I Don't Have Time To Dream Anymore

The title says it all.  It makes me sad to admit this, but it's the truth.  I am a dreamer.  I like to use my imagination.  I like to write.  I also enjoy the dreams I have when I sleep.  It's like a second life to me when I dream.  Many people either don't realize they are dreaming or don't care.  They don't get much out of it.  When you think about it, that's 6-8 hours of your life every day that you are not fully using when you ignore your dreams.

Dreams can tell you things about yourself.  You may dream about a time gone by when you were younger, and yet there can be lessons in those dreams that you can apply to your waking life.  You may be working on a problem, and the answer can come to you in a dream if you keep an open mind.  Some people Lucid Dream.  That is to say they've perfected the ability to know they are dreaming in a dream.  They use it to solve problems, be creative or just have fun.

Dreams can leave you in a happy mood the next day or leave you feeling a little down sometimes, but they are a part of you.  They've been a part of me my whole life, and I like them.  I especially like the clear dreams that don't find me struggling to recall them as I wake up.  I used to keep a dream journal.  I still have it here somewhere.  That helped me make sense of my dreams, and it helped give me the ability to occasionally have a Lucid Dream.

I see family members who are no longer here, and it brings me comfort.  They're still with me in my heart, and maybe they really are still out there in that place where our dreams exist.  It could be a whole other world that we tap into in our subconscious, when we are sleeping.  Then, reality gives us the cold hard slap that pulls us away from that world every day as we wake up.  Society itself doesn't value dreams, but there are cultures in the world that know how important dreams really are.

I not only see those loved ones, visit old places and meet people in my dreams that I don't know in waking life, I also go to dark places.  I recently had a disappointment when I was unable to do something I really wanted to do.  I saw somebody in a dream who I still have negative feelings for.  In reality, I don't have anything to do with them and wouldn't harm them, but in that dream, I got violent towards them.  I don't know why that happened as it's never come up in a dream before and had nothing to do with the disappointment I was dealing with.  The scary part was I woke up in a better mood.

Sadly, I just don't have time for my dreams these days.  I keep no dream journal for better understanding.  They are like passing strangers that you meet as they walk by.  I might think about them when I wake up, but then I have to face a life of uncertainty.  I don't even have dreams in the waking world it seems.  They just don't seem to matter in the future that I am facing.  Things I need to deal with on a personal level go ignored while I worry about how I'm gonna pay my bills and maintain what I have.

No thoughts of the loving relationship I desire and haven't had all these years.  No thoughts about being who I truly am inside.  No seeing myself in some wonderful place a year from now, doing something I enjoy.  I just don't have time to dream.  It makes me sad.  It makes me wonder why I continue the daily struggle sometimes.  Where's it all going?  I don't know.  I suppose what keeps me going in absence of my dreams is the curiosity of what's to come next.  Sometimes I feel like a spectator, just watching my life as it plays out before me.

Using The Word Honky To Counter The N Word

I was reading a post on social media.  It was a picture, actually.  People love to use pictures on social media to express their thoughts on things without actually saying anything.  Suddenly, you have people sharing the same picture to express their thoughts.  In this case, it was from the side defending the Southern Cross Flag or the Flag Of Dixie.  Basically, it said that people want to ban The General Lee car from TV, and yet George Jefferson used the term Honky against white people for years.

It's interesting that they brought that up.  Norman Lear was the producer of The Jefferson's and other shows, and racism was a big topic of his shows, which aired in the 1970's.  They were interesting, but I felt they were too left leaning and didn't always offer a fair depiction of white people.  That's for another article.  I want to talk about the word honky here.

George Jefferson was a hard working black man who built up his own business.  He was able to move to a better place with his wife Louise and son.  He probably had to deal with racism growing up and the attitude that a black man couldn't make it big in America, but he never let that stop him from trying.  He wasn't sitting there waiting to blame people for his failures.  He used the hate he received to motivate his successes.

George dealt with anybody if they had cold hard cash.  He knew the game the rich people played, so he played it too.  There was still a resentment of the white people in his life who treated him differently for the color of his skin, and he held onto that.  Louise sometimes had to give him reality checks over that.  Just as not all black men are the same, neither are all white men.  But, George became fond of the term honky as a slur against white people.

It was his counter word for the the N word.  It seems funny that I can't use that word when discussing things in the context of this article, but that is the PC world we live in.  I can say honky all day, and it's no big deal.  To George, that was his N word for white people, and it became more widely used in pop culture.  Movies and TV shows even picked up on it through the years.

The word was actually used long before The Jefferson's and for the same reason.  I think it may have derived from the term Honky Tonk, and that makes sense to me.  Those were the taverns where they played country music and in some cases had that southern pride that seems to be such a bad thing these days.  The white people who went there seemed like a fair target to the black people who felt oppressed by racism.  So, honky became the N word to use against white people.

When George said it on The Jefferson's, nobody said how racist he was being.  Make no mistake, it was a racist thing to say.  Contrary to what some will say, black people can be racist.  Any race can be.  We aren't born that way, we learn it as we grow up and either accept it or reject it.  Fortunately, a lot of people have rejected it and try to be color blind to people, but others on all sides wear it like a badge of honor.

So, people laughed when George said it.  It was okay if he said it.  But, in reality, there's another reason for the laughter.  That word was nowhere near as hateful as the N word or other ethnic slurs that have been used.  Oh, it was made for the same reason, but it's just not the same.  People don't feel like second class citizens or sub human when they are called honky, and that's the difference.  I don't think George was a bad man.  He was a good mad who did his best in a world that made it harder for him to be successful.  He learned the lesson of how the world really works.  If you have money, all the other stuff doesn't seem to matter as much.

Saying God Was Looking Out For Him Was Offensive?

Neil deGrasse Tyson did an interview with the man who produced the show Cosmos for him. Of course, I'm talking about Family Guy/American Dad creator Seth MacFarlane. Seth has a bit of a story to share about the day he almost died.

You see, back on that fateful day in September of 2001, Seth was booked to be on one of those ill fated flights. However, his agent put the wrong time on the ticket and he showed up ten minutes late. So, he missed the flight. I can't imagine how he must have felt knowing how lucky he was.

It's no secret that religion and God are sometimes a target on his shows. On Family Guy, there's everything from Brian telling Meg there is no God to Peter and the guys going to see God to get him to quit picking on the New England Patriots.

In an episode of American Dad, Stan Smith literally had a gun to God's head to try to make him send him back to his family so they wouldn't die on Christmas Eve. In another episode, after the rapture happens, Stan actually punches Jesus in the face.

Well, somebody in the comments basically said thank God for looking out for Seth. One of Seth's fans took offense to that. They objected to the idea that God had anything to do with it. This is the problem I have with atheists. It's not enough to not believe. They have to hate God and any mention of God too.

This comes from the times in which religious leaders have done stupid things in the name of God, committed sick acts with innocent children and even killed in the name of God. Well, I have a problem with associating God with any of that. Who said those people were ever really speaking for God in the first place?

It all comes back to the idea that there is evil in this world, and if you don't see it, you aren't looking very closely. It's there and it comes from a dark place. But, if you look closely enough, you can see the times when God really was there looking out for people. Though he doesn't believe it, maybe God was looking out for Seth too?

I don't know who God is, what gender God is (if a gender at all) or any of that, but I do believe God is love. God watches out for those who have God in their hearts. People can mock that idea all they want. However, there may come a day when those people will pray that God was there. Will God answer those prayers then?  If they have good in their hearts, I wouldn't doubt it.