Master Of The Symphony: Compose Your Self

November 22nd, 2009

“All right ya’ll, listen here,” she shouts from her roof top.  “This is your call to arms!”

Donning her soapbox, she speaks,

“You want to know what the demise of humankind will be?  Our demise will be that we, the collective humankind, have stopped thinking.”  Emphatically she taps her index finger to her temple.

“We have become lemmings who have all of the necessities yet none of the motivation.  We have slid down the path from human BEings to human DOers.  We allow other people, other things, other entities to do our thinking… for what?”  She pauses, and says with disgust, “The convenience of it al?.”

“We drown our sorrows in spirits and we numb our minds with television, Facebook, and video games.  We sell our time and our souls to businesses, so that we can earn a paycheck.  We turn around and spend that paycheck at the grocery store, at the fast food places, at the malls, and at the bars.  We go to bed with roofs over our heads that most can only dream of ever owning, lying our heads against pillows that whisk us away into a six hour dream land so that we can wake up the next day and do it all over again.  We do it all in the name of a fight with collection agencies and credit bureaus for some semblance of what we think is Our Stake in This Land,” she says, accentuating the last few words with a loud but firm press of her foot to the ground.

“I can’t entirely disagree with the premise presented in Crime and Punishment that there are two sorts of people: the ordinary and the extraordinary,” and with a breath she gives the words definition,  “Those who are ordinary have mastered their existences upon the goal of DOing.  Do get up, do go to work, do come home, do make dinner, do your homework, do get to bed, do it all over again tomorrow.  Those who are extraordinary do a lot of thinking.   They think until their brains pop out of their ears and in an AHA! moment, find new ways of seeing and thinking that revolutionize the path that humanity will take in the future… ah, the ever-loving future.  No one wants to think about it, and everyone is afraid of it.”  Solemnly she bows her head for a moment.

“What I’m here to ask of you, yes you,” she points at the person closest, “who reads from your quaint computer desk, maybe you who reads from your laptop in the library…”  Turning on her heel, she spots another and points,  “Yes, you, I’m here to ask you to begin thinking for a change.”  With arms outstretched towards the heaven she shouts, “Step outside of the box that you have been taught is the end all, be all, and start coloring outside of the lines!”

“What is it, precisely that separates all of the world’s great thinkers from you personally?  I can count on all of my shortest appendages,” she says with her fingers splayed out, “those who took risks and thought deeply: Socrates, Aristotle, Jesus, Buddha, Dalai Lama, Isaac Newton, Mother Theresa, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, Bill Gates, to name a few.”  Pausing to make sure everyone is still listening, she then continues, “What’s the difference now?  With as great the increase in population since then, you’d think there would be more thinkers than we could possibly imagine!” With a second of nearly faultering, she recovers herself,  “I’m here to call you out, to challenge YOU to not get lost in the masses.  You, the inventor, you, the philosopher, you, the magi, you, the revolutionary, step up!  Step outside of the convenience of grocery and retail meccas, step outside of The Way Things Are, and allow your imagination to flourish!”

As the last words cross her lips, something  unusual began to catch the eyes of the masses.  One by one, they notice streaks of light across the sky as sparkling bits of dust stream into the earth’s atmosphere.  Shooting stars, one might say, but this was something of even more magical origin.  Glittering lights slowly become more frequent, and the rising sun does not leave its sunrise behind.  Hues of pinks, reds, blues, yellows, and greens glow in the sky.

“Congratulations!” she begins again, “Together, we are living within the Age of Information.  All that has ever been thought is here, inside this relatively simply box, at your fingertips.  Pick a topic and dive into your passion.  Learn as much as you possibly can about anything that suits your fancy!  Imagine new ways to solve age-old problems.  Stop this lemming madness!  Educate yourself outside of the world of academia.  Hell, educate yourself from within the world of academia– I don’t care!  Just BE and THINK something! Question all that you’ve been taught.  Question your morals and your values, your ethics and priorities, your cultural norms and your expectations!  Do not be still, get up and DANCE this earthly dance, mastering the old movements and authoring the new!”

“Open your horizons, people,” she says softly.  In almost a whisper, “Expand your minds.  Find innovative ways to make all that what IS become something better.  You can do this.  The only boundaries you have… are self imposed.”  And with no further ado, she jogs to one side of the rooftop, circling around as she approaches the ledge.  With a full on run, she looks straight ahead, and as she bounds off the side, and into the crisp autumn air she hollers over her shoulder,  ” Just leap!”