I’m not the only one
Staring at the sun
Afraid of what you’d find
If you took a look inside
“Staring at the Sun” – U2
It used to be that without my glasses I couldn’t see. Then I got contacs. Both helped my vision, but 20/20 sight doesn’t guarantee clarity.
We live in a really busy world. We know this is true because we spend the majority of our day learning about the news and one another because we watch it on a screen. Our phones, our laptops—we’re everywhere in hi-def and in real time baby.
Yet we’re blind to some of our real defects: Pride—an intransigent intelligence that’s always right. Fear—standing still because we’re too afraid we’ll fail or don’t know if we possess the disciplined changes success actually requires. Apathy—Our permanent chair of comfort and convenience reserved for those of us who refuse to contemplate improving our lives or those around us.
Can you even name your blindness? This not knowing, or worse: not wanting to know. Maybe there is something more than what lies between both your ears and behind your eyes. What is it you choose not to see?
We are all like the books some of us used to read. Some of us are titled with names so noble or we’re wrapped in colorful jackets so beautiful, we nearly fall into the laps of those begging to slather us with attention. Others are like nineteenth century secret tomes with thick, dusty matte covers filled with ancient wisdom and epic adventures lived, but never imagined by others. And yet each of us still have blank pages left that have the potential to be filled with characters, and events the mind can’t even conceive.
In our endless attempt to know more, we’ve become less. Our lives don’t tell our stories. Our Facebook pages and Tweets and Pinterests do. We’re Linked In but we’re tuned out. Tuned out of what?
Relating.
Living.
A lot of things…..….
I know. I’m one of them. I want to be a writer. And possibly a photographer. It’s hard, dare I say impossible to get your name and/or work out there without wall-papering the web with your work coupled with a few prayers. Noticed is what we aim for.
We spend hours of our lives now, staring at screens of alternating distractions, hoping to produce something of lasting or intrinsic value.
Always looking out, all eighteen inches of it, but never digging deep, we’ve fallen into a state of perpetual sleep walkers. No wonder Zombies are in when it comes to entertainment. These high-definition pasty, distorted, pie-eyed brain-dead creatures mirror us more than we know.
We’re all staring at the sun. This never-ending bright sunshine of glass and buzz and liquid crystal colors mesmerizing us with news and trivia and useless information. It’s crack, and we don’t know it. Or worse, we do but we grow peacefully comfortable as we slowly succumb to the blissful addiction of avoiding reality.
Try to break free if you can–if you dare. Find out who you are. To really look inside yourself, you have to step out of that comfort zone! Turn off the computer and write your bucket list today. Because sometimes later never comes. Especially when we’re all so incredibly busy. Busy, staring at the sun.
u2areloved 