Sweeping Change

Isn't it funny how things work?  Do you remember my post a while back about McDonalds and the change being discarded on the floor?  Here you go -  Topic: Arbitrary
Here is a photo from that blog, in which I happened to glance down to find some change on the tarmac of the drive through lane . . . .

 

Well, I am here to say that there has been a development.  I did happen to call their customer care line and ask that my suggestion be recorded somewhere: this change should be collected for a good cause.  And I emailed too and attached my photo.  Of course, I did not hear anything back, and did not expect anything to . . . well . . . . change. 

 
On my way through the drivethrough for an emergency cup of coffee one very wet, rainy delivery day I stopped to pay at Window 2 and hesitated - then smiled, and proceeded to hold up the entire line for this very special photo:

 

What is that?  The chance for you to donate your change to change a child's life - to make a sweeping change with what used to be change for sweeping outside McDonalds!  Now, I am not suggesting that my email to them with my photo attached motivated this, but regardless it did more to lift my spirits than the cup of coffee.

Pa di pa pa paaaa - I'm loving it!!

The Boundaryless Limitations of Being Human

Part of being human means having a colorful history of philosophers, poets and deep thinkers from which to draw inspiration (and names for blogs).  These inspirations are available to commoners like you and I in the form of quick 'quotes' that wax lyrical on all sorts of things from the meaning of life and our role in it, to politics, relationships and the predictability or unpredictability of it all.  Isn't it quite fantastic that you don't need to be a literary scholar in this day and age to access these greats?  You only need to have an internet connection.  One of the reasons I think quotes from these greats have become popular (apart from the fact that they make us look smarter than we are when we recite them) is because over 2'000 years later they are still relevant. 

How amazing is that?  We have evolved, become civilized, built cities, travelled through space and conquered all land mass and Plato can still make sense of our crazy world, or at least give us another perspective.  And why is that do you think?  Human nature.  Whether your home is Rome B.C. or modern-day America we all have the same needs, desires, strengths or failings.  So in fact, how evolved are we really if we haven't mastered our own human nature a few thousand years down the line?  Do you think Plato would be disappointed?  Or do you think he would nod his head knowingly while stroking his curly Roman beard? 

One of the reasons I like Plato is his scorn for science and for the 'rules'.  It was his philosophy that it was more important to think about the stars and imagine than it was to study them in terms of distance and light.  Ideas are more real than the natural world.  I love that.  Ideas are more real than the natural world - be frivolous, treat the world as a stage, act out the life you want, don't sit in the audience.  Your idea is more real than reality.  Ha!  Those who have achieved great things first had to imagine they could, so the limitations of the natural world are a matter of perspective, isn't that so?

I guess perspective is why I have had such a tough couple of weeks.  I have a wonderful imagination, I can envision great and wonderful things and then I think secretly I think I am 'the one' - and no, not in the egotistical sense of being 'chosen' and somehow superior, but as in the Matrix reference where 'the one' Neo, in a world of 1's and 0's could flex his muscles and change the rules of time and space.  I want to change the rules of time and space.  I want to move like lightening, and be able to do it all - be a stay at home mom who never drops a ball and can give her children everything they need right at the moment they need it for all their lives, a successful and inspiring business woman who positively impacts her community, and still have time to wax lyrical about my own world and my role in it and find time to, well, play.  Unfortunately, one of the hardest lessons I am having to learn is that I can't do it all, there are limitations which cannot be overcome because time and space laws are not as flexible as I imagine them to be.  It is not so easy when time and our movement through it work by a set of rules our 'vision' is not bound by.  Was Plato only partly right?  Sorry to question you old man.  Perhaps we don't have to obsess upon laws but they do demand our respect and understanding.  

And just when I am at my most frustrated and my to-do list is two pages long and time is escaping me the penny drops.  Ah Plato, my valued and trusted companion, happiness truly is characteristic of a good life in which we accomplish our virtuous purpose and to accomplish anything you have to be an optimist with an idea.   The ideas of the optimistic are not affected by the boundaries of the natural world.  Rules limit you if you get too familiar with them, and whilst you can't change them, there is always an exception.  Other Greats and Heros overcame obstacles and against all odds and limiting rules to succeed - that's how they became exceptional!  So rules are fluid concepts subject to perspective.  It is how we observe them and what we do with them that determines how we are affected by them.  Therein lies my new idea (and Plato's very old one):  life is not about science, but possibilities.  Not the forrest, not the trees, but the space and light in between.