Today is Martin Luther King Jr. day.
The story of this incredible man seems to have been refined by all the world to a single glorious action, his speech about his dream. Anyone with a hungry will that choked on even one sour bite of this absurd and unfair world should share in the dream of that speech, and at least give others the benefit of the doubt.
King brings to mind that pink elephant in the room, that we are all involuntarily here, and, logically, each person should show anyone else the consideration that they, too, need. Be damned what they look like. I mean, don't we all suffer the same losses? How many times have you heard the rhetorical question, "Do you really think you're the first person to whom this has happened?" No fate is unique to an individual. No man is an island. We all need respect, help, and love, no one being an exception, and that's still what we deny people every day.
If you look at something long enough, you don't see it anymore, but some times you can see a problem because you've been a contributor.
I hold some biases against history, and I'll get to that. I don't want to be remembered for my dreams, the way I've been defining them.
I divide my goals into two categories. The goals I believe I can accomplish, which I call 'plans.' There are other goals that I don't see a way to meet, and those goals are 'dreams.'
I have many dreams.
Some of my dreams are worth mentioning, some are laughable. People who say they want to get married some day and don't know anyone they would wed seem to be confined to good faith or naivety. People who say they want to travel are never on vacation. A lot of people would like to make a lot money at some point, and don't know how.
The usual anthem of modern advertisements and all manner of common fiction predicates salvation through dreaming, because you can make them come true.
I dream the dreams of many men, and like them, have grown accustomed to not meeting these goals. People say that they expect the worst and hope for the best. Hope can drive a man insane, though, and we try to shake that weight from us whenever we think we can. After enough loss, we dutifully accept surrender, anticipate disappointment, and allege that this is the way things are. We're all running uphill in sand.
Another famous King, Stephen King, in his best-selling book Duma Key, said, "God always punishes us for what we can't imagine." Every day people work against their dreams in ways they can't imagine that they have. Some of those obstacles in our paths, that we see as forced on us, are there because of our contributions.
Money is a commonly named obstacle. How many dreams have been forfeited only for lack of enough dollars? How else could time spent in the pursuit of money have been spent? If scarcity annotates value, do we cheat others out of their time because our time is any more scarce? If we're equals, why do we put up this obstacle on others, on ourselves?
We become our own obstacles when we make our common man into strangers; this fact is nowhere clearer than in the silence we offer the unfamiliar. Public dumbness thrives as technology puts correspondence, entertainment, and distraction in the hand of every man, woman, and child. Related at this particular point in time, the potential romantic relationships of our society's youth are hindered almost solely by the obstacle of estrangement, so common a suggested precaution to young women that young men of this society find themselves almost certainly prejudged as threatening physically, emotionally, and sexually. Whatever the effect may be, this distance we force on others, we force on ourselves.
Detouring from this society to one where estrangement is less common can highlight yet another obstacle set before us, the difficulty of travel in a world separated by borders. What value does equality really hold to so many peoples fearing and rejecting one another's customs and beliefs?
There has never been a more important time than now for challenging the obstacles set before us. This generation will create the next, and they cannot realize their dreams if they are met only by obstacles.
Some of these obstacles seem insurmountable, but like the sand dunes that divide the greens at all sides of a desert, they are made from the numbered grains. The only way to a change the course of society, obstacles and dreams alike, is a mind at a time.
In this society, we glorify inventors and world-shakers, on whom we bestow incredible credit for discovery. Good or bad, these individuals are given incredible fame, a fame that comes sans detail. People are shocked on occasion by the true details of individual historical figures, as we promote the body of their work, and parade the changes they made, or take credit for (we're all looking at you, Thomas Edison). History, at least in this society, glorifies feat, and not lifestyle.
So, today, I have a dream, too. I dream we change society by changing ourselves. I dream we don't sweat the petty details that History won't remember. I dream we offer each other the understanding and love that we each need. I dream we meet fewer strangers every day. I dream that we stop looking at our most important goals as accomplishable. I dream that we live like the obstacles are under our power, because arguably, they are. Perhaps they always have been. Maybe we'll change the world by doing a lot of the same things we always have, and get a different outcome. Welcome to
Insanity Journal!
Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!
