The Tale of the Lost Wind

Okay, dear reader, get ready. I don’t know where I’m going with this, but I’m starting with the word “lost.”

Lost to me is a word that embodies several things. It embodies hopelessness and loneliness. It embodies uncertainty. It embodies adventure. It speaks to me of triumph. It reminds me that what we find isn’t always what we were looking for, but sometimes what we want isn’t what we were looking for either.

I get lost. This can be an expensive hobby, depending on the method and duration. When I was young and careless, I often drove my car in random directions for a while until I wasn’t sure where I was going, just that the sun was setting in the west. Then I would drive until I found myself in someplace familiar again. I sometimes had to call for help from the native population, but in general, I couldn’t help but feel a rush as I realized that I had no idea where I was and it was possible that I might end up driving forever but never able to find my way back. I always ended up home, though. Otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this rather random composition here and now. There’s something so free about being unable to get somewhere you didn’t want to be, though. Someone can call you wondering why you aren’t showing up, but you can’t help it; you don’t know how to get there from here. Usually no one notices you’ve been lost though.

I generally get lost alone though. This is good for some reasons; other people sometimes freak out because they hate being lost. Sometimes they pull out their GPS, which instantly reassures them that they can get back within a set number of minutes as long as they don’t take any of the tantalizing side roads. Sometimes they even fall asleep, which is about the most dampening thing one can do while on a high-adrenaline adventure. But other times, getting lost with someone else means stopping for a photo op, having someone to open your root beer while you’re driving, or having an echo of affirmation when you spot something amazing. When I’m alone, it’s just me driving, sometimes talking to myself, but overall, just excitedly thinking about the next corner I might come to.

When I get lost walking, though, I prefer to be alone. It’s probably not safe to do that, but I honestly don’t care. Walking is an activity I use to enthrall myself with the realness of everything outside myself. The air around me, the earth beneath me, and the many colorful blotches of whatever scenery is slowly drifting past as my feet tap along to a swaying rhythm. I lose myself to sensual experiencing. It’s the only time I can avoid thinking and just feel for a few minutes. My emotions become still and it’s just physical sensations surrounding me, breathing through me, merging with me. Then I become tired, and I return breathless, not because of exertion, but because all my breath was stolen away as it collapsed into the realness of existence.

I stand on a hilltop with the sun caressing my face as the wind picks up my soul and carries it away as I breathe. Then there’s nothing but me and the wind.

Ah! This is so much better than the other kinds of lost I have felt. I have felt lost and confused in a world where I don’t belong. I have felt lost as I’ve been rejected and had no place else to go. I have felt lost as I realized that I had no one to call. I have felt lost as I’ve discovered that there are only a few people who really understand me or want to. I have felt lost as I look at my options and realize that the only places left to go are on paths that I must not walk upon. Feeling lost isn’t always a euphoric experience. There’s a huge difference between being physically lost (not knowing your geographical location or how to get to where you intended to be) and any other kind of lost. It’s not so bad if you don’t know that you’re lost though.

People come along from time to time to inform you that you’re lost. They want you to do something to find your way out of the darkness of whatever ignorance you’ve stumbled into. It’s very important to them for some reason. It’s rather jarring to discover that not only have you been lost, but you must now perform a dramatic transformation from your comfortable life to a perspective that makes what you were doing before look bad. ~sigh~ Being lost in the dark and not knowing it is one thing; being lost in the dark and not caring is another thing entirely. But it takes effort to stop being lost. I don’t know if we always take this into consideration, but finding your way out of a lost place is hard, takes a lot of creativity, problem solving skills, and determination.

Usually I can work up these feelings to get myself un-lost if I’ve driven my car to a random location no one has heard of, or if my feet take me to a crazy downtown alleyway. Creativity, problem solving skills, and determination are not always as readily available in social situations, emotional crises, mental uncertainties, or even spiritual confusion. You can’t just look up and know that the sun always sets in the west. 

Trinkets in a Hollow Shell

What is value? What does it mean to be worth something?

My sociology professor once told us a story about a woman who made an exquisite woven blanket, in today’s market worth at least $1000. She took it to the trading post and said, “buy this for $231.58,” so the store manager did. The $231.58 was what the woman owed on her mortgage. To her, the blanket was not valued by how much someone else might want it, but by how much she needed it to be worth.

I don’t understand this very well, honestly. Values can vary so much from person to person, time to time. An old comic book is worth nothing to a mother getting rid of her child’s old toys. To a collector, the book might be a first edition with a signature, and therefore priceless. To such a collector, the monetary value is how much he is willing to pay to have a piece for his collection. The value is based upon how much he wants it, which is much higher than the amount that the mother cleaning up garbage wants it.

Something has value only if someone wants it. The most priceless treasure could become worthless if no one wanted it. Values are arbitrary. Gold is valuable, but it wouldn’t be if no one wanted it. Many a profiteer has been confounded by value dropping out of certain commodities because no one wants them.

Are people commodities too? Do people become worthless if no one wants them?

What if I don’t want myself?

Perhaps this is why self-esteem is so important. For some reason, we all want to be wanted. But there are times when it seems that no one wants us. There are times when I don’t even want myself. I feel worthless. What’s the point of keeping something that is worthless? Why take care of it? Am I just waiting for someone else to come along and value me?

But if I want myself, then I am valuable. If there is someone out there who wants me, then I am not worthless. I may not be worth much, but I am worth something. Just like all those ticket stubs that are in a shoebox under my bed; they are garbage, but they have value to me, so I keep them. I have value to me, so I keep me.

It’s not enough some days, though, to want myself. Sometimes it’s impossible to want myself. Sometimes I’m not good enough. Sometimes I cannot see the worth in me.

Perhaps that’s why I need a god. 

It's Pink

Sometimes you have a song stuck in your head. See if you can guess this one:

“Slam, slam, oh hot d**n. What part of party don't you understand?”

I never listened to the song when I was in high school, which is when it came out, but I find it remarkable how much I like songs that came out between 2005 and 2010 (which is approximately when I was in high school). I know this because I obtained a free subscription to satellite radio and I am discovering a whole bunch of music on this Pop 2K station that most of my peers listened to a lot, but I've never heard of, and I like them. I wonder why I like music that was produced ten years ago, but not music of similar values that is produced today.

I also like music that was produced before I was born.

I find that the songs most likely to get stuck in my head are songs from movies though. Especially theme songs from a series that has over 200 episodes. Unless they're in a different language. I've watched the theme song from Angel Beats! at least a hundred times, but I still can't sing that beautiful melody without humming a great deal of it. Japanese is hard though.

How about, “Be true to your heart! Just be true to your heart! Cause if you're true to your heart, it's gonna lead you straight to me(-e).”

I heard a song yesterday while watching a movie with a four year old. The part that's stuck in my head goes like this: “How ba(a-a-a-a)d can I be? I'm just doing what comes naturally.” It's a pretty annoying song. But I found it notable that this has a remarkably different tone than that song earlier that's from Princess Diaries 2.

Obviously the song from the Lorax does not say, “don't follow your heart” but it has a cautionary note that sometimes doing what comes naturally to you can have dire consequences. If you know the movie, you already know what I mean, but it doesn't matter because I'm going to explain it anyway. The main character, in pursuit of success and profit, chops down the entire forest, which displaces a bunch of animals and makes that part of the country uninhabitable except for a small plastic town that doesn't know what the outside world is like and purchases fresh air in bottles. This is fine.

I've heard survival of the fittest means that whoever is the strongest and smartest wins. This seems to be true of nature. A second grader asked me recently if I thought animals are innocent. I replied that animals are crueler than humans, but not as greedy. Maybe if animals had powers of foresight and logic, they would be just as greedy as humans, but nature usually works itself out so that no one can be on top for too long. In an experiment where 12 wolves were placed on a secluded island to mimic the way nature intended, within a few short years, the island was devastated by excessive inbreeding and reproduction and required human intervention to keep the starving overpopulation of wolves alive.

Perhaps these wolves were less fit than the pine trees which were the sole survivors on the island.

Perhaps the most fit are really dandelions, because no matter how many we tear up and burn and apply herbicide to and feed to our donkeys and goats, there are always more of them next year. Although, I suppose the same can be said of humans.

But if we're just doing what comes naturally, how bad can it possibly be?