I remember being a kid in grammar school, the
teacher having to often tell me to calm down.
I was marked you know, as an enthusiastic player in
the game of life. I read now they have
negative labels for that type of behavior.
Now they have prescriptive medications to dull the senses so that what
is left can be led drooling to their desk and gently set down to be unobtrusive
for the remainder of the class day.
But hey, I’m not bitter. They didn’t get to use that technique on me
when I was in public school, so I consider it my good luck to have dodged that
bullet.
One day, much
later, into my collegiate pursuits, I had been 'let out' early from class, so
had time to loiter doing nothing until my next class. I found a bench in
the shade of an ancient maple and spent my time people watching.
Stretched out before me was the ebb and flow of our future policy makers and
problem solvers. On their faces was not the joy of learning, but vacancy; that
or performance dread, it was hard to tell, they look so similar. That may
be my interpreted simple formula. More likely it was just absence of
enthusiasm. I'd not go so far as to predict 'worry' or even 'fret' for that
matter. Nor would I venture to say how much of that was entangled with
performance in their studies or current standing in their peer group. No,
before me was the masses in their routine. That non-thinking beyond the
immediate task look of getting to their next assigned place manner of being.
I know that feeling all too well, it had
been encouraged covertly by my society long before I could even object to those
oppressive chains. Those representatives, the guardians to policy and protocol,
well they were slaves as well. They are just as caught up in the
drone-like routines that fabricate our conceptual lives. Even if their assigned rolls might be
gatekeeper, they’re just as enslaved in their assigned rolls. I was startled by that awhile back when I
recognized the telltale signs of the branding. My instructors were
fellow servants to the same grind as the students; but then there you have
it. The guards are as much the prisoner as the inmates; one needing the other
to make that situation real.
Back to the calm down.
If you
happen to be emotional about changes in your life, you still have the
fire. Misdirected, perhaps so, after all you happen to be the product of
centuries of manipulative design that would have you thinking you have liberty.
Conditioning is not abrupt, but rather applied, over time, like layers of clear
lacquer; but unlike lacquer, it is not permanent, the puppeteers know this;
research proves it. Anything you've been taught to fear, will extinguish,
left alone in time; like a fire that has consumed all of its fuel. And I
tell you true, time washes away all moments like tears in the rain...and what
is left is that enthusiasm to be present, and just maybe, just maybe, the next
play they'll give you the ball, and it'll be an open field. So then, if I
were able to give voice to the past my response would be,
"No
ma'am, with all due respect, I will NOT calm down", I'm jazzed to be in
the presence of life; so...send me out of your sight if you must, far from the
dim view that you hold so necessary to feel comfortable. You stay in those terror
ridden shadows...me....I'm looking for a sunny beachfront view where gust of
sea breeze muss my hair...so there I can breathe in that sweet liberty
by heaping healthy lungs full
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