Chris Herrington decided years ago that his reality was much more fun…

and he’s ready to tell you why.

Sit back and relax.
It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

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Inspiration

     It seems like we have gone through a few bouts of being inspired, followed by our being sullen, if not downright depressed of late. I would like to put forth a plan of action to help pull us out of the doldrums. Now that the primary colors have been co-opted by the political parties, it seems an odd bet that the only neutral ground left on the field of our national symbol, Old Glory, is the white part. This too seems loaded with baggage and a surreal sense of taboo. We are a democracy that wants to be a republic and is fighting becoming a socialist state that is run by an oligarchy of hyper-capitalists. We want to believe in creationism, but we have a sneaking suspicion that it is a world where only the strong survive.

     We are desperate for equality, but men make 33% more than women; additionally, millions of our fellow Americans are out of work and so personal bankruptcy is on the rise. Within the multilayered inconclusiveness of the media’s parade of pundits we find that FOX is not Disney is not GE is not CNN is not FreespeechTV. Most people I know go home at night so tired that all they can think of is throwing back a few root beers, getting mildly carbonated, and watching a few hours of openly mindless and mind-numbing TV. Okay, I get it. We are overwhelmed.

     Let’s talk about getting inspired to do some things that will lead us out of the basement of emotional architecture. Bottom line, my mom always said if you lose something, just clean up until you find it. For sure it is going to be in the last place we look, because no one is going to find it and then keep on looking , are they? Really? Okay then, let’s open up Pandora’s Box of what have I gotten myself into this time, and see if we can start scraping the barnacles off the bottom of our….bottoms.

     It struck me that no one has written an owner’s manual for being a human being. Let’s say that we start by breaking down all of the chores we need to do just to keep up with daily life. This may, at first sound terribly anti-thematic if the point is to stop depressing ourselves, but bear with me long enough to get the big picture.

     We used to help each other raise barns and do large chores because we realized that it took way too much to do these large chores by ourselves. The best we usually do nowadays is to have a covered dish dinner where we all bring a little something to share, but even that has degenerated into almost everyone bringing something from the box stores, usually WallyWorld. This may say a whole lot about our lack of confidence in our own cooking, or about the amount of time we have to make a dish worthy of sharing. Whenever my wife’s aunt makes coconut cake, I skip the main dish and head straight for the white stuff.

     Maybe we can start here. Uncovering what it is that has been holding us back from even the most basic of basic concepts: Neighborhoods. People don’t even sit down and hang out around the campfire, far from it. Most time we don’t even know our neighbors. It’s hard to be a country let alone a county let alone a cul-de-sac if we can’t even do the neighborly thing of meeting the people who live next door. When I said we need to break down the chores, I meant getting down to the most essential part of what it means to be a social creature, talking and visiting. We can get more complex and talk about your finally moving that junk heap that you’ve had in your drive way for 6 years later. Let’s just start with a few names first.

     There is always a litany of excuses that keep us back from doing those things that might bring us all closer: time, energy, events, emergencies, work, children, and the beat goes on. I wonder if we couldn’t just suspend disbelief for a weekend and have a block party or a neighborhood ho-down. Sure a few folks will not come. Of course, it is a perfectly ridiculous idea. I mean, meeting the people who have lived next door for the last 14 years, that’s absurd. “Oh, your daughter graduated, already? From college? With her masters? Remarried? Step kids? Professional stunt flyer? Retired?”

     For all we know, the people next door are headed to the same ashram where we will be doing our kundalini training this winter! “Isn’t that amazing; we both bought $58,000 tractors to mow our collective 15 acres. Wow, I drive the same 18 miles to the university every day too, and we just live across the street from each other! We both have to be at work at 8:00 and we both leave work at 5:00! That’s such a coincidence!”

     I feel inspired. Instead of poking people on Facebook that I have never met, I am going to go next door and ring their bell and say, “Hey.” Who am I kidding? That would be totally embarrassing! It is way easier to cyber-chat with people I will never meet and who will never see that I did not tie down my garbage cans and the raccoons got into it and I didn’t clean up the mess for 3 days.

     I feel inspired. Maybe I’ll just clean up my e-mails and see who I haven’t OMGed in the last few months. It seems like everything I bring up just leads to a TMI moment. IMHO, the only thing to do is just to walk next door and meet and greet, break the ice, and see what is shaking. Oh, nuts…..

     “Knock, knock. Anyone home?”

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     Having completed 32 years of public school service, Chris Herrington lives, with his wife, in Appleby, Texas, and his writing consists of blogging and essay writing concerning an array of topics including education, mediation, self-development, and human interests. He teaches at the Martin School of Choice, plays racquetball, and enjoys his job.

Chris Herrington can be reached at herrington@everythingnac.com