imaginary worlds... or a life less ordinary...

When do you stop imagining the life you want to live and start living the life you imagined...?

We spend our days wondering what could or should have been. We watch other peoples' stories in film and television, read other peoples' tales in books and novels, and lament how so much more wonderful they are, compared to our own. We console ourselves that these are nothing more than "imaginary" worlds, "fictional" lands, stardust and dreams – that such things could never happen in the "real" world, to "ordinary" people.....

But why can they not?

We have been brough up to believe in the mundaneness of our own reality. Become mired in the routine hum-drum of daily life. Resigned ourselves to the inevitablity of everyday existence... That we sometimes forget how to breath. We fail to appreciate the wonder in little things. We lose sight of the the magic, lying just over the horizon...

Why can you not say "yes" to every opportunity that lies before you?
Why can you not pack up your life, leave everything behind, hit the road and go wherever the wind may take you?
Why can you not be that person who falls asleep content on that hidden cove, listening to the ebb and flow of the ocean lapping the shore, under the waxing moon and those altogether too bright stars?
Why can you not climb that mountaintop and catch a glimpse of that most unforgettable sunset, and later wake to that impossibly breathtaking sunrise?
Why can't that special someone in the elevator next to you, day after day, finally catch a snatch of that music you've been listening to and finally say that they love that band too?
Why can you not talk to that beautiful stranger on the train and convince them to spend a day wandering around Vienna with you?
Why can you not open that door, pick up that phone, step on that path, get on that plane... Talk to that girl?

We hardly every stop to notice how amazingly free we truly are...

And then the moment fades and we fall back to earth... They are movies stars we tell ourselves. They are the "beautiful people". Their lives are full of glitz and glamour... so much more exciting than our own... We are sometimes our own worse enemies in this regard...
We allow ourselves to get weighed down by perceived responsibilities, externally imposed restrictions, that we sometimes forget how to move. Or we get caught up in conforming to everyone else's expectations of what our lives "should" be, that we lose sight of our own path. And then we find ourselves, many years down the road, staring back at the end of sombody elses' life...
And rare indeed may we find a quiet moment to stop and simpy be, or wonder whom, after all, we are... That is the beauty and the tragedy of the human condition. The endless questioning. The great unknowing. Simply making it up as we go along. It is sometimes all that makes it ok sometimes... The freedom to believe also means the freedom to believe in the "wrong" thing. Just as the freedom of speech affords us the freedom to remain silent.

At the end of the day, aren't we all the stars of our own stories? The tellers of our own tales? The singers of our own songs? We are each the everyday poets and sidewalk philosophers of our own reality... authors of our own existence... The truth or fiction of our lives is of our own devising. The melody and music of our own composition. We may add nuance and form and verve in any manner we choose. Follow any path, wander any road...

Why are we content to tread the straight and narrow? Lead pedestrian lives and unexceptional existences? Why am I writing these words instead of putting them into practice? :)

I guess what we all sometimes fail to realise is that none of us are "ordinary". We are each "extraordinary". In our own ways. If we simply take the time to notice. So open that door. Pick up that phone. Step on that path. Get on that plane... Talk to that girl.... You may just discover a world you knew nothing about... and it may just be a wonderful world after all...