may fall.
Maybe they’ll go the wrong way and you’ll be upset or maybe they won’t and you’ll be ecstatic.
The only way to know for certain is to have that conversation.
Too bad I can’t ask Neruda for his opinion. I really wonder if he got the motivation for his work from not knowing.
