Wobbly Legs
Out of the warm nuzzle of our cribs we crawl to our futures. Bones harden to an upright stance so that walking leads to running, jumping, swimming. Proficiency. Muscles tear and fill with strength. Confusion seduces understanding if permitted. If something can't be used then it may be useless. From exploration to mastery, to grow is to use oneself to potential.
Raised by Our Mothers
To the destination of proficiency, inability must start in safety. Hungry jackals and eagles must be kept at bay from innocently ignorant babes. Sharp corners are covered and open sockets stopped. We must be protected before we learn how to fight or flee. We must be protected from ourselves before we learn to recognize the dangers that surround us. In safety and protection we are allowed our transitions, our acclimation to risk. Blankets, to carpet, to hardwood floor, we graduate to falls from higher places onto harder surfaces, practicing to live before the requisite of life and death. Padded failures under watchful eye, the entire point is to progress.
Escaping From Safety
We honor our fungal ancestors by walking upright, and we dishonor the crippled when we choose to go nowhere. Freedom to move is freedom, so it is such that mastery of movement is the pinnacle of liberty. Eyes easily confirm bodily allowance, and as well, restriction. Structural differences are seen between open spaces and high walls with locked gates. Those differences are not so readily evident in the world within ourselves, yet there is analogous parity for all of those conditions. At times we are mentally crippled, unable think without impediment, though it is also possible to travel at light speed to every far reach of our minds. There are walls too. They keep out danger and keep us safe and in comfort. Though looking down from an elevated view, those walls keep in the same as they keep out.
Progressing Towards Nothing
In an easy and protective environment that we have been privileged in this land of abundant privilege, have we forgotten the point of progressing? Without the hardships to force us forward, are we stuck in a state of arrested development? By gain of height and loss of spots, a fawn is forced from lying motionless in tall grass to run and jump for life. Yet in our world, if mother waits, our gut may serve as a suitable dinner table, and we need not reach farther than the front of our shirt to wipe our mouth. In worlds where that which upsets us is embracingly banished, there are no teeth and claws to chase us into our limits. Without confrontation with challenges to our assumptions, we lose the potency to fight. And without potency, we can no longer confront. So we avoid and hide and run from all manners of difficult or negative thought and feeling, all potential threats of mental and emotional harm. But why should we gain any amount of unnecessary proficiency when there are those to fill the void of our inabilities, when in this land there will be some person or entity to nurture and affirm any of our weaknesses?
The Blissful Peace of Nothing
Within a warmly lit hollow of some construct in our mind, we hibernate in a delicate haze of soporific pollen, where overhanging branches of sirens' tentacles coax us to remain in our contented gestation. There, we remember the first impressions of our joy, and there our memories are protected in that velvet womb. To be able to dream is the essence of the American dream. And in our highly evolved slumber we have developed our dreams to the highest order. We have outgrown nostalgia. Our fingers were once our pistols, a rifle a stick, and all the sounds we made with our mouths. Dreams fulfilled, we have every real-life army gun replicated in plastic exactness. We don't have to work so hard to pretend anymore, and it is better to spend our efforts getting all the kids from all the neighboring neighborhoods together. It takes a lot of organization to have a big pretend battle, almost as much as a real army. Our cartoons are now hours long and can cost almost a half billion dollars to draw, not that much but probably more than some little countries' GDPs. The universal wonder and amazement those grand projects instill is the proof of our development. High speed rails are very utilitarian. We can watch our comic collections now too. The expanses of those universes are much too difficult to keep track of by just reading and imagining. There are also ultrasophisticated coloring books where the lines they give you allow you to use dozens of colors to color inside the lines. Those are good for relieving stress during your time off. We can play dress up as anything we, or anybody, can think of and can even play with makeup without being scolded, any of us. There is even a special day for it, Halloween. We spend 10 billion dollars on our costumes that day. That's definitely more than some little countries' GDPs, however, only 700 million of that is for our pets to dress up. And the rich kids will always ride around in their electric cars gleefully making the neighborhood children envious. Some things will never change, and they don't have to.
Only by Force?
We are lucky to have an instinct born in us to forsake our cribs because, who of us would choose to self-expel from the paradise of peaceful fetal meditation? If we all aspire to peace and happiness then we should all just remain when we are there. But instead, we all begin with a fall. Then we crawl, then walk, run, and we have even found flight. The world was made possible outside of the published journal of a faraway explorer. So, in a world where all necessary possibilities are already there, does enough instinct remain to squeeze us out of fantasy?
Falling Out of a Dream
In the progression of a falling, once a certain point is reached, everything happens by itself. Our lives are all started with violent and unstoppable disruption. Once seen, truths cannot be unseen. We are inundated with ultra-advanced distractions, and by the amount of time they spend with us, those distractions may understand us more than we do ourselves. We need not nor know to look. We choose, and agree, to be entertained in our boredom, rather than spend time alone with ourselves. What manner of hard breathing or nervous twitches would we find unbearable if left alone with those wretches for too long? Clear and focused eyes spoil fantasy and tell us what we would rather not know. Lies feel and taste better than truth. Is there a reason to suffer withdrawal if our drugs are paid for and clean? If we can find a happy, functioning medium?
Only From Ashes
Death of an old life is necessary for rebirth. Old constructs must be demolished to make a place for new ones. The last must leave for the next to come. We must exit that delightful fog if we are to see clearly in sobriety. Kill a dream to wake. What new should we ever find if we are never to search? And if we are ever to find anything, must not we first look? And when we look, what of our assumptions would die when our ideas do not match what our eyes see?
Looking Up
Minute misdirections, even if innocent, even if accidental, slowly accumulate until at last we are lost. Blind to the fractions, we may not notice until a catastrophe provides us our certainty. With proper context we can orient ourselves for clear minds. In the center of every act of will is a ruling thought. Nothing can change without first an inner change.
The Choice to Choose
Spiritual ugliness is knowing better yet choosing to do worse. In blissful ignorance, we have our excuse, but willful ignorance is simply cowardice. Good and bad is subjective to each of us, and it is honorable to search for our own betters. Our own good, labored into existence by us.