Thoughts of the Day (Random Thoughts Part 4)

Thoughts I scribbled down while at work today. Not a full blog, but I thought I'd share what I do at work. Besides work, I mean.

Even our sense of smell is better equipped to judge the outside world than our intellect, but the intellect is better at convincing us it is right. Think about it, if something does not seem right but our mind cannot find a reason against it, we say that “something smells rotten” or “it doesn’t pass the smell test. For one day, abandon reason for scent. Follow your nose and see if it does not make you happier.

Simplistic ideas are the weapons with which the thoughtful are clubbed.

I often hear people ponder about humankind, what is so unique about us that we have come to dominate the planet over all God’s other creatures. What vanity. It is like Babylon pondering what made their civilization superior to all others, or a child contemplating how he got to be king of the hill. It is a thing of the moment.

When we abandon our gods, we cease to be human.

The gulf between liberals and conservatives is not as vast as the gulf between the people and their leaders. But our leaders do everything in their power to keep us focused on the former rather than the latter.

The essential knowledge of the virtues civilization needs is embedded in the great religions. I cannot think of another institution they inhabit.

The Iron Heel by Jack London

In an earlier blog post I questioned why anyone should want to buy my book on Kindle when there were so many of the great books available for free. I first listed a number of books that I would very much like to see everyone read, then attempted to justify my existence by stating that while my work does not hold a candle to that of the great authors, at least it deals with contemporary issues better than books published over a century ago.

I was wrong.

I’ve recently been perusing The Iron Heel by Jack London and from even a few pages I can grab a blog’s worth of great quotes. And not only of things that were true of London’s time but true of the times we are living in. In fact, Jack London saw the present more clearly than I do, so acute was his mind’s eye. I am in the dirt before him. Everything I’ve attempted to say he’s already said, and better. Having said that, here are some quotes from The Iron Heel.

The mental processes of a man with whom one disagrees are always wrong. Therefore, the mind of the man is wrong.

The press of the United States? It is a parasitic growth that battens on the capitalist class. Its function is to serve the established by moulding public opinion, and right well it serves it.

The swift changes in our industrial system are causing equally swift changes in our religious, political, and social structures. An unseen and fearful revolution is taking place in the fibre and structure of society. On can only dimly feel these things. But they are in the air, now, today. One can feel the loom of them—things vast, vague, and terrible. My mind recoils from contemplation of what they may crystallize into.

“Oh, I am not challenging your sincerity,” Ernest continued. “You are sincere. You preach what you believe. There lies your strength and your value—to the capitalist class. But should you change your belief to something that menaces the established order, your preaching would be unacceptable to your employers, and you would be discharged.

“Our boasted civilization is based upon blood, soaked in blood, and neither you nor I nor any of us can escape the scarlet stain.”

“And not one of them was a free agent,” he said. “They were all tied to the merciless industrial machine. And the pathos of it and the tragedy is that they are tied by their heartstrings. Their children—always the young life that it is their instinct to protect. This instinct is stronger than any ethic they possess.”

“Tell me,” I said, “when one surrenders his personal feelings to his professional feelings, may not the action be defined as a sort of spiritual mayhem?”

I did not get an answer. Colonel Ingram had ingloriously bolted, overturning a palm in his flight.

They were the most hopeless of all I had encountered in my quest. They believed absolutely that their conduct was right. There was no question about it, no discussion. They were convinced that they were the saviours of society, and that it was they who made happiness for the many. And they drew pathetic pictures of what would be the sufferings of the working class were it not for the employment that they, and they alone, by their wisdom, provided for it.

“When they want to do a thing, in business of course, they must wait till there arises in their brains, somehow, a religious, or ethical, or scientific, or philosophic, concept that the thing is right. And then they go ahead and do it, unwitting that one of the weaknesses of the human mind is that the wish is parent to the thought. No matter what they want to do, the sanction always comes. They even see their way to doing wrong that right may come of it.

“The weakness in their position lies in that they are merely business men. They are not philosophers. They are not biologists nor sociologists. If they were, of course, all would be well. A business man who was also a biologist and a sociologist would know, approximately, the right thing to do for humanity. But outside the realm of business, these men are stupid. They know only business. They do not know mankind nor society, and yet they set themselves up as arbiters of the fates of the hungry millions and all the other millions thrown in.”

“They too, were bound to the machine, but they were so bound that they sat on top of it.”

“Here life was clean, noble, and alive. I was in touch with great souls who exalted flesh and spirit over dollars and cents, and to whom the thin wail of the starved slum child meant more than all the pomp and circumstance of commercial expansion and world empire. All about me were nobleness of purpose and heroism of effort, and my days and nights were sunshine and starshine, all fire and dew, with before my eyes, ever burning and blazing, the Holy Grail, Christ’s own Grail, the warm human, long-suffering and maltreated but to be rescued and saved at the last.”

“And so it was, instead of in paradise, that I found myself in the arid desert of commercialism. I found nothing but stupidity, except for business. I found none clean, noble, and alive, though I found many who were alive—with rottenness. What I did find was monstrous selfishness and heartlessness, and a gross, gluttonous, practiced and practical materialism.”

“You have failed in your management. You have made a shambles of civilization. You have been blind and greedy. You have risen up (as you today rise up), shamelessly, in our legislative halls, and declared that profits were impossible without the toil of children and babes.”

“No man can be intellectually insulted. Insult, in its very nature, is emotional.”

“Life sums itself up to you in profits. You have a firm and abiding belief that you were created for the sole purpose of making profits.”

“And the absurd thing about it is that you have repeated these phrases so often that you believe them. You want opportunity to plunder your fellow men in your own small way, but you hypnotize yourself into thinking you want freedom. You are piggish and acquisitive, but the magic of your phrases leads you to believe that you are patriotic. Your desire for profits, which is sheer selfishness, you metamorphose into altruistic solicitude for suffering humanity.”

“And why not?” he demanded. “Why can we not return to the ways of our fathers when this republic was founded?”

“I’ll try to tell you why not, though the telling will be rather hard. You see, you fellows have studied business, in a small way, but you have not studied social evolution at all. You are in the midst of a transition stage now in economic evolution, but you do not understand it, and that’s what causes all the confusion. Why cannot you return? Because you can’t. You can no more make water run up hill than can you cause the tide of economic evolution to flow back in its channel along the way it came. Joshua made the sun stand still upon Gibeon, but you would outdo Joshua. You would make the sun go backward in the sky. You would have time retrace its steps from noon to morning.”

The above quotes I have found in a few moments’ perusing of pages. There is so much more to be read within the pages of this classic. If you have a Kindle, you can download it free here: http://www.amazon.com/Iron-Heel-Jack-London-ebook/dp/B00847CZZO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1423453696&sr=1-1&keywords=the+iron+heel+jack

If you don’t have a Kindle, I’m sure you can find it elsewhere.

Scott Walker, Wisconsin Public Radio, and The Taliban

     In the vast cultural wasteland that is commercial radio, I sometimes bounce from one channel to the next in search of something that doesn’t offend me on multiple levels. I go from one station where Ted Nugent is glorifying having sex with underage girls and ZZ Top is singing about having sex with prostitutes only to find the same songs played shortly after on the next station. I hear DJs that can’t seem to find a topic of conversation that doesn’t involve poop or body parts. But then I discovered Wisconsin Public Radio. Sure, I guess I always knew it was there at the end of the dial, but I never really listened. Until I did. And the more I listened the more I realized there was nothing else on my dial that could remotely compare to it. It was intelligent conversation between opposing viewpoints that maintained a degree of respect for the other as well as the listener. It was humor that had a degree of sophistication and a lack of cruelty. I could hear world music, the blues, classical, jazz, folk and all kinds of variety that is lacking elsewhere on my radio dial. It was old time radio programs being rebroadcast and advice on gardens and all the important speeches of the day.

     It was all the things that The History Channel and A&E and CNN and others were supposed to be but weren’t. I’ve heard entire hour long programs dedicate to various founding fathers, Aristotle’s influence on science, and Ornette Coleman’s album A Love Supreme.

     And it was free! It was free and so it was available to everyone with a radio, which is pretty much everyone. I like knowing that people have this option. I like to think people who are looking for something more than scatological humor and three chord tunes have some place to turn. Not only was WPR free of charge but free of commercials. Think for a moment of how often your consciousness is invaded by commercials and you will appreciate how much that one distinction is worth. Advertising shouts at you from billboards as you drive down the street, call to you from the corner of your Facebook page, and annoy you every few moments while watching TV or listening to commercial radio.

     It is the one, the only, alternative to commercial radio. There is nowhere else to go, no other state culture outside the mainstream. And of course Scott Walker had to go after it. Of course he said it was nothing personal, but decisions had to be made.

     I can’t help feeling that Scott Walker’s decision to defund Wisconsin Public Radio is comparable to the Taliban’s need to blow up the statues of Buddha in Afghanistan. Seriously. The mindset is: let’s blow it up because we don’t understand it. Let’s blow it up because it offends our small little understanding that we dogmatically follow. And at least part of the reason for both the Taliban and Scott Walker is: blowing stuff up is fun. I like to blow stuff up. It makes me feel powerful, makes me feel like a man.

     It’s an overly patriarchal view of the world that believes everybody must be punished. This isn’t an attack on masculinity or men, it is an attack on an unhealthy perversion of masculinity, one nurtured on a philosophy that qualities such as kindness and unity are weaknesses, that everyone is out to get me and that I’ve got to get them first. It’s the belief that even the smallest bit of sharing or charity is a sin that will spread weakness and dependency like ebola.

     Scott Walker, if you cannot appreciate the value of Wisconsin Public Radio, there is something wrong with you. Not only is it valuable on its own, it set Wisconsin apart, was a jewel in its crown. WPR provides us with culture, which is something utterly lacking in commercial media. And culture is important to society, as important to society as a pancreas is to the body, although both are difficult to explain to someone who is uninterested in knowing.

     Great societies need culture. It is the glue that holds a people together. It provides a pool of knowledge and viewpoints and gives us something from which to build a common vision. But we are heading into a new dark age, and that is not the bold new idea you want to propose.

     You don’t have to enjoy something yourself to acknowledge its benefit to society. I seldom drink water straight from the tap but I’m glad it’s there and safe for those who need it. And I’m willing to pay so that it stays that way. For everybody.

     And if you believe in the trickle down theory, that by giving to the top it will filter down to the rest of society, know that it is true for culture. When those interested in history and current events are given a source of information, they will help disseminate that information to everyone they come in contact with. But if you insist on tearing down everything that does not easily fit in with your narrow view of the world, history will more likely compare you to the Taliban than any great visionary. I have the same feeling in my heart now regarding WPR as I did then about the statues of Buddha, that a cultural treasure was being destroyed by narrow-minded fanatics.

A Scene Is Where You Make It

     There are eras in history in which people desire to be something more, times that shine like jewels in the history books. Ancient Greece in the 5^th Century B.C., The Renaissance, 1976, or the Civil Rights Movement.

     This is not one of those eras. Perhaps for some people it is, people who like 3D movies or body art, but not for me. From my earliest awareness of such things I’ve felt that I never really fit in with the times I was born to. Perhaps it is because I was the youngest child by eight years in my family. At the age of four, in 1970, I’d already been introduced to The Beatles, The Kinks, and The Animals. And Cream. Sunshine of Your Love was amongst my favorite songs at that age, as was Hey Jude. I’m sure the Batman Theme Song fell in there somewhere too, but I was very much influenced by my older siblings.

     London in the 60’s and early 70’s, that’s where I should have been as a young adult. I missed it by about 15 years. But just imagine in 1964 that I Want To Hold Your Hand came out and sounded so completely different than anything that came before it. Now think that in three short years Tomorrow Never Knows and Are You Experienced? hit the airwaves. Add to that Whiter Shade of Pale, Itchycoo Park See Emily Play, Paper Sun, and a hundred similar songs. Try to come up with some other era where music was developing so rapidly.

      I missed the party. It always seemed to be that way for me. I always dreamed of the day when some movement would come along and sweep me in its great wave. Even a small wave would have suited me. I would have loved to have been in college in Madison when somebody dreamed up the satirical newspaper The Onion. Or Minneapolis when Mystery Science Theater 3000 was started. I can just imagine how it would feel to love going to work, to feel fortunate to be getting paid for doing exactly what you want to do.

     But it has not been my fate. I have never met the right people, never been in the right place at the right time.

     Or perhaps, perhaps a scene is where you make it. Maybe if you are just so certain of what it is you want that eventually you will find what it is you are searching for. Hell, maybe you will make it happen. Because after all, a scene always has to start somewhere, and every one of the situations I described began with someone openly searching for something more.

     That is what I choose to believe. All my life I have wanted someone to find the right scene, but perhaps it is up to me to get things started. Don’t get me wrong: what pushes me forward is not my own desires but the desire to keep alive all the greatness that I have been fortunate enough to encounter. Everything I’ll ever do will be influenced by Jack London, James Warren, Victor Hugo, and a thousand other influences great and small who inspired me to do something more with my life than merely exist. So in a sense, I already belong to a scene and always have. My heart beats in sympathy with a great tide that has insisted not only that I could be something more but that the human race can be something more than a knot of squirming creatures all fighting each other for their own pitiful existence.

     And so I plant my flag today. Let it be something for others to rally around, humble as it may be. Let it be a reminder to everyone who chances upon it not only that they too may work towards greater, nobler goals, but that society as a whole is filled with individuals who are only lacking a spark to ignite a fire within them. Welcome to my blog. It is small, but it is part of something larger. I reach out to you, whoever you may be. If I can light a single fire, it shall be worth it. If I can preserve that spark that has been passed on from torch to torch for time beyond reckoning, I will feel myself to be some small part of that which has inspired me.

     Feel free to leave a link to your website, an e-mail that we may keep in contact, or a Facebook page. It helps to stay connected with those who are on a similar path. And whatever you are interested in doing, best of luck to you.

An Open Letter To The NRA

     I have a few things I thought I would share with the NRA, the first of them being: please don’t shoot me.

     Oh, I know you have your guns only for self-defense. But you see, I can’t help noticing that your definition of self-defense is rather liberal, if you don’t mind me using that word. It’s not that I’m against the right of people to own guns, it’s just…well, I’m against the idea of some people owning guns. I think everybody, including card-carrying members of the NRA, know somebody that they wish didn’t own any guns. And therein lies the problem, the mixture of guns and idiots. Which leads me to my next point.

     I know gun owners are afraid of people with guns. And truth be told, having a gun is probably about the best way of protecting yourself from other people with guns. Except, maybe a bullet proof vest. Yeah, come to think of it, it’s doubtful you’re going to shoot the other guy’s bullet out of the air, so the vest would be your best line of defense. It might have helped President Kennedy. He would have felt the bullet hit the vest and he could have ducked before the second bullet got him. But to be honest, I don’t think he could have prevented his death had he been packing on that fateful day. As I recall, there were a lot of secret service agents and Dallas police officers all around him and they were all carrying guns.

     I know what you’re thinking (said Dirty Harry), a gun can’t prevent a crazy person from shooting, but it may make most people think twice about drawing a gun when they realize you might be packing. The idea is to out-crazy the crazy guy, out-bully the bully. If you have a gun and show you aren’t afraid to use it, nobody’s going to mess with you. I think this might be a good strategy. If I were going to pick a fight with someone and had to worry about whether that person was carrying a gun, I’d probably find something else to do. Being dangerous and scary can definitely help you get out of a dangerous situation.

     I’ll tell you where dangerous and scary don’t work, though: when you’re trying to promote the idea of responsible gun ownership. I know you’re all a little scared by the likes of Nancy Pelosi: to tell you the truth, she kind of scares me too. And I know black kids with hoodies make you a little nervous: there’s just no reason for them to be in your neighborhood. But whatever fear you may have that weaponless libtards are going to take you guns away just remember one thing: you have the guns. You don’t have to act all crazy and dangerous. You know why? Because you are the guys that have the guns, and everybody knows it. And we don’t. Just remember that every single one of those people that you’re worried about taking guns from you doesn’t have a gun. They don’t even like guns. And when it comes down to it, the police and the army probably are not going to want to take your gun from you because they like the whole idea of guns as well. Honestly. We need people with guns to protect us from other people with guns. We need the guys in the white hats to stop the guys in the black hats (and hoodies). And the crazies, too. Somebody’s got to protect us from the crazies. And that’s where most of you gun lovers have it all wrong, allowing Ted Nugent to do the talking for you. You see, he’s one of the crazies. If there was ever a poster boy for gun control, Sweaty Uncle Teddy would be it.

     You might as well ask the guy from Colorado with the Red hair to speak in defense of guns.

     I know you’re afraid of your government too, and again I don’t blame you. They have guns AND body armor. But check out what unarmed protestors did in Ukraine against armed pro-government police:

     There’s bravery without a gun. And you know what? It worked.

     Seriously, though, I believe that guns aren’t the ultimate answer to security. That’s going to come from trusting others a little bit. You can trust me, I’ve never shot anyone I’ve never fired a gun in my 48 years of life. And even though I’ve never had a gun I’ve never been shot. And if some day I am shot, I’m willing to be it’ll be by a gun owner.

     All I ask is that you don’t hate us just because we don’t have guns. I will run to your defense even without a gun if I ever see you in trouble. And if the government takes your gun from you, I’ll write a letter to the editor defending your right to have a gun fetish or any other kind of fetish you care to have. And if you’re more afraid of my words than I am of your gun, perhaps the pen is indeed mightier than the sword and perhaps you ought to abandon your guns for a keyboard.

     Don’t shoot me.

The Strange Case of the Haunted Garage

A little something I wrote:

The Strange Case of the Haunted Garage

The story I am about to relate was something I witnessed when I was young boy. Although that was many years ago, the memory of it is still clear, clearer than most of my childhood memories. Perhaps it is because I have repeated the story often over the years.

I am tempted get inside the mind of the character in the tale, to surmise his thoughts as the unexplainable events occurred. Perhaps he felt his very sanity was to be questioned, or maybe he was one who believed in the supernatural and blamed some spirit for his predicament. Maybe he just felt himself to be a victim of circumstance, as we are all from time to time. But as was merely an observer of the events that occurred, I shall simply tell what I saw and let the reader imagine what was going on in this man’s mind as the story progresses.

The story begins with a man who drove to his daughter’s house to check on things while she and her daughter were on vacation. Perhaps he was there to do some minor repair for them, I can only speculate. He appeared to be at the upper end of his fifties, with gray hair, a white t-shirt, and arms that no longer carried the muscle of a younger man’s. Unlocking the door to the house he entered and vanished from sight. After some minutes in the house, he walked back outside and, for some reason, felt the need to check on the garage. He hit the button for the garage door opener that was on the inside wall of the house and the door slowly opened. He walked into the garage, looked around (for what, I do not know), then went back to the house and hit the button to close the door. All was well until the door got to the bottom, at which point it went up again.

We’ve all been there, haven’t we? “No problem,” he thought, “I’ll…” Pardon me, I am putting thoughts into his head when I have no way of knowing what he was thinking. As I have stated before, I was merely an observer to his experience and will stick to reporting only what I have seen with my own eyes.

The man was either retired with a lot of time on his hands or else he led a rather uneventful life, because this event to him appeared as a challenge. He checked the concrete along where the bottom of the door would ordinarily meet, making sure there was no obstruction. He checked the tracks, rubbing his finger on the inside to feel out any potential cause for this occurrence. This being before the days of electronic eyes, he didn’t have that issue to worry about.Discovering nothing, he went back to the house and hit the button again. Again the door went down until it reached the bottom, and again it raised back up. Not having any other recourse, the man hit the button again, with the same result. The process was repeated several more times until the door finally stayed down. For a second. Then up again it went. The relief that briefly flowered upon the man’s face quickly turned to increased frustration. The look appeared more and more desperate with each successive attempt. Each try made the door stay down a little longer: two seconds, three seconds, 5 seconds. Each attempt brought a faint look of satisfaction to the man’s face, only to increase his look of perplexity as the door again made its ascent. But he was undeterred. He appeared blessed with an unusual amount of patience as he went through the process over and over again, checking the door, the tracks, and everything else he could think to check. Lesser men would have detached the door from the opener and left the problem for his son-in-law. But whether it was from kindness or boredom, he was willing to stick it out far longer than the average guy.

In time, just as things were beginning to look hopeless for the man, just when it seemed he could take no more, the door closed and stayed closed. Not just a few seconds this time, but for well over a minute. He stood at the window of his daughter’s house and stared at the door as if expecting it to rise at any moment. When at last he was satisfied that it would stay down he breathed a visible sigh of relief, he finally locked the door of the house and shut it. It was but a fraction of a second from when the house door shut that the garage door open. The man pulled the house keys from his pocket, opened the door, and began the trying process again.

Moments passed, moments of alternating hope and frustration for my neighbor’s father. It was warm that day but I have to believe the sweat on his brow was caused by more than just the heat. Perhaps fifteen minutes later, he began to once again believe that the damned door was not going to budge. Again he waited, this time for a couple of minutes. Again he locked and shut the door to the house.

The garage door stayed down.

There was no relief on the man’s face this time, just a look of bewilderment. He had won the battle, but it was apparent in his body language that he felt no triumph. And just when he got into his car, started it, and put it into reverse…frustration etched itself into every feature of his face.

How could this be happening? Surely there was some malevolent force toying with him.

He eventually made it home that day. God knows what made him come back the next. God knows what prompted him to open the garage door and begin the process all over again. He should have known not to mess with it, should have known when he was beat.

So far I have reported to you all that I witnessed of the man’s ordeal. Now let us draw the curtain back a little further. Let us, as Paul Harvey would say, tell the rest of the story.

My neighbors were going on vacation for two weeks. My parents being trustworthy friends, our neighbors left them the keys to their house in case of emergency. Oh, and the remote control for their garage door opener. I don’t know why they felt the need to do so, but they did. So when my friend Shane and I were sitting around my house one day and my neighbor’s father came to check on the house, an idea occurred to me.

Honestly, I don’t know how the man didn’t hear the squeals of childish laughter as he wondered what was happening with the garage door. I know it was cruel but his stubbornness was such that we could have played him out further if we’d wanted to. At some point pity took over.

Oh, and the next night? Well, I was so pleased with my performance I felt it necessary to make confession to my parents. They tried to behave in a scolding manner, but I could tell they were almost as amused by it as I was. So much so that when my neighbor’s father came over the next day I asked them if I could do it again. Their reply was something along the lines of “Well, okay, but just once.” I did it a few times, but my parents had at least a little better sense than I did.

The moral to the story-if there is one-is this: there is usually a perfectly good explanation to the most unusual experiences, but sometimes it’s just best to walk away from situations such as this.

Novel A Or Novel B?

I have two different books inside of me just aching to come out. And while I love them both it really is a good deal of work to finish either one of them. Therefore I'd really love some input on which one I should write first. My last post gave you a taste of the one, now I'll give you a look into the other. Please help me decide:

     “Mindy? Are you okay?” It was her mother, her voice betraying bits of accent from her native Italy.

     “I’m fine, mom. It’s just a fly. I killed a fly.”

     “There’s someone here to see you,” said the voice on the other side of the door, sounding more as if she were asking a question than giving information.

     “I don’t want to see anyone.”

     “It’s Dave. He wants to talk to you. He’s come all the way from Wisconsin.”

     Mindy froze. She wasn’t ready to talk, had no desire to try to explain what she couldn’t understand.

     “I don’t want to talk to him. Not now!”

      “What’s the matter, Mindy? What happened to you?” Mindy recognized her mother’s sad voice, the one she sometimes used when hoping to elicit pity. But there was no affectation in her mother’s voice now, Mindy heard the legitimate concern.

     “I’ll be okay. I just need to work through a few things. I just need some time to myself.”

     There was a moment’s silence before her mother resumed.

     “He’s come a long way, Mindy. He just wants to talk to you. It might do you good.”

     Mindy was about to become insistent in her attitude, but stopped herself short. She had no desire to put her mom through anything more than she already had, had no desire to have a war of wills with her.”

    “Okay,” Mindy said, “send him up.”

     Dave soon appeared, acting in that self-conscious way he had, attempting to dance around whatever negativity she might possess.

     “How are you, Mindy?”

     “Okay. I’m okay. I just have to deal with some things by myself.”

     “I know it’s been hard. We’ve been through some unbelievable things, had to accept realities we’d rather not have to deal with—“

     “You think that’s what this is all about? Because I’m scared? Damn right I am, but I’m not scared of what will happen to me, I’m afraid of what I’m capable of doing.”

     “I miss you, Mindy. Maybe you’re having doubts about yourself, but I trust you. Doug too. He’s worried about you, so is Izzy.”

     “Yeah, well Doug may trust me, but I don’t. I don’t trust what I’m capable of doing. I don’t trust the whole situation. And I don’t know if I trust Doug, either.”

     “You haven’t answered any of my calls or texts. I was worried.”

     “I told you, I need to be alone, to figure things out. I don’t trust myself. I wouldn’t have let my mom let you in, but I…”

     “You what?”

     “I was afraid to argue with her. Afraid that if I disagreed with her too strongly I would just alter her thoughts until she did what I wanted.”

     The look in Dave’s face showed compassion that longed to be shared, but Mindy had no strength for that. She needed to distance herself from him and everybody else she cared for, was afraid of the connections she would make.

     Dave paused for a moment before speaking, looking around the room at the items of her past. He had been her older brother’s friend, had never really been in her room before. She felt exposed, as though he was reading her past and her vulnerabilities in the items that were in her room. He had penetrated deep into her sanctuary, and she would have got angry if she trusted herself to permit such a reaction.

     “I know what you’re worried about. You have a power and you’re afraid to misuse it. But nothing’s really changed. You’re still the same person, you’re just a little larger, that’s all. It’s like becoming a grownup: it’s scary, but you have to do it. You can’t run away from who you are. You can’t pretend it doesn’t exist.”

     “That’s easy for you to say,” Mindy said, and she permitted herself to tap into her anger slightly. “You have the ability to see things in your dreams. You don’t have to worry about others, you just have to worry about yourself.” No, it was not anger, it was passive aggressiveness, a way of being cruel while insisting to herself that she did not have the power to hurt.

     “Power is what you make it Mindy. As soon as I tell others what I see in my dreams, they become involved in my problems too. I’m responsible for others, responsible for my actions, just like you. You have to be thoughtful and cautious. You must use every bit of knowledge and wisdom and emotion, everything you are, to make sure you don’t abuse it, that you use it in the right manner. But you can’t deny it. You can’t pretend you don’t have power.”

     “Yes I can. Just watch me.”

     “You’re part of this world. You can’t cut yourself off from it. You have love, perspectives, desires. You can’t let them go to waste. You can’t sit on the sidelines for fear of getting hurt.”

     “You think I’m worried about getting hurt? No, I’m worried about hurting. I’m worried about using my abilities wrong, of using them for personal gain, or using them without realizing I’m using them at all.”

“I know, Mindy. And I know it’s hard. But it’s what being a grownup is about. There are a lot of people walking around in the world afraid to come out of their chrysalis, afraid to be the person they have the potential to be. But the world isn’t going to be what it can be if those who have the power to change it stay in  their childhood bedroom in their parent’s house.”

     This angered Mindy, and the anger she had not permitted herself before she now allowed to surface. Her temper had always been her relief valve, and it felt good now to allow it to rise up in her.

     “What the hell do you know? Did you even come here by yourself or did Doug send you?”

     Dave looked uncomfortable. “I’m on my way to see a performer, a balancing act, in Indiana. But I came here because I care for you. You’re not being honest with yourself if you don’t realize that.”

     “Get out!” said Mindy, restraining herself from screaming only so that her mother wouldn’t get involved. “Get out,” she repeated, and Dave made his way slowly towards the door. She didn’t know at that moment if she was actively walking him towards it or if he was going under his own will, and she didn’t care: either way, she was proving that she was right. She didn’t want him to be there. No, that wasn’t true. She wanted him there, she just didn’t want to deal with reality, didn’t have the strength to look her predicament straight on. She just wanted to hide, to live in a world of her own making, filled with stuffed animals and frilly drapery.

     Before Dave left, he turned to her and said, “I love you Mindy. I love you and I need you. We all need you. Yes, Izzy and Doug and the others, I don’t care if you want to hear that. Hell, maybe the whole world needs you. You’re a part of it, even if you don’t feel like you want to be. In the end you’re going to realize that. You don’t want to look back at life and see all the times you could have been a part of it and weren’t.”

     Dave left and Mindy slammed the door behind him. He was always too quick to give in, Mindy thought. She turned and fell on her bed, a jumble of emotions she was too afraid to iterate. Around her sat a variety of stuffed animals, glaring at her the unique personalities she had created for them. But they were merely items of cloth with plastic eyes. Whatever emotional links she had with them were merely the creations of her mind. She looked at her stuffed penguin she had named Percy, one of the oldest and dearest possessions of her childhood. The wear he exhibited demonstrated the amount of time she had spent with him. She stared at it and familiar emotions welled in her as all the personality she had invested in it came to memory. But it was only her imagination that had given life to Percy, he had no real or life of his own. She felt betrayed by that, felt betrayed by the fact that she could care so much for him and yet he would never love her back. All these years she had pretended that he was an old and dear friend. All these years she had believed in a friendship that never really was. Even as she grew old enough to put aside such ideas, she never really denied such feelings. She may have put childish ideas behind, but she could never go so far as to deny them. She simply put him aside, but the story still existed in her somewhere. Somewhere deep inside of her was still that child who believed, and the best her adult self could do was to not think about it.

     But now she was face to face with her childhood friend, and she felt betrayed by the idea that he would never love her back, that it was he who pretended, that it was he who abandoned her. Anger welled again as she felt as if someone had ripped away from her a childhood friend, but she realized there was no one to be angry at. And that’s when the anger turned to grief, as she realized her absolute powerlessness in the face of life. Whatever power she had, it would never get her her heart’s desire. Whatever power she had was more likely to hurt than help. But, after all, it was not really her power she was afraid of, it was her lack of it.