The following is a post I made to my Facebook account many months ago. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed reading it again.
I began watching a movie on TV this morning titled, "The Story Lady", starring, Jessica Tandy. As I watched, Mrs. Tandy began to read a childrens' story on a Public Access Cable Television show and I remembered reading this along with many other stories as a child and later reading them to my boys when they were young. My mind began to drift back to the days when I was a scrapping young boy running headlong into the world ahead of me. I recalled how fascinating it was back then to find a trail of ants meandering through the bright green carpet of fresh grass in the spring and searching for their home hidden beneath the leaf of one of the weeds growing there. Once the pile of dirt was discovered it became to me a volcano erupting and the ants the flow of lava. I'd always have to find where the lava was flowing to and would follow the ants trail back the other direction. Sometimes it would lead to a piece of candy that I or one of my fellow young adventurers had dropped one day earlier in the week. I'd sometimes never find their destination and would find another interesting thing which took my mind off of the ants as they worked.
A thing struck deep to my core as I was recalling my youthful, imaginative days. I had watched my future Grandchildren playing a so-called Dance Game on their game machine recently. Oh! It's a nice one. The kind that sees your motions and puts YOU into the game. I observed with wonder as they would move their hands in a deliberate 'waving' motion to change things with the menu. I began to get very bored with the "game" very quickly after the technological aspect of the game system's limitations were realized. I stood there mesmerized! Not with the game or the system but with the children! They were imitating what they saw on the screen to get points. No use of their minds at all. It's as if they became hypnotized to all the motion, sound and colors coming from the system. It's as if the game was calling after them to "Just follow me"!
We have, through our busy work schedules and activities in places like Facebook, become a Nation of sheep! Our children are taught more and more to be a follower or a (God! I hate this term!) "Team Player"! They are taught to follow and not to lead. Following is something for the weak and for those who can't think for themselves. They neglect homework and even school to play games and chat with their "friends" on MySpace or Facebook. Hell! Most kids even have phones with internet access and have games loaded on the phones. Why do parents no longer engage their children at early ages. My parents worked and I had chores, homework and guitar practice to keep me busy. I still had time to find new adventures out in the yard or in the woods across the street. Many of my contemporaries enjoy playing computer games. I have tried to play games many times before on the computer or with game systems but I always get very bored very quickly with them. I suppose it's because I'm not a sheep. I'd rather spend my energies using my imagination to help me come up with ways of doing things or to write songs or to make something or.........you get the picture.
I still enjoy going outside to stand and look around if nothing else. I watched a young Praying Mantis the other day for at least an hour. I was enthralled with this natural born killer. While studying him, I imagined what would happen if a slower moving moth might light near him. I could actually see the attack and subsequent meal that would surely follow in my mind. When out at night, I always look up to the stars. I can stand there naming to myself all the constellations that I remember and try to determine which of the lights up there is planet or star. I'll identify whether a star is red or blue shifted as best I can without the aid of a telescope or other instrumentation. My mind always wanders to what might exist out there. I picture what other strange worlds might look like. It's not because I'm old and can't move around well. I stay still and observe because it always leads to my imagination kicking in and taking me places I'll never be able to go and helps me dream up new things that maybe, just maybe no one else has come up with yet.
I'm glad I was brought up NOT to be a sheep but to be a leader. A thinker brought up to know how the imagination can work miracles! How it can make you be anyone or anything you choose. How it can make you travel to the other side of the world, the solar system, the universe and more without leaving the comfort of your recliner. Sheep are dumb and that's why they follow and need direction. Thinkers find a direction where the trail seems impassible or nonexistent. Here's some food for thought. Where would this world be now if folks like Aristotle, Newton, Da Vinci, Columbus, Beethoven, Renoir, Elvis, Einstein, Herbert, Hawking and so many others be if they all grew up with an X-Box Live? Kinda sends a chill up your spine, Huh?
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