Just a quick note…
Posted on 09 October 2009
I find myself suddenly moving beyond myself. I suspect/hope this is a relief to some. It seems important (at least to me) to stay personal and as real as possible as to what it is to be human wandering around LA (and environs) at the start of this (still new) millennium. I think that’s part of the job description of the poet in me. Keep it personal (at times even quite messy and vulnerable), but personal can’t help getting tangled up in those around me. A strange and growing net community is one element of that. People on the street is another.
And I guess I’m learning, or exploring (hopefully growing). Hence Robert Hayden yesterday and Robert Sheer today. There will be others not named Robert who will appear here as well.
The Nobel peace prize. Pretty wild. Obama got elected on hope. Now he’s gotten the peace prize for the same reason, I believe. Hope is a start. Hope is not substance. Hope is not jobs or food or the end of a war.
Let’s hope this Nobel peace prize ends up being more than just an expression of hope. Robert Sheer’s article puts a worrisome shadow on that hope, but a shadow implies illumination somewhere and in the end I believe illumination (ie the truth) will trump hope every time.
5 responses to Just a quick note…
“There will be others not named Robert who will appear here as well.”
Thanks for the early morning smile you put on my face with that one!
“A strange and growing net community is one element of that.”
Oh dear you find us strange? Maybe in the same way that some folks here find you strange? Today’s strangers will be tomorrow’s friends. I for one, look forward to more of your personal, messy, vulnerable stuff. I think that’s the part that cuts across artificial barriers to unite us human beings.
“a shadow implies illumination somewhere and in the end I believe illumination (ie the truth) will trump hope every time.”
Amen.
I’m still working on a reply to your Fear post. So much to think about in that one, especially my own dual responses to fear.
First of all, thank you for all your thoughtful replies. It’s meant a lot to me. This is still a little baby blog and all the kindness and support it can get really matters. Until I started this blog (a few months back) I had really taken some time off from the world, perhaps a bit like living in a cave. I wrote a lot, thought a lot, read a lot, did my analysis (dream interpretation) and was really quite happy. Since the start of the blog I have been stepping back more and more into the world.
The world is, frankly, a scary place. Hence, “Fear.” So many of my fellow humans have drifted into such distorted places and, to be honest, I completely understand. I have been to many of those distorted places myself. It’s why I ran off to my “cave.” But at this point in our species’ history none of us can really run away. Certainly I began to feel that I couldn’t. For better or worse I needed to contribute my little bit. And it seems that you do too. And it helps me in my journey as I hope (as it seems) what I wrote and video does for you.
The pace of this stepping out into the world is picking up and it’s hard to keep all of this going. But not impossible. Not impossible, but hard sometimes. On the other hand everything I’ve been putting into this website has been more than come back to me (including your responses.)
I’m looking forward to your thoughts on “Fear” and also on where this blog is beginning to pull me now. An adventure. As are the other projects that are beginning to pull at me: not only some more TV (there will be some videos on that) to pay bills, but my children’s book/film “A Yellow Kite.” and a movie (to be shot in Seattle next summer, called “GrassRoots.”
There will be much to talk about, many fears to overcome, many joys to be enjoyed…
I think your response post above got cut off mid-sentence?
Not it was just a left over piece that didn’t get erased. Fixed.
Two posts in a row, trust you’ll bear with me.
It’s back to Obama. Yesterday (it’s a new day for me already) when I heard about his Peace prize, I had several questions. I was asking a friend (who also follows your blog) whether Stephen Gyllenhaal and myself were the only ones to be hard headed about Obama. I’m always apprehensive about “peacemakers” (no I’m not labelling Obama that way, I still don’t know him well enough and I’m watching him with hope). They try to please too many people and in the process they often compromise on what they really believe in. There’s a point where you just need to stand by what you know to be true and fair, the rest be damned. My own life was a mess till I decided to do that. But that means dealing with fear. In a way turning fear into ones friend and guide as you’ve said.
Obama has immense talent and a standing in the world community that can enable him to call the shots and get away with it. If he takes that risk we can have real change. Real peace comes about through confrontation of another sort. Not confrontation of one another as in our senseless wars, but of ones own fears. He needs to face those and embrace them.
That’s the hope we keep nurturing about him, and it seems the hope has started to falter. Stephen, you and your fellow Americans are directly affected by what he does, I’m indirectly affected but in a big way, because he is really influential in the world community. I’ve been thinking for months now, were he to take a bold step for gay rights, (ok I picked just one out of many issues because it has blown up very big in several countries) India would be left with no choice. Both our great countries have amazing Constitutions. We just need reminders about that.
Thanks for giving us this space to share our thoughts freely. And here’s to the audacity of something more than mere hope!
Now off to read your other posts. You’ve put a whole string of them out.