Boo!

Sigh.

Or maybe a cleansing breath?

No, it is definitely “BOO!” And not just because it is the season. So much of this world right now has lost all sense of equilibrium. The weather, population, or more specifically the governing populaces world wide are projecting images of irregular, out of the ordinary insanity. It is scary out there.

All those big wild ideas of storytelling that have been jotted down and even the ones that are fleshed out seem boring and tame. Making me question, once again, sharing stories. But. I made myself a promise. In the next thirteen months, I am going to keep that promise to myself.

Still, my thoughts run to writers like Aldous Huxley (Brave New World) and George Orwell (1984), authors that were on my high school reading list, covered by truly great teachers. What was it they were experiencing that inspired or frightened them to write the futuristic tales of warning? What are writers writing about now?

Identifying the negative concerns that we sure didn’t learn a darn thing from in those earlier tomes (or even from history), my head shakes in sadness. I don’t want to carry with me this ‘woe is our world’ sentiment. I want to be positive, uplifting and look beyond the moment into something more hopeful. Something much more generous and open. I want to be more intelligent. I want to learn more.

There is a saying, “Educated beyond level of intelligence,”

Intelligence is way of saying ability to learn, and comes in many forms; musically, logically, philosophically, and more. Some may be easier or more difficult. Then there are the ways we learn, our sensory strengths, that aid or make learning come quickly or be a struggle to master. Finally education, the knowledge, the what and the how it is presented can hamper or strengthen our abilities to gain, retain and use that knowledge.

Right now it feels very much like we are full of questionable knowledge and we are wielding it with abandon. That’s what it looks like from here. The accuracy of the knowledge can be outlandishly false; reminding me of a small child whose world view development is extremely limited attempting to capitulate adults to their will by contrived made up stories and imaginary logical facts to acquire that last cookie from the cookie jar.

We are so honed in on opinion differences, instead of on who we each are. We aren’t finding redeeming value in one other. And we should. We are fallible. Not one of us is perfect. We can all learn from our mistakes.

Maybe we are all scared. Change is scary. The future is coming so fast. We don’t want to let go of even the worst part of ourselves, latching on to anything that we can find even a sliver of our past, comforting or not. Fear so great we are grasping to familiar concepts and beliefs even if they are painful and wrong.

We need to be brave, face our fears of the unknown and let go of the the past that has not served us. We need to say‘“BOO!” ourselves.