Monday, February 2, 2015

It's Only Make-Believe (Apologies to Conway Twitty)

I have a few recurrent dreams.

In one I am under the basket on a basketball court,  in a real game because we are all wearing uniforms. I catch the ball on the low post, a dream in itself, then gather myself and explode upward, breaking free of the defender's arms that are grabbing and slapping. Upon reaching that height which, in the real world, was always my limit, I keep ascending, higher and higher, in slow motion, hanging in the air for seconds before coming down to slam the ball through the hoop, doing a pull-up on the rim and dropping neatly to the floor.

It is a great dream.  And I wish it were true.  But it is not.

Gravity is real.

In another dream I am swimming under water.  Someone is waiting to shoot me when I surface. As I begin to panic I start to breathe . . . underwater.  Suddenly I realize that if I suck water in slowly through my clenched teeth I can breathe just fine, stay under as long as I want, and convince my enemies that I have drowned.

It is a great relief, this ability to breathe underwater.  I wish it were true. But it is not.

If I breathe in water, I will drown.

When I was a child I would climb on top of our long picnic table, run the length of it with my terry cloth towel cape flapping behind me, and launch myself into space at the other end of the table, sure that I would be able to break the surly bonds of earth and fly.  I believed that my new P. F. Flyer tennis shoes with the secret built in wedge would make me jump higher and run faster.  I would walk down the hall of our house punching the wall after eating a bowl of cheerios or gagging down a helping of spinach because the Cheerios ad and Popeye told me I could.

When I was 13 I watched the TV in horror as my hero, Robert Kennedy, lie on the floor of that hotel in California, blood flowing from his head after being shot. His eyes were open. The news later said the wound was most likely fatal.  But his eyes were open as he lie on the floor. That was what I saw. That meant he was obviously doing better than they said.  His eyes were open. The doctors were wrong.

But I could not really fly, or run or jump higher or punch holes in walls (a blessing in retrospect).  It was make-believe.  Great fun. But make-believe.  And Robert Kennedy died that night.

I am never hurt in my dreams. I wake up just fine. My child-hood make believe flights and sparring rounds with the wall offered little chance for serious injury.  And there was nothing I could do for Robert Kennedy.

But living in a dream or playing make believe or thinking that we can do nothing about the problems that face our grown up world is dangerous, and deadly, for us, and even more sad, for the generations that follow.

Climate change is real.  Vaccinations are essential for the safety and health of our children and pose little risk.  Water is a limited resource.  Pollution threatens the health of our environment, and the health of humanity.  Oil extraction, on land and water, exacts a devastating toll on the environment.  Coal extraction is no better.  The burning of fossil fuels is a major contributor to climate change, and air and water pollution.  Alternative fuel sources are viable.  Corporate agriculture is polluting our rivers and the Gulf of Mexico with fertilizer and insecticides, subjecting our crop land to over use, and threatening our health with livestock additives designed for heavier weights in less time.  And much more.  Add by commenting if you wish.

Some of you are already denying, finding the exceptions to the general rule to prove your point.  You may be right about the exceptions.  You may be wrong.  As might I.

But there is this thing about facts.  They are self-confident.

What you or I believe about them makes no difference.

But what we do about them makes all the difference in the world.

Literally.

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