The reality that everyone needs, is the reality they came equipped with to start. So to speak to the encounters with opinionated people, some people are so afraid, so lost inside themselves that they try to make a castle of the dung heap that is reality as we are all “encouraged” to embrace it. They feel like if somehow they can just be the most honest example of a “good citizen”, a good little boy or girl, their own effort to “make it better” will win the prize. Praise and recognition from their peers, a pat on the head from the powers that be, but what happens when a terribly insecure little boy or girl fails to get the praise they want so badly?

Tantrum? No, otherwise they would have thrown a tantrum when they were forced to build something with the contents of a diaper. They instead resolve to “do better next time”, which is often something their parents teach them. And each time that need to do better next time occurs, they get more and more frustrated, until not only do they feel they need to do better in their own performance, but they need do do better with others, or do better than others. So they either take everyone else’s poo and try to make a better castle for them as well, correcting anything that looks like they coloured outside the lines, or they so commit themselves to the idea that they have to prove themselves to the powers in charge that they sabotage anything and everything else they might want, just so that maybe they can have that praise and recognition.

Sound like anyone you might know? I prefer to leave the diaper contents in the diaper pail, and instead use these twigs and flowers and shells and pretty rocks I find all over the place. It’s much more fun.

And it also sounds like the start of obsession. Perhaps with “being good” or “being clean,” etc. Indeed, that is what leads to it. I like to decide what that tree is for me this time. Next time it might be something else. It depends on what it looks like in my imagination in that time and situation. Sound crazy?

Sounds alive and free, in the moment. Perhaps in touch with reality? At least the reality of a world that has my thoughts and feelings occurring in it.

I need to embrace the classes people disrupt? Decide what those classes are for you, rather than just concluding that they were disrupted. What do you imagine happened? Is it the same every time?

Sounds like re-framing expectation? Yes, which are just things you have trained yourself to do, Just as you can learn to stand on one leg, you can learn to change your mental stance or attitude. Even science is discovering that it’s really pretty much the same sort of learning task. You can dig in rather than just feel like your mental balance is threatened. We had imagination, and learned to learn/earn/think/ink/blink/stink. My statement may seem silly, but does it make sense? Specifically that line of associated words. They paint a picture even without being a proper sentence, don’t they?

The thing I want to get at, is that the reason we lose our sense of our own innocence, is we interrupt the maturation of imagination. If we first allow ourselves to fully and genuinely return to our original imaginative state, we can experience a perhaps surprising evolution. You can imagine nothing in a void, and all those child like things will take on new depth, complexity and meaning. As well, you will find that you are able to include more things in your imagination. Your adult memory and experience helps your imagination evolve.

Like a fairy tale. Indeed, like the monomyth with the freedom to improvise your own variations or just incorporate your favourite elements. Rather than getting dangerously away from life, I offer that you may, perhaps for the first time, really begin to get into it, just like you may have with your playtime and story time as a child. And what more attention, motivation or passion could you bring to life than that? How could you be any more fully present?

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~