March 26, 2025
Every week, sometimes on Tuesday but more and more
lately on Wednesday, I settle myself down at my keyboard to write my weekly
essay. I ensure I have water, and a blanket for my legs, and that I’m positioned
just right in my chair. But what I never have, as I set out to write Wednesday’s
Words, is any idea of what it is I’m going to give you.
You could ask one hundred writers where they find the
inspiration for their words, and you will likely get one hundred different
answers. Mine isn’t perhaps the most unique, but it’s true: I don’t know where
it comes from, I just know when its arrived.
This morning, as I was getting ready to get to it, I
took a rare not-end-of day trip to the land of YouTube. Fortunately, there were
no rabbit holes in my path, but my mind did wander, which is S.O.P. (standard
operating procedure) for me.
And I was thinking how odd our world is. It’s like we’re
living in a two-story mega building, in a way. One floor is given to those who
have agendas with varying twists and turns and machinations thrown in for good
measure. They have plans, intricate plans, based mostly on their own egos—their
own sense of self. And the other floor is
just regular folks living their everyday lives. They get up, go to work, come
home, and do whatever. They have plans, too, but not ones that are egocentric.
They plan to just be. They plan to get together with friends, go clubbing, catch
a game on the television, or just sit quietly and listen to music.
On the one floor there are poseurs who don’t realize
that they are; bullies who believe they’re in charge and rightfully so;
and scavengers who only want to get as much as they can as fast as they can
because they can.
On the other floor there are people who have dreams,
and aspirations, and goals—and not all just for themselves. They look for ways
to share their time, and when someone needs a hand, they give it without
consideration or expectation of gain in return for themselves.
Each floor has its own way of doing things, and each
floor operates completely independent of the other.
The one floor—the one with the movers and the shakers
and the wanna-be king makers—isn’t overly crowded, but it’s crowded enough. And
they understand, you see, that there are folks living presumably beneath them,
but because they are, in their minds “beneath them”, and they don’t
think much beyond that somewhat subjective fact. After all, they can’t be much
of anything, they say, because if they were they’d be “up here” instead of “down
there”.
The other floor, folks just want to live their lives
day to day, just want to be and to see and yes, to love. They are content for
the most part to let that other floor do what they want to do where they are.
They don’t let that floor get to them, because why would they?
After that image had fully taken root in my mind, I
begin to think, as I often do, “what if”?
What if life really is 95% perception?
Facts are facts, but if folks don’t accept the facts, what
happens then?
Do you see the trouble I get myself into when I spend too
much time thinking?
It all comes down to a choice. What’s more important
in life—the fact that you’re not rich, or your ability to find contentment
regardless of that fact?
Perception is important because it acknowledges fact
and then chooses how to interpret that fact.
This is important. Because another fact is there are
more people on the one floor than there are on the other; and those others—the movers
and the shakers and the wanna-be king makers—hold a second serious disadvantage
aside from being outnumbered.
Their inability either to trust or to be trustworthy works
directly against every other single advantage that they think they have.
So, I’m not going to worry overmuch. I figure that
things will change for the better when enough people get to the point where
they’ve simply had enough.
Love,
Morgan
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury