Th3 Simple Questions

SOME OF US ESCAPED

WHO WERE WE?

We were raised on fairytales, loose parts and pocket knives. Our breakfast cereal was robbery served in cardboard refrigerator boxes. We treasured potential-filled junk. We were inventors, heroes, bad guys, prisoners and monsters. Someone suffered, tragically. There were bruises earned by freedom and exploration. We lunched on possibilities and inspiration. We roamed mountain tops and captured flags. We hated, conspired, plotted, and betrayed. We explored the bitterness of guilt and discovered the sweet capacity to forgive. We suffered courageously, dangerously and creatively.

WHY WERE WE HERE?

Life began to sort us out in childhood. We moved into self-selected groups like animals herding. The loud ones over THERE! Frightened? Here. Ruthless? There. Kind? Stay with me. We found one another. Then we were sent to the teachers. They took away our mountain tops and gave us playground slides, one-way journeys. They wanted us to behave. Stick to task. Then our parents, who were modern, thought life needed goals. So childhood became about accomplishment. They led some kids away to nurture their gifts and pushed them into molds of rules, white lines and competition. You’re not good at this. Try that. Specialization. Careers. They tried to get us all. Even pirates or pretend bad guys got labeled and sorted.

WHAT DO WE WANT?

Some of us escaped, somehow. We didn’t fit into the mold. We became the risk takers, start-up founders, the entrepreneurs and craftspeople. Lots of musicians and artists. The creatives. We have dinner with the others, who live in their carefully crafted skill-sets, follow their career paths and retirement plans. We envy their stability; they envy our uniqueness. They talk excitedly about bonus-mile trips to the mountains. We suggest we have a mountain right here and that we should get together and tackle heroin use in the neighborhood. They say rules, white lines, and uniforms. We say suffer courageously, dangerously and creatively. My friend says “upgrades.” I whisper “pocket knives.”