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Dreams
Winter is one of
those natural times for dreaming, but then dreaming is less a product
of the right time or even the right place, than it is the consequence
of a way of life. Granted, there are times and places that are more, or
less friendly to the things we call daydreams, but nothing can replace
attitude for giving a dream a good home. Dreams have a little flicker
of life of their own that derives its strength, even it's very
existence from the beholder. Without those willing to play host to that
amiable parasite we call a dream, the wonderful images and thoughts and
feelings that swirl there, could offer nothing. That fast, aggressive,
competitive way of life we hold up as the "American Way", is no place
for a healthy daydream. "Healthy" is the key word here, fore there are
plenty of fast aggressive dreams had here on our ethnocentric little
continent, but few are healthy or even harmless for either the beholder
or the culture as a whole.
Just as we have
traded the bowling lane for the fast lane, and real food for fast food,
we have traded an honest fulfilling culture for a fast culture. A
culture, that as it retreats into the past, spreads itself so thin that
none of its textures, or tastes, or even it's smells stand out enough
to bring about any sensation of culture at all. Part of this is merely
our youth, but even that is much of the problem. The present culture
here in America believes itself to be only half a millennium old at
best, when in fact the rich ancestry of our land goes back for many
thousands of years.
Some five
hundred years ago, the conglomeration of cultures from around the world
began spilling over from their homelands, into what they called the
"New World". In fact, this new world, was only new to them. These
pioneers and colonizers thought of themselves as missionaries,
liberating darkness from a land they did not understand. These varied
groups came to the Americas not on a pilgrimage, but with the full
intent of destroying as much as possible of the existing culture, and
to bury the rest as deep as they could. These people, dominated by
jealous Christian beliefs, came here and destroyed a culture founded on
respect and cooperation with the forces of nature, only to replace it
with the shallow remnants of their combined digressions.
Daydreaming and
puttering are cut from similar cloth. The link between the two is
inseparable. It's not that they can't happen independent of each other,
but they certainly coexist in comfort. Puttering has received some ill
deserved bad press throughout the ages, especially here in America. It
doesn't fit well with the work ethic put forth by a capitalistic
society. Somehow we think that puttering excludes working, and embraces
a sense of laziness. This is certainly not the case, but there is one
thing for sure, puttering is not a "fast lane" kind of thing.
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