Post by MagnetMan on Nov 11, 2009 11:36:42 GMT -5
For many years I have had nightmarish dreams with a recurring theme
I find myself in one or another large city
that I once lived in years earlier
I have the destination of an old haunt in mind
and head off through the city to revisit it
but the city has grown exponentially since I was last there
I can no longer find familiar land marks
the more I search
the more disoriented I become
I never find what I am looking for
or even know why I was looking for it in the first place
I end up broke
homeless
lost
I awake from these nightmares
feeling hopeless
the dreams force me to wonder
what I am doing with my life?
where am I going?
what is my purpose?
What is my destination?
These feelings of futility
dis-empowerment
and pointlessness are heightened
by the fact that i dropped out of the rat race 15 years ago
deliberately removed all the conventional security blankets
that are designed to give focus and purpose to life
I gave up my career and its ambitions
to live an isolated life in the desert with my family
These years of contemplation
and disengagement in the desert
have allowed me to look outside my own life
at the lives of the society I once shared in the cities
which I was once familiar with
and the old ambitions that drove me
I see people scurrying back and forth
from home to work and back again
going about their business
living their designer lives
with their purpose and destinations seemingly clear before them
I have grown to wonder
if people really know what city they are living in
and if they know exactly where they are going?
what haunts do they keep visiting?
what is their individual destinations?
What is their collective destination?
do they have an unfailing life compass
that will keep them fully orientated
from birth to death?
Or
are they also not living in a dream
that could become a nightmare?
will they also realize that the familiar city
has grown exponentially since they were last awake
that eventually
familiar landmarks will be increasingly hard to find
ambitions increasingly hollow
leaving them disorientated when they awake
feeling hopelessly lost
like me?
I find myself in one or another large city
that I once lived in years earlier
I have the destination of an old haunt in mind
and head off through the city to revisit it
but the city has grown exponentially since I was last there
I can no longer find familiar land marks
the more I search
the more disoriented I become
I never find what I am looking for
or even know why I was looking for it in the first place
I end up broke
homeless
lost
I awake from these nightmares
feeling hopeless
the dreams force me to wonder
what I am doing with my life?
where am I going?
what is my purpose?
What is my destination?
These feelings of futility
dis-empowerment
and pointlessness are heightened
by the fact that i dropped out of the rat race 15 years ago
deliberately removed all the conventional security blankets
that are designed to give focus and purpose to life
I gave up my career and its ambitions
to live an isolated life in the desert with my family
These years of contemplation
and disengagement in the desert
have allowed me to look outside my own life
at the lives of the society I once shared in the cities
which I was once familiar with
and the old ambitions that drove me
I see people scurrying back and forth
from home to work and back again
going about their business
living their designer lives
with their purpose and destinations seemingly clear before them
I have grown to wonder
if people really know what city they are living in
and if they know exactly where they are going?
what haunts do they keep visiting?
what is their individual destinations?
What is their collective destination?
do they have an unfailing life compass
that will keep them fully orientated
from birth to death?
Or
are they also not living in a dream
that could become a nightmare?
will they also realize that the familiar city
has grown exponentially since they were last awake
that eventually
familiar landmarks will be increasingly hard to find
ambitions increasingly hollow
leaving them disorientated when they awake
feeling hopelessly lost
like me?
