I just was journaling on a possible blog post about "what to write on a Wednesday morn" and realized that it's Thursday, not Wednesday.
Wednesday is called hump day, which brought to my mind camels which brought to mind Lazy 5 Ranch which brought to mind animal safaris which brought to mind Disney World's Animal Kingdom Park and the NC Zoo in Asheboro.
Camels also brought to mind Camel cigarettes which brings to mind my 1978-1979 Word Over the World Branch coordinator, David. He smoked unfiltered Camels.
David was an intense young man and I think continued to live an intense life through out his adult years. I read that he died a year or so ago. He was in his early 50s.
"Intensity." Leadership in The Way seemed to extol intensity.
"Milk the moment." "Suck the second."
I guess "intensity" is something the Western world holds in favorable regard.
Perhaps us humans in civilized environments don't receive enough life/death stimulation to provide satisfaction to our survival genes, so we look for intense situations to prove ourselves.
Perhaps it's simply a trait of youth.
Perhaps it's heredity and life experiences of the individual, that which shapes one's personality.
Not everyone is "intense." And perhaps on the continuum of humanity most people don't really desire intensity often. But it is intensity that makes the news, so it's intensity that gets heard.
Martindale and The Way Corps and other programs in The Way were "intense," a continual pushing to the limit and beyond. Martindale used to use the words "dominate" and "saturate" and "permeate" pretty often. Our goal was "Word in culture" or "Word over the world" and then "keeping the household clean."
Other organizations and causes promote similar.
Anymore speech like that sends up red flags. It's a signal to me that an individual may end up just a cog in the mechanism to move an agenda. That is, the individual becomes a non-person when they no longer fit the machine to promote the cause. They are discarded as not committed enough or not smart enough or not good enough for the noble effort the leader(s) is(are) propounding.
I don't much desire intensity anymore. Maybe I've experienced enough and have mellowed with age. Maybe my adrenal function is somewhat depleted and knows its limits.
Anymore, I think I desire contentment.
Camels. I never was much interested in smoking cigarettes.
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2 comments:
Yeah, I agree...TWI was way too big on "intense." Dave Bed*rd at Emporia once told me I was "too intense" when I was trying to model the intensity I saw in him...made me wonder at the time and makes me chuckle now. These days I'm not very intense ... yet very content. I finally understand why you have had as a motto on your blogs that there are no non-persons...when you explained it in this blog. Try not to be so hard on yourself. God loves you just as you are, His beloved child!
SP
Thank SP!
Dave was an intense one. Wonder where he and Judy are these days and what they are up to?
When I read your comment, I thought of that song by Claudette with the line "Stand and be counted."
And then I thought: We don't have to stand to be counted.
We count just as we are.
That said, I figure the context of her song means to recognize our own worth.
To life in hope and love,
~carol
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