Open Road ( #AtoZChallenge )

When self-driving cars become a reality, sometimes I'm going to take over the wheel when I'm on the open road...

           If my This Is Me series has consisted of a series of clues leading to what I'm talking about in the posts of said series then this post will be at the center of everything.  To put this another way, I think at the end of this Challenge you will be able to connect all posts with this post.  Not that anyone would likely do such a thing, but I'm just saying that's what would happen.

          Just keep in mind that now I'm winging this Challenge with day to day posts that are basically stream of consciousness   This doesn't mean topic focus is lost in my meandering.  I'm getting there, but just thinking as I go.

          Go where?

          The Open Road:  I've been traveling down this road a long time now, but I'd like to keep on going.  Just give me the gold and I'm on that road.  I've got this thing for touring.

          Stream-of-consciousness right there.  I might keep that.  But my real point is that there is something to this post called "Open Road" that is at the center of my series and maybe even my entire blog.  I'm going to stop this post here.  But the thoughts are living on.  I'm on that metaphorical road.

          How often do you use travel as a metaphor?  Do you ever write your blog posts in stream-of-consciousness style?   Did you get any sense of what I  was saying in this post?

The Big Magic Show of Life

         Maybe this blog post will be committing a grave breach of trust to the magic profession, but I never took any official magician's code swearing to keep secrecy.  Besides what I'm going to reveal is something that was obvious to whatever audience member was looking at it--that is if anyone actually saw it.  However this is not so much a story about a great magician's performance of a specific trick as it is an allegory. 

Tarot card from the Rider-Waite tarot deck, also known as the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Masters of Deception and Misdirection

        Years ago I went to see a stage production of a famous magician who was on tour with his wife and a sizable cast of performers and stage crew.  Prior to seeing the show a magician friend of mine told me to watch one particular aspect of an illusion which would blatantly expose how the trick was done right in plain sight of the audience.  The trick featured the vanishing of a large cage with a large duck in it.   When the time came for the vanishing duck routine, I carefully watched as I had been instructed.

         A farm setting appeared on stage complete with bales of hay and farm implements.  The magician and his wife introduced the duck and put it in an ornate cage.  All around were dancers dressed in straw hats and overalls circling and leaping about in a frenzied choreographed routine as lively hoedown music was played by a live orchestra.  As the dancers pranced and whirled about, the magician placed the duck cage into another box.  Suddenly one of the dancers stage left took a spectacular fall throwing the other dancers into a confused panic.  The magician and his wife displayed alarm as they moved to see if the dancer was okay.  Fortunately, the dancer leaped back up dusting himself off and signaled in a comic way that all was okay.  The audience breathed a collective sigh of relief.  Without too much of a break in the action, the magician quickly collapsed the box surrounding the cage, but the cage with the duck had vanished!

      Though it was difficult for me not to be distracted by the dancer's spill and the confusion that ensued, I instead kept my eyes on the box covering the duck cage.  Simultaneous with the dancer's fall, I saw the duck cage yanked off  stage right by a rope that had been attached to it.  The cage slid quickly across the stage into the wings. Right there for all to see.  But so much was happening on the stage that it would be unlikely that anyone would notice unless they were specifically looking like I was doing.

         Performance magic is about confusion and distraction. It can also be about subtle misdirection. There are magicians all around us in our everyday lives.  They are on television or they are people we encounter in the course of the day.  Sometimes there is so much going on that we miss little details in life.  Those details usually can explain everything, but they can be so mundane.  It's so much more entertaining to watch the spectacle of all that is going on and to believe that the magic is real.  Or if not magic, then conspiracies or some other fanciful explanation to all that goes on.

         What mystifies you most about the world?    How do you feel when you've been fooled and don't know how the trick was done?   Is magic more apt to evoke a smile from you or a pouty scowl?





     

Power of the mind

 Unlimited Potential of the Human Mind (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

   
      If you saw Guilie Castillo Oriard's guest post from Wednesday, you know what song I've picked for my Battle of the Bands post this Sunday November 15th.  She's already told you that I'll be using the Mexican hit song "Preso" which was originally performed by José José .  If you missed Guilie's post I hope you'll go back to check it out and leave her a word of encouragement or whatever you want to tell her.   And though I don't need to give any more song clues, I will continue to stay on the topic that Guilie and I have been discussing--prison as a metaphor.

        Actually I'd like to expand on the subject of the mind and how it can affect our physical existence and our perception of our world.  This is a huge topic so I can only scratch the surface in one single blog post.  I'll return to this one day I'm sure.  It's the kind of topic you could write a book about and many have already been written.

The Mental Prison Metaphor

      If we are considering a metaphorical prison we are not necessarily dealing with a physical place with walls and locked doors, nor are we thinking of sentencing times administered by a judge.  A symbolic prison metaphor instead entails a matter of the personal perception of ones own circumstance.  We may feel trapped by real things such as a job, a relationship, or a financial situation for example, but in reality if we are able to adjust our own thinking we can be free from that prison of perception.   The prison devised by the mind is confining, but only to the extent that the mind is willing or able to do this.

      The mind has extraordinary power that most, if not all of us have not tapped. Our minds can set us free or keep us imprisoned.  Knowledge of how to use the mind can help us find that freedom, but sometimes we settle into a comfortable place that fears any change in our situation.  We are mostly confined by that fear and the unwillingness to step out of the comfort zone.

        Fear, health, finances, or personal circumstances can all be forces that hold us back, but ultimately these are mostly a matter of mind.   The mind can put all of these things into proper perspective and even control the root of the problems.  Indeed, the mind can make us sick as well as bring us healing.  What we are and what we do with what we have available to us is measured by and ultimately controlled by the mind.      

       What powers do you think the human mind has?   What holds you back from overcoming your life obstacles by using the power of your mind?    Do you think the power of suggestion is viable to influencing your personal condition or do you think this is mostly an illusion?


         Join me here on Sunday November 15th for the Battle of the Bands showdown between two very different cover versions of José José's "Preso".  

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