D'vorahDavida
Yetzirah

I have been moving the dining room table away from the piano this morning, and clearing all the bric a brac off the top of it, getting ready for the movers to come.
We have been babysitting it for a friend, and now that she is in her new place, it is going home with her.

So what? Well, it's funny the sequence of events that change of any kind brings about.

When I was removing things from the top of the piano, I also had to move a lamp out of the way that is attached to one of our bookshelves. And there on the shelf was the laser pen. The one we used to shine on the floor and Robbie would chase. It was the last thing that could coax him into playing in his old age. He would bark and run and make a fuss. But we couldn't let him do it for long, else he would be limping around the rest of the day.

So I started missing him. Robbie

Some people might say, "What you need is another dog." Maybe that's true. But not right now. That's all I can say about it. Not right now.

I was rereading some articles on blogging yesterday and have been mulling over in my mind why we are doing this. After all, it's pretty weird writing a bunch of your private and sometimes half baked thoughts and then sticking them in a public place. Lot's of times I write things down hoping to make sense of what I see happening in the world.
And I admit a bunch of this stuff IS half baked. A partially worked out brain puzzle spread out all over the table.

( Are you sure you aren't OVER mulling this topic there cupcake?. . . Analyze this analyze that. Why can't you just DO it and leave it at that?)

Well, I don't want to be "unconscious". I want to know why I do what I do.

( *I* am going to become unconscious from listening to all this angst.)

Somehow, I think you will survive to curmudge another day.

As I was saying,

I entertain a theory about modern life. We are so much of the time looked at, treated like, catered to, and expected to react like, consumers. In order to sell to us, it helps the marketers to be able to categorize us into neat little boxes and then not waste their advertising dollars on trying to sell me, say, rap music but perhaps a nice collection of 'Oldies but Goodies' from the 60's instead.

We are encouraged to pre-sort ourselves by refining our likes and dislikes in everything from clothing to music to the books we like and the technology we are willing to buy. It saves the marketers time don't you see.

We are constantly "selecting".

"I want a cell phone that can take pictures, (with the optional movie function, should I decide to upgrade). I want it to download music too and have a roving range covering the western half of the United States. I want that downloadable ring tone function so I can choose from over 3000 different tunes that will play when I get a call. And I want a fuchsia plastic cover plate (the one with the sparkles, not the matte one) and a purple carrying case with zippers, (not velcro) and the extra long life battery option. I'll take the 'loss by theft or accidental damage insurance package'. And by the way, I don't want to sign a two year contract, I want the six month one, and I want that special service where I can chose my phone number which just happens to be my birthdate. . . .Oh yeah, I'm not paying more than 19.95 a month (plus surcharges, taxes, bribes, levees, and signing over the rights to my first born's first born) Can I get that today?"

No PROBLEM!

Well, here's the problem. Human beings want to be seen as unique. One of a kind.
And in a cosmic sense that is exactly what we are. There is no one exactly like you.
Not one. But at the same time, we also want to be part of a tribe, a clan, or a group of some kind. It's a constant tightrope we walk.

But this "selecting" routine, seems to make us... well okay, I'll speak for myself... makes me more and more picky. And I feel like it isolates us more an more from each other. Well, I can't go there, they are going to be eating meat. I can't do this or that, because I might see something I don't like. I don't go to that coffee place, they don't sell organic coffee. It's insidious. But these things aren't the REAL things that make us unique. They are only likes and dislikes, the lowest common denominator.

There is a price to pay for all this nicety in our preferences.

Sometimes I hear in the words of the diaries I read: I am me. I am not my things. I am not a sum of my consumables. Don't put me in a cubbyhole. Don't judge me by what you see on the outside. Please take a few moments and listen to what's in my heart, what my soul whispers to me in the dark of the night. What does your soul whisper to you?

Maybe someday it really will come about that we do what Martin Luther King Jr. said.

Maybe we will learn to judge people by the content of their character.

Not how good a consumer they are.