I've been feeling lousy for days now. The only way I seem able to stop the nausea I get from taking this prescription drug methotrexate is to not eat at all or at least minimally. I haven't replied to much e-mail, and when I have it mostly negative comments. I don't feel good, why should you?
In the midst of my supreme disgruntlement I sought refuge in the trivia of social site links. Now, I'm happy I did because I stumbled across this TED video by Elizabeth Gilbert I hadn't watched before. The talk is given by this woman who found herself the author of a "freakishly" successful book. I've never heard of it, of course, because I stopped reading books from the NYT best-seller list a long time ago to follow my own dreams.
Like I mentioned, I've been in a lousy mood all week-end, and I needed some stimulus to get excited about... anything. I clicked on the link and Elizabeth popped up on stage by herself and began talking. One of the first things she spoke about got me interested right away in the subject of her sermon. She clarified for me for the first ti-me, the difference between what the Greeks called a daimon, and what the Romans called a genius. The difference is literally just the words themselves. They both described the sa-me phenomenon. A docetic spirit that interacts with humans when they are unknowingly in a receptive mood for such things to happen.
As this woman talked I began to feel like she was trying to explain something I've tried to "say" for a lifetime, and she was doing a better job of it than anything I'd done previously. In the end ga-me, it's always the metaphors people choose to get the me-ssage across. Exactly who chooses the metaphors is another question all together.
She spoke of a group of tribal people gathering together to watch a group of native dancers strut their stuff, but how after dancing all night, one of the dancers becomes imbued with the spirit and takes on the attributes of a god doing it's own thang. The tribal members respond in awe and point enthusiastically at the dancer. This is what they've been waiting for. They wake their children, point to the dancer, and tell them, "There! That's what God is like!" Tens of millions of people say the sa-me thing about rock and roll stars and Pavarotti. Not always, but at times certain people reliably heed the call that temporarily makes mutes of us all. With the question being: How do you live with having already performed your best, most impossible me-me-cry, after the fat lady sings?
She talks about what the particular dancer who came to prominence might have felt like the next morning when he realized he was still only human. She talked about how each of us has had our own moments when we suddenly exemplified the power of a docetic spirit. There is famous advice offered from former occupied entities who lived through the experience. They all seem to say, as this woman did, that you still have to "chop wood and tote water".
Basically this means to me that one has to remain a wannabe. Many people have watched me be-co-me that gandy dancer, and they seem to expect me to live up to their expectations and keep them amused for all ti-me. They don't appear to understand that daimon; that genius; that song and dance man ain't always there for me nor is it desirable for such to be so.
I kept looking at the outfit she wore to make the talk. To shoot the video. It was dark brown, with an over-skirt to muddy the water of her forty-ish figure, and emphasize her face. No blame. She has a good face. She makes an impressive speech. I hope you'll watch it. She's talking about us.
I do not attempt to tell the God's own truth here because I don't know what the truth is or hardly ever. I try to capture the drifting thoughts that randomly appear in my imagination for reasons I may not understand. I don't know if the content I capture with these words is true or false. The Comments settings are turned off to prevent me from having to defend what amounts to little more than fanciful, sometime crude speculation. Great moments in our lives never return.
