Altered Perspective

Let me see if I can express this…

I read somewhere that your soul is like a bird inside your chest. That’s what makes your stomach flutter, your imagination soar, and your heart swell with feeling. Mine is trying its damnedest to get out right now; she’s flapping about so hard it feels a bit like floating and that I can’t breathe at the same time. We saw a movie tonight that truly moved me. There was a beautiful world, alive with life, like nothing I’ve ever seen or will see. There was a tribe bound together by a great energy that resided in all things. There was harmony and balance. It was awash in color and vibrancy that I struggle to describe. Quite possibly it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

This produces two distinct reactions in me, at complete opposites with each other. On one side, I’m overflowing with hope, a sense of happiness and peace, and an inner smile that’s felt in every fiber of my being. On the other, everything around me looks flat, gray, and lifeless, and the point of everything is completely lost. I’ve lost all perspective about here.

Which brings up something I’ve struggled with my whole life, since I was old enough to read and fully comprehend sci-fi novels: the urge to be something other than I am and be someplace other than here. I’m not talking about being a lawyer instead of a designer, or living in Hawaii instead of Las Vegas. I mean something more than me and someplace out of this world. As you can imagine, it makes it rather hard to be content within myself.

Honey tells me I’m going to have to make peace with myself within the world I live in, inside my little sphere of influence. Do what I can, where I can, and find peace knowing I’ve done everything possible to make my world better. It feels almost pointless, if I’m being totally honest. People can be so horrible; there’s greed, want for power, soulless fools who think only of themselves. These are the so-called ‘civilized’ people of the world. This is not the first time I’ve been ashamed to be human.

And yet…there is hope. I’m not quite sure for what; it’s very ethereal and if I try to grasp it too hard or define it, it slips away, but my future prayers will be for the balance of life in all things. Everything wanted in life seems pointless, the stuff, the money, the need for bigger, better, more, but this – this has purpose.

Go see Avatar and see if it doesn’t change your perspective… I can’t be the only one.