The Future is in the Past

It seems to me that everywhere I go lately there is someone or something that reminds me just how much I wish I were somewhere else. That's not to say that where I am isn't perfectly fine, it's just my nature, I think, to want to be wherever I'm not. Or whenever. Or some other dimension where maybe things make a little bit of sense. Today I heard the song "The Future Has Arrived" and I couldn't help wishing I had been alive in the past, way in the past. If this is the future, then where will we be in OUR future? Can it get better from here? Can it get any worse? Probably. But hey, you're gonna get that with judgement days.

But really I mean you take almost any aspect of life today and there's something missing that I feel like the world may have had at one point. It's the something I feel when I watch Harpo Marx play his harp as if it was a long lost love. It's the way I feel when I read quotes from poets lifetimes ago who managed to put into words what I was feeling at that exact moment, as if they had had a time machine and could read my mind. I don't know exactly what it is but it seems the human race has forgotten what it means to live. We're so preoccupied with money, power, technology, guilt, health, death, ethics, celebrities, diets, politics, Shamwows, and electric toothbrushes that no one can remember the last time they heard complete and utter silence or simply sat and watched the world go by. At least no one I know can.

In the ant farm of modern life I feel like the ant in the corner, plotting away with blueprints and a little insect hard hat of a way out of here. Now, I know there are plenty of people like me. I know because I went to school with them. I see them on the streets, doing a good job of blending in but there's usually a glint in their eye that can be caught if you know what to look for. The problem is that to survive in this dog-eat-dog world ("Dog eat dog here?! George never bring Shep here, uh-uh, never.") so many of us have to put aside our wishes and daydreams, of simpler times, of worlds as of yet unexplored, of the places that will probably stay dreams forever. We have to don the dreaded nametags, enter the cubicles of doom, and tell our inner children that there is no Easter Bunny, go buy your own damn Easter candy!

I know I am not the only landlocked mental time-traveller who imagines steering a pirate ship while in bumper to bumper traffic, who tries to figure out which of the Three Stooges that idiot you have to put up with at work looks like, or who will actually do the math to figure out how much money they would have if they really did get a nickel for every time they inserted a non-sequiter movie quote into normal conversations. ($1,047.25)

So we work. We work and try to not let all of our spark disappear. It can be hard. Somewhere between texting a friend and interviewing for a job; sometime before that weird guy on the street somehow reminds me of Dr. teeth from the Muppets but after I trip over something for the tenth time in a day, it hits me that none of it matters. In 100 years people will still look back at right now with a feeling of fond nostalgia and think "Wow, that was a magical time." Well, ok, maybe the 80's were a magical time, but that was mostly the widespread cocaine, moon shoes, and David Bowie. (Who is in fact a magical creature, no matter what anybody says) But my point is that while the grass is always greener, a lot of us don't even have much grass anymore. And if we do, we're so focused on whether it's perfect (or at least better looking than the neighbors') that we don't realize how much more of it there should be. Quick, think of the smell of the grass after a rainy night! See? It doesn't come so easily anymore does it?

Every once in a while I'll get a window to the past that shows me how things might have been way back when. If you've ever walked into an antique shop, you know what history smells like. If you've ever listened to an elderly person tell stories from their life, you know what the eyes of an 80 year old child look like. If you've ever watched an old silent movie, you see the same people who walk the streets today, just in different clothes. Everything is different, yet the same. Always and never changing. These old things should be cherished, studied, and protected. Somewhere in a pile of old stuff, or in the eyes of that elderly person reliving their youth, or between the frames of those two silent actors dancing in the moonlight is the secret to living. Really living. And if we can figure it out, then maybe we can create a yesterday for future generations to really look at with wonder.

Book I'm currently reading: Peter and the Secret of Rundoon by Ridley Pearson and Dave Barrry

Last Movie I Watched: Seven Pounds
(Oh my god, Will Smith deserves an Oscar for that movie, it was phenomenal. Have a hanky ready.)

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

I've decided after a long absence from this blog to change the title and direction that the posts take. I like this logo a heck of a lot better, and I think it better suits me. I had fun making it too. "The Stationary Traveler" didn't give me a lot of leeway for posts about whatever I wanted. So I hope this will work better. I will try my hardest to write more regularly - much more regularly - and my hope is that in time I will have some people interested enough to come back for more. I like the idea of being someone with something to say. Very often I say nothing but think volumes. Getting it out may be the first step. So here's lookin' at you kid. (Yea, uh, I do that.... with the quotes... quite a lot actually. It's hard to stop!)

Look for another post soon. Over and out!
~Jillian

Book I'm currently reading: Peter and the Secret of Rundoon by Ridley Pearson and Dave Barry