The model is Leia, as truly beautiful and talented a woman as I've ever had the honor to know, the image of her a screen shot captured during one of her live shows when something said touched her compassion. I don't know where to find her to ask her permission to use her image to illustrate this thought, but Leia being Leia? Somehow I don't think she'd be upset with me. So often it seemed this very thought was on the tip of her tongue... but never spoken for kindness' sake.
Hmmm...So many thoughts, so little time!
ReplyDeleteMainly, lots of folks let their real wants be circumscribed by societal dictates. Now, often it's necessary to let your "wants" be circumscribed--if, say, one of the "wants" is to kill someone who you think has wronged you. But when one's real want involves things like the fulfillment of a deep love, or touching another to heal him/her, then let societal dictates be damned.
Yet, lots of folks confuse passing desires or advertisement-induced "wants" for our heart's deepest cries. It takes work and openness to discern our own depths; that's why lots of folks live only on the surface. Such folks can easily be seduced into thinking "what we see is what we get"--leading to your Takiea or a world dominated by Big Business as it is now.
So, lots of folks want to do more than "watch"--but they let those wants be circumscribed--a slow suicide, as your verse says. Yet the cure is not to "give our wants free rein," but to discern our deepest wants. Only then can we do more than "watch," yet in a moral way.
The text on this one is from a comment I made on Josefina's blog on her post titled "Into Your Life I'll Creep" where she was talking about those who live on reflected glory from their chosen media idols... interesting run of comments she made. If you read the thread in the comment blocks this one becomes self explanatory.
ReplyDeleteI've rambled a bit in my writings concerning the realms of the voyeur, perhaps a full post on the subject would be in order... looks to me like there's a fair amount goes into the subject, and most of it does indeed deal with conflicts between the personal and the social, the conflicted morality that cripples a great many into living life in a sterile isolation of observation rather than full participation to add experiences first hand to their memory.
Camping in the chat room with the ladies like Leia and Alex was indeed simply watching, but what was learned there has added such depth of perception in the worl that I'll not count the hours as lost, I assign them into the same category as seat time in a classroom no freaking university would ever host. Frankly, I don't think the universities could find a competent faculty to teach those courses at the same level as what I was fortunate enough to find ;-)