Soapbox of Perception - Imagine (as seen in Newsletter)

I would like to lead you on a mental exercise.

Think of your day, from beginning to end. You wake up. You break your fast, and groom yourself. You start your projects. You go to work or stay to work. You pick up groceries. You come home. You eat. You hang out with friends or family or both. You relax. You retire.

How many times did you pull out your wallet and give money to someone?

If it was none, yay. It was once or more, try again. Go through your day without giving money to anyone. Go through the day without receiving money from anyone. Keep everything else the same, including the picking up of groceries. Just take money totally out of the equation.

No, you're not stealing anything. You walk into the store, or get online, search for what you want, put it in the basket, even go through checkout for inventory or delivery purposes. And you leave the store or site. With no one chasing you. With no guilt. With the pleasant (or slightly annoyed) feeling of having accomplished another necessary chore.

Imagine that in your day. All the regular activities without money.

Imagine it in your week. Your month. Your year.

It's difficult to wrap your head around. It's taken me a long while to get past the reflex reaction of… if there's no money, how will I pay rent? How will I get food? How will I have electricity?

But imagine there is no money. Do the houses disappear? Does the soil quit growing produce? Do the cows quit giving milk? Do you stop?

During the Great Depression people didn't just cease to exist when they ran out of money. They may have killed themselves, or each other, but they didn't poof out of sight. The buildings stood vacant and fell into disrepair, they didn't vanish when the rent could no longer be paid. Think of this last economic crisis. The electricity didn't suddenly become unavailable when a person couldn't pay for it. It was turned off.

Despite the way we phrase it, money does not run the world. People use money to try and run other people. People use money as a status symbol, as power. And because money is the tool we use for goods exchange, people do a lot of things because they need money.

But what is money, really? It is an IOU. It is a form of barter using a middle man. Instead of working directly for the farmer and receiving milk and eggs and veg, you spend your time and energy at work. In exchange, work gives you money. You go to a store and trade the money for the edibles. The store has traded with the distributor, and the distributor trades with the farmer.

But money no longer represents the amount of energy expended.

Did I work any harder as an accountant than I did as a fast food clerk? No, I didn't. In fact, considering the smell and the quick tempo, the hazardous conditions, and polyester rash, fast food was probably a more difficult work environment than at-home bookkeeping.

And frankly, I work just as hard at writing as I did in the drive through station during rush hour. It's just different work.

So why is the monetary return so different, between energy expenditures: writer (zero); fast food worker (minimum wage); accountant (which could be anything from "nice" to "ridiculous"); retail; lawyer; teacher; insurance agent; doctor; politician; soldier; movie star?

Yes, yes. School and popularity and trends and fashion and science. So many philosophical and psychological discussions to tackle! And in my opinion, those are all, well, opinions.

For this article, let's just take money out of the picture.

Imagine: your health care doesn't depend on what you can afford. Imagine you can have whatever house brings you happiness, in whatever state or country you wish. Imagine you can train for whatever occupation you wish. Imagine wearing the clothes you like. Imagine driving the car you want to drive.

Imagine, more importantly, you could try a hundred different options until you found one that really truly suited you down to the ground. What are you doing with your life? What opportunities, options, possibilities for happiness have just opened up?

And, yes. I hear you. If there is no money, why would anyone work? Who would provide the health care, the houses, the street cleaning? What would motivate us? How would there be enough cool clothes, or cars, or food?  And how would we decide who gets which houses? Which cars? Which fancy stuff and which crap stuff?

Good questions. I hope to explore this subject further in a future article, now that I've actually managed to articulate the thesis. That money is not an accurate representative of the energy expended.

Perhaps you have the answer.

Imagine.

I hope you have a great day!

-Lila

Soapbox of Perception: Fairy Tales & REAL true love

If you have known love, you have known the pain of loss.  Whether that love is familial or passionate; codependent or independent; for people, places or things; there's always pain when there is separation.

Love is painful because there is a balance.  For all of the height and security and joy in love, there is an equal depth and despair and desolation in love's loss.  Connections and faith aside, the lack of love's physical presence is wrenching.  If our senses are unable to feast upon the object of our love, we are bereft.   As humans we are prone to being, as the song says, "addicted to love", but it is one addiction for which there is no rehabilitation.  When we lose our current drug of choice, we have two options.  We can love again.  Or we can't. 

For me, the choice is pretty clear.  Because I grew up on fairy tales.

There is a lot of controversy surrounding fairy tales.  Disney's light hearted treatment versus the original Grimm horror stories (complete with "adult" subtext).   The daydreaming girl versus the hardworking woman.  The brainwashing moral that all a girl has to do is be kind, virtuous, and a good housewife.  Versus "First he put me on a pedestal, and then he asked me to dust it."

And the common perception is, those sweet little princesses just sat around and sang while they waited for a man to rescue them.

Which is a load of crap.  And I can say that, because I too have spouted the anti-princess line.  I was wrong.

Yes, the princesses sang, at least in Disney's versions.  Yes, there was daydreaming and it usually involved a handsome lad.  They were teenagers.  But none of them just sat around and waited.

Many of the princesses survived tragedy -- often the loss of one or both parents, the loss of a home, and/or the transition of their whole world.  Cinderella, for example, went from pampered and much loved daughter to slave.  Her whole identity was stripped from her and her father never stood up for her.  Snow White lost mother and then father and was ordered killed.  Tiana lost her father.  Rapunzel never even knew her family; her identity hinged on the way she was treated by the witch.  Princess Elsa endured the worst sort of tragedy.  Her parents loved her and  taught her to imprison herself.   Then they died.

For some, the tragedy wasn't as seemingly intense.  Belle's family life seemed pretty decent, with or without siblings.  Aurora had a fine childhood, whether with fairies or with parents.  And it doesn't appear Ariel had to do a lick of housework.  But even Belle, Aurora and Ariel wanted more than the life they had.  They knew they deserved more.  If they were willing to go for it.

Whether the imprisonment was actual or spiritual, each girl had a situation they wanted out of.  Perhaps the dreaming was a form of escapism.  But dreaming doesn't free a person, no matter how many stars you wish upon.  You have to believe.  You have to have the strength of character to grasp the chance when it rolls by.

Cinderella, constantly berated by the female role-models in her life, still made a wish.  When it came true, she believed she had the right to her good fortune.  However unreal it felt, she not only danced with the prince, she presented herself again to get the glass slipper.  She demanded her dream come true, and her dream was love.

When Snow White was offered her life, she ran - not back to the home she knew, but away and to freedom.  And still she dreamed of romance and kindness.  Even after 3 more murder attempts, she was open to love.

Belle imprisoned herself for one love.  And by being open and accepting and expectant, she received another.

Ariel dared a scary bargain because she believed in love and she believed in herself enough to expect love in return.

Aurora trusted that no matter who she was, she could be true to love.

Tiana and Elsa conquered their own fears and allowed themselves to love.

All of those princesses rescued themselves by opening to love - and not just, or not only, the romantic love.  They had to love themselves.  Love their dreams.  Love the life around them, or at least be open to the possibilities.   Even though they had lost love already.  Even though some of them might have been happier, in the short run, to shut down their hearts.  Any one of them could have turned their back on hope, believed they deserved their imprisoned existence, and stayed dreaming forever.  Instead, they chose to be open.  To love.

Who could be better role models?

 When I first met these girls, my tragedies of love lost were limited to pets and boyfriends, outgrown clothes and misplaced books.  Since then, I have loved and lost homes, vehicles, jobs, friends and family.  And while some of these losses were voluntary, and while I do believe in connections, and while I do have faith that nothing is ever truly lost from us, still any loss is painful.  Time heals and still, it is painful.  Memories dim, and still... 

Isolation is so very tempting.  Because the more we are open, the more we expand.  The more we expand,  the more we get to feed our addiction.  And oh, it is true.  The more we love, the more we feel loss when that love is gone.  The more we feel the change of every leaf, the flap of every bird's wing.  The more we mourn the simplest of things.

But a bookworm with an absent minded father can take the reins when the time comes and change her world.  A mermaid can leave her home behind for the chance of something more spectacular.  A weary house-slave and a hard working waitress can both gather the energy to dance at the ball just to keep their dream alive.  They worked.  And they loved.  And they have happily ever after.

Because it isn't about loving a specific item or being.  It is simply about love.

The happily-ever-after isn't in the object of our love.  It is in ourselves.

Therefore.  I can keep my heart open and accept all sorts of love, be it family or friends, eros or agape,  animate or inanimate, seen or unseen.  I can love and lose and love and lose again.  Because I believe in myself.  And I have the strength to keep expanding, to keep believing,  to ask for and work for and accept my dreams, to turn my frogs and my beasts in princes, and to have my happily-ever-after.

I am a princess.   Are you?

- Lila (who wishes you a loving day.)

List of Favorite Fairy Tales versions:

Favorite Tellings  (traditional tale, mostly)	Favorite Retellings  (a different spin)	Favorite Others
Let's Pretend (http://www.artsreformation.com/records/) This is the recordings of the tales, in theatrical format.	Cameron Dokey  - author (especially Midnight and Golden)	Wyrd Sisters  (Terry Pratchett)
The Glass Slipper (Charles Perrault)	Spindle's End (Robin McKinley)	10th Kingdom (mini-series)
Sleeping Beauty (Disney)	Ever After (movie)	Fairy Godmother (Mercedes Lackey)
Tangled (Disney)		Enchanted (movie)
Beauty (Robin McKinley)