I'm actually planning my upcoming D.C. trip, and I'm starting to get excited. Though the best , in fact amazing, hotel deal I've found (nice hotel, all the required amenties, metro shuttle, excellent ratings, grocery store across the street) is a non-refundable deal, and I haven't quite been able to commit just yet. If it were one or two nights it wouldn't be so scary but non-refundable for three weeks is a little insane. Tracy wisely suggested we sleep on it. (The refundable price is $30 more a night, yikes!)
Anyway I'm totally excited to go, I can't believe it's been four years since I was there last.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
Musings
First of all, it's nice to be back from my surgery induced hiatus. I'm still a little cranky around the edges, but it is getting better. And let me say, as you've probably noticed, this posting is a small novel, and it contains spirtual musings spawned in part by a television show. You are under no obligation whatsover to read any further.
Last night was the series finale of Lost. Now I know most of y'all aren't Lost fans, but thinking about the show today reminded me of some very valuable things, so I'll try to express that without losing those who haven't watched the show.
Now I don't entirely agree with Lost's moral and spiritual cosmology, but I had some cool spiritually oriented thoughts as a result of last night's show. Over the last season the show has presented two story lines, one with the characters in a good vs. evil battle for survival on a the island and the other with them leading semi-idyllic lives. In this "idyllic" otherworldly scenario the characters often had all of the things that they (and I would guess most of us) supposedly really wanted: comfort, love, luck, acceptance, success, a chance to "do-over" some of the bad choices of life etc.
While I don't know that it's what the writer's intended it felt a little like a skewed version of It's a Wonderful Life, with all of the characters living out their "If only..." scenarios; i.e. "If only I had a chance to be a cop instead of a criminal" or "If only I could have been lucky instead of unlucky" and for all of the characters on Lost, "If only I hadn't wound up on that crappy little island."
Then something happened (I'll spare you the details) and every character had the chance to remember their real lives on the island. In spite of how seemingly better their otherworldly lives were, and in spite of the fact that they all had horrible experiences on that island, all of them (save the most villainous character) reacted to remembering their island lives not with horror - but with joy. Each of the characters remembered not the terrible things, but the wonderful experiences and relationships that emerged from that period of difficulty.
So what does this have to do with me and my life? So often in my day to day life I have "if only" thoughts. "If only we had more money, or better jobs, or better weather. If only I had done a little better at this or that." Yet Lost made me think about the fact that the very best things in our lives often come from struggle or from paths we didn't expect or want to take.
In addition, I think that if we really do our best, when we look back over our lives, so much of what we remember isn't going to be the difficult things, but the amazing things, and we will see that the circumstances we thought were our "crappy little island" actually made our life the miracle that it was. Not that all that crappiness isn't difficult, but maybe thinking of it in the big picture can help us be a little more happy while we're dealing with it.
P.S. - And the sweet chubby guy, Hurley, became the master of the island universe. Chubby people of the world, unite!
Last night was the series finale of Lost. Now I know most of y'all aren't Lost fans, but thinking about the show today reminded me of some very valuable things, so I'll try to express that without losing those who haven't watched the show.
Now I don't entirely agree with Lost's moral and spiritual cosmology, but I had some cool spiritually oriented thoughts as a result of last night's show. Over the last season the show has presented two story lines, one with the characters in a good vs. evil battle for survival on a the island and the other with them leading semi-idyllic lives. In this "idyllic" otherworldly scenario the characters often had all of the things that they (and I would guess most of us) supposedly really wanted: comfort, love, luck, acceptance, success, a chance to "do-over" some of the bad choices of life etc.
While I don't know that it's what the writer's intended it felt a little like a skewed version of It's a Wonderful Life, with all of the characters living out their "If only..." scenarios; i.e. "If only I had a chance to be a cop instead of a criminal" or "If only I could have been lucky instead of unlucky" and for all of the characters on Lost, "If only I hadn't wound up on that crappy little island."
Then something happened (I'll spare you the details) and every character had the chance to remember their real lives on the island. In spite of how seemingly better their otherworldly lives were, and in spite of the fact that they all had horrible experiences on that island, all of them (save the most villainous character) reacted to remembering their island lives not with horror - but with joy. Each of the characters remembered not the terrible things, but the wonderful experiences and relationships that emerged from that period of difficulty.
So what does this have to do with me and my life? So often in my day to day life I have "if only" thoughts. "If only we had more money, or better jobs, or better weather. If only I had done a little better at this or that." Yet Lost made me think about the fact that the very best things in our lives often come from struggle or from paths we didn't expect or want to take.
In addition, I think that if we really do our best, when we look back over our lives, so much of what we remember isn't going to be the difficult things, but the amazing things, and we will see that the circumstances we thought were our "crappy little island" actually made our life the miracle that it was. Not that all that crappiness isn't difficult, but maybe thinking of it in the big picture can help us be a little more happy while we're dealing with it.
P.S. - And the sweet chubby guy, Hurley, became the master of the island universe. Chubby people of the world, unite!
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