Jul. 27, 2015

Leap of Faith

The Read, is really expanding, I’ve opened another new office.  We’re going nation-wide.  I’m sitting here looking out the window of my latest location, Brooklyn, NY.   In a very uncharacteristic move, I’ve taken a leap of faith and rented a bedroom in a brand new apartment, (with my boys.)  Yes, the tables have turned, instead of them moving back home with their parents, one of their parents is scratching at their door.  It’s actually a great arrangement.  They each live and work in NY now and they wanted a place together; a gorgeous three-bedroom came along and I raised my hand.  I need the ability to be here occasionally, and am hoping to make that more frequent.  As a freelance writer/director, there is no better place to be than NYC.  An Uber driver told me recently, if you work at it hard enough, you can be anything you want in NYC, you just have to work.  That’s never been a problem for me.  Hopefully, he’s right, because I’m not quite sure how I’m going to swing it, (but hey, isn’t that what a leap of faith is all about?)  We shall see.  I’ll keep you posted.  

One of the priceless things about this arrangement is time with the boys.  Getting into philosophical discussions with your adult children over breakfast is a little mind-blowing.  (In the best way.)  Kev and I continued a hefty topic we started while he was still living at home.  I’ve mentioned it in the blog, off-handedly, but today it deserves a little attention.  It may be my particular mindset, but there seems to be a dark cloud hanging over the world.  A pervasive ugliness and darkness that covers more landscape than not.  There are still the brilliant sunny days, but even they are often weighed down by an aching.  The black wolf from the Indian fable is famished and he’s consuming our hope.  My youngest, Kev, faults the internet.  He warns that we’re saturated with news, primarily bad, and negative influences, and they're coloring our lives.  He’s right.  There is more darkness than light on the net.  He believes the beast that has been birthed out of Hypertext Transfer Protocol (how often do you get to spell out http,) will consume us all.  And he’s not kidding.  He believes the World Wide Web will be responsible for the fall of mankind.  He actually called it, the devil.  

It’s interesting to discuss such a dire topic with a child of the electronic age.  After all, who better to comment on our electronic connections than the generation who grew up with it from day one.  I talked about the ability it has to share positive posts and he pointed out the flaw in that thinking.  The internet is a stream, he told me, not a pond.  It constantly moves forward.  If something good is thrown onto it, it soon gets brushed aside from the endless rush of negative information that’s constantly feeding the stream; it’s impossible to ponder what’s good, it’s all moving too quickly.  It’s definitely scary to hear him talk about it.  Primarily, because so much of what he says makes sense.   

He believes I should significantly cut back my time on social media and the internet, he thinks we all should.  That’s a tough one for a writer, if I didn’t know what was going on in the world, I wouldn’t have much of a forum.  And it’s my intention to put as much good out there as possible, otherwise I wouldn’t be doing this.  I’m launching my counter-attack on the beast Kev’s talking about, I want to help cut him down to size.  It goes back to my yin yang graphic from the blog, Our Choice.  Where does it say the light can’t be bigger than the dark?  There is goodness hurtling down the lines too, no reason not to build on it.  

There was an accident that happened some years ago and I’ll always be grateful it did.  I had sent an email to a business about needing help with a shipment and it accidentally got re-routed to a man in the Philippines.  He kindly wrote me back to let me know of the mistake.  The rest of the email broke my heart.  He said he wasn’t answering mail because his wife had passed away the day before, from cancer, but he didn’t want me to miss the connection I needed.  That day taught me there was good on the net.  He and I got into a conversation about losing family from cancer, I shared my experience.  We talked about healing.  And before it was over, he said our accidental link had been a saving grace.  He didn’t realize how much he needed to talk about it, and that he could find so much comfort in knowing he wasn’t alone.  I didn’t miss my connection at all; it went, gratefully, right where it was supposed to go.  And the internet made it happen.  The good is there, and it can be big; we just need to start looking for it.   

Sean shared an Instagram link with me recently that was a real heart story.  An Ethiopian good Samaritan stopped on his way to a party and jumped into a muddy river to help free a cow that had slipped off the saturated bank and was firmly lodged, (only his head was free,) in the mud.  The man struggled for a long time with the beast and finally helped the woman who owned it, get the poor creature out of the water and back up on the shore.  The picture painted the panic of it all, and the text told of the triumph.  The man’s sympathy for the animal kept him from thinking a minute about himself, only of those who needed help.  What a powerful example.  The Instagram post came from National Geographic, or their profile moniker, natgeo, (highly recommend following them.  Some incredible posts.)  Along with HONY, they are also now a favorite; two sources of some bright light.  I think their section of the stream is starting to bulge a bit.   

So, how about it; what’s say we take a leap of faith.  I know we’re not quite sure how we’re going to swing it, but let’s jump in.  Let’s travel down the stream with a belief that we can push back whatever’s shrouding us, and stop to ponder where the light shines on it the most; if we stop long enough, who knows, maybe it will bulge into an ocean, where we can all hang out together.  A place where we can put down anchors and feel safe and grounded.  A place where decency, honesty, and consideration are the order of the day.  What can we lose?  I’m game.  Wanna take a leap of faith?

My Instagram profile: Lasooze

If you’re interested in receiving an email with a link to my weekly blog post, you can register at:

https://tinyletter.com/LaSooze