Evolution (that won't make your Baptist mother cringe)
I'm having one of those INSANELY introspective days...I'm thinking about everything and I can't seem to make myself stop. I get into this habit of overwhelming myself, but then a friend of mine from Barter posted a blog on facebook and something kind of clicked in my head. I wasn't necessarily thinking about evolution or the hopes for another Renaissance, but something about his acceptance of change and order kind of got to me. I've pasted it below. The author is Matt Greenbaum, he's a phenomenal actor (from what I've heard) and a great guy, so here you go:
The other day, across the platform, stood a man with no shoes. Just a-strumming on his twelve string with lavender-socked feet pounding at the subway tiles below. With scruffy beard and weather worn brow. At 12:45 in the morning.
and now a bit of stream and consciousness......
We evolve. We change and are changed. Choices made or undecided and inexplicably given. Indecision. Turns and bends in the road. All things constant in every distinctly insignificant morsel of this existence. On this level. That we interpret. Or attempt to interpret. That brings joy, life, creativity, remorse, guilt, shame, insecurities, fears, what have you. Everything is a spark. A discovery. That in the instant of its arrival becomes a moment. The past. History. We are such stuff as dreams are made on. Inspiration lives forever as only a memory. Of what could be or what has never been. Inspiration remembers history and feeds our hope for a future. It is the music to our soul. The paint on the canvas. The heated embers. All it takes is a spark. And then it fades away into nothing.
And I saw a memory. One perhaps that was never mine. Just thinking of the weight this life can bear. That in this same place. The same place that connected the Atlantic port to the Agricultural heart of our country. That saw industry revolutionized, that brought the tired and hungry and poor into Her faithful arms. This place that secured liberty in its heart while tirelessly taking the same self-proclaimed freedoms away. Prohibitionized, unionized, reborn again. Revolting for civil liberties through labor reform and national unity. Urbanized. Unified. And yes sometimes vilified. Fought its way out of a Great Depression only to come crawling on its hands and knees back into another just 70 some odd years later. By corruption and greed. Are we Rome? Or just a throwback to the old days. Have we, will we, or can we evolve? And what is next?
Is it cyclical? Who will be the next John Lennon, Steinbeck, Dylan, Kesey, Bukowski? The next Brando, Meisner, innovator, thinker, doer.
Is there hope for another renaissance? And can we do anything about it?
Hope. It is the word of the year it seems. And I do believe, for once. In something. In air. And maybe just in standing up. Or turning a tv off once in a while. I don't know.
Tonight I saw Ralph Stanley sing songs from the mountain tonight. At my job. And remembered the greatness that can come out of those mountains. Just by working hard, needing less, believing more in your fellow person. As "Angel Band" played us off into the encores, I can't help but give thanks to this journey and the road ahead.
A little faith and humility in this world -- what wonders it does.
To have lived is to have loved every part.
And the parts we've played in this charade.
millions.....to each and every one of us.
The other day, across the platform, stood a man with no shoes. Just a-strumming on his twelve string with lavender-socked feet pounding at the subway tiles below. With scruffy beard and weather worn brow. At 12:45 in the morning.
and now a bit of stream and consciousness......
We evolve. We change and are changed. Choices made or undecided and inexplicably given. Indecision. Turns and bends in the road. All things constant in every distinctly insignificant morsel of this existence. On this level. That we interpret. Or attempt to interpret. That brings joy, life, creativity, remorse, guilt, shame, insecurities, fears, what have you. Everything is a spark. A discovery. That in the instant of its arrival becomes a moment. The past. History. We are such stuff as dreams are made on. Inspiration lives forever as only a memory. Of what could be or what has never been. Inspiration remembers history and feeds our hope for a future. It is the music to our soul. The paint on the canvas. The heated embers. All it takes is a spark. And then it fades away into nothing.
And I saw a memory. One perhaps that was never mine. Just thinking of the weight this life can bear. That in this same place. The same place that connected the Atlantic port to the Agricultural heart of our country. That saw industry revolutionized, that brought the tired and hungry and poor into Her faithful arms. This place that secured liberty in its heart while tirelessly taking the same self-proclaimed freedoms away. Prohibitionized, unionized, reborn again. Revolting for civil liberties through labor reform and national unity. Urbanized. Unified. And yes sometimes vilified. Fought its way out of a Great Depression only to come crawling on its hands and knees back into another just 70 some odd years later. By corruption and greed. Are we Rome? Or just a throwback to the old days. Have we, will we, or can we evolve? And what is next?
Is it cyclical? Who will be the next John Lennon, Steinbeck, Dylan, Kesey, Bukowski? The next Brando, Meisner, innovator, thinker, doer.
Is there hope for another renaissance? And can we do anything about it?
Hope. It is the word of the year it seems. And I do believe, for once. In something. In air. And maybe just in standing up. Or turning a tv off once in a while. I don't know.
Tonight I saw Ralph Stanley sing songs from the mountain tonight. At my job. And remembered the greatness that can come out of those mountains. Just by working hard, needing less, believing more in your fellow person. As "Angel Band" played us off into the encores, I can't help but give thanks to this journey and the road ahead.
A little faith and humility in this world -- what wonders it does.
To have lived is to have loved every part.
And the parts we've played in this charade.
millions.....to each and every one of us.