Dreaming...

Do you know what one of the most taken for granted freedoms in America and the democratic world is?...

Dreaming...

Our capacity for the American dream...and for dreaming, generally...

The ability to imagine something better...for yourself...for the world...whatever...

And the freedom to realize that dream...and to make it happen...

I have many dreams...

A freer world...where free peoples taken freedom seriously...and support one another to choose better lives, freely...and, as much as possible, without coercion...

A world where people become better people...and treat each other better...because it's the right thing to do...and who have the freedom to treat each other however, within some limits, without persistent power battles...as they promote stronger consciences...for themselves...and for others...

There's a million elements to my vision of a better world...

But there's one dream, in particular, that I have...that I'd most like to see realized during my lifetime...

I'd like to meet a girl...who shares similar ideals...who shares an open appreciation of similar universal values...a girl who's honest...and sweet...and compassionate...and generous...and courageous...and mature...

Someone with a sense of perspective...and a great sense of humor...someone with a healthy libido...and whom I'm attracted to, primarily, because she's just so damned impressive as a human being...

Someone who I admire...and look up to...and who inspires me...and makes me want to be a better person...

At each point in my life I've had this with the person I've been with...though as I grow, my standards for what impresses me are raised as well...

I'd like to meet someone who can keep up intellectually...that's my secret dream that I feel almost embarrassed to admit because it's so rare to meet people of that kind of intelligence...

I guess I'm just feeling kind of uninspired, right now...because I can dream about that kind of person all I want...

But I have very little control, at all, over whether or not she shows up in my life...I meet many girls who seem interested...but I've yet to meet anyone, including the teacher at my school I was interested in but for whom my interest is waning the more I get to know her, who really fits the bill...who really seems like my soul-mate...

And maybe that will have the effect of making the heart grow fonder when I finally meet that girl...

In the meantime, though...

My life is fine...but it still feels uninspired...

Melissa and I have talked about cleaning up the apartment to invite some people over and then I'd have some people to feel inspired to cook for...

And I think I understand, now, why so many women feel so attached to their families...

Because once their husbands die...or if one or the other of them end their marriage...

Finding another soulmate is a really drawn-out process...at least it's been so for me...

I suppose I would likely find a close friend who would essentially be my significant other if my spouse were to die before I do...

But finding a soul-mate...finding someone that you really share that kind of deep and knowing love with...

Turns out to be a really rare thing, I'm learning, much to my misfortune...

That saddens me, immensely, I have to say...and it's nooone's fault, of course...it's just life...

But it's one of life's greater natural tragedies, I think...

Almost invariably the better moments in my life have been when I was in love...and I've been feeling more ready for it, in the last few weeks and, especially, in the last few days, than I have in quite a long time...

I guess I'm getting over Brandi, more authentically...and I've matured quite a bit, personally...

And I'm more consistently passing up opportunities to have casual sex...

Which allows me to freely choose...to relive a part of my young adulthood that I really loved and that I really love to relive...

Which is when I was a young high school and college student...

And I just wait to date people...and I would always look for love...

I didn't have any casual affairs, per se, when I was a kid...I lost my virginity to a friend rather than to a girlfriend...but it was a very loving, tender experience that I really value in retrospect far more than the casual encounters I've had since then...

And before Brandi...all of my most intimate encounters were loving...rather than merely sexual...

And I've missed that feeling...that I haven't had, completely, since Brandi and I were together...

I guess because of a broken heart...perhaps within and after Brandi's and my relationship...

But I miss being in love something fierce deep down in my soul...

I want to be passionate about someone again...I want to be passionate about life again...I want someone to support me in that passion...to nurture it...and to tell me every day and every night that it's worth it...that someone else thinks that it matters...that someone else cares like I do...or preferably more...

I miss that kind of love...truly, madly, deeply...

I haven't seen anything like it in several years...

But I also have faith...now based on experience...that generally things get better over the long haul...even as we might face setbacks in the short run...

It would be nice to talk with someone who really understood the world and people, better...who had wisdom to share with me...who understood my concerns...or who didn't and disagreed and made powerful arguments against my ideas in ways that I found persuasive (something that would be quite a feat, I must admit, since I've found nothing even close, up to this point, even among the most brilliant thinkers:):):)...

Someone who values freedom the way I do...and who values people that way, too...

Someone who I would watch with people and think, "How the hell can they all take so for granted what an incredible person they have amongst their midst?"...

That's the girl I want to marry...and to spend my life with...

But right now, she's just a dream...

I've not met that girl...Brandi was as close as I've come...as much, in great part, because we nurtured each other's dreams as because of anything that was Brandi alone...

I imagine it's just harder, at this point in my life, to find someone like that...because my standards have just been upped so much...

It's been a long time since I've felt free to dream like I've been dreaming lately...

I feel like C.S. Lewis...tapping into a tender, beautiful, imaginative part of himself to share with children and adults, alike, to help then transcend their own smaller, pettier priorities...to help them to aspire for something more beautiful and substantial...and dreaming of a relationship that might be worthy of his love...

I'm listening to this far too ugly and mindless debate about illegal immigration in the United States, right now...

And I just want to believe that we have something better to offer our children...than this ugliness and foolishness...

And now I understand why people would freely abandon their opportunity to pillage and plunder in the world for their own benefit...to paint a picture of a better world...

Because this world is just so uninspired...and uninspiring...

And inspiration is something that is too rare...and too deeply needed to abandon...

How could I possibly look at the world as it is and say to myself...

"This the world that I want for my children"...

"I want a world where we fight over the pettiest priorities...where noone takes responsibility, really...where everyone looks for someone to blame or pressure or sue or strongarm or threaten or otherwise demand that they get their way, whether it serves them or anyone else or not, for real...where hurting one another is done too lightly...and being thoughtful about how we use power is far too rare"...

"I want a world where people forever take freedom for granted...no matter how much it offers them opportunities not possible without it...where people, generally, never really appreciate, fully, the beauty of really powerful drama...or really insightful thought...or deep meaning in even their every day lives, so absorbed are they in the smallness of the world as it is...and so much do they perpetuate that smallness with their whining and bitching and moaning and demanding lives that they feel no responsibility to create"...

"I am satisfied with a world where people don't really ever fully appreciate a moving story or film or book or poem or artwork or play or other creative production...or a powerful connection with other human beings...or completely experience the moment of a beautiful sunset, or a rainy drive through the Pacific Northwest, or looking up into a California Redwood, or a mountain landscape against an ocean background, or snowshoeing through Estes Park, or any such similar natural wonders"...

"Because they're all just so complacent in their smallness...and in the smallness of the world"...

But I just couldn't possibly be satisfied with that world...with this world...in that way...

And I want someone, again, with whom I can dream of a better world...

It's been a long time since I've done that with someone...

And I've really only done it once in my life...

But I'm ready again...to do that with someone who's ready...when that will be I don't think I'll ever know...until I meet her, I suppose:):)...

I'd better get home, here, soon:):)...

I hope everyone is having a great beginning of the week...

Though my Shocks lost on Friday...I did realize, today, that what I think my colleagues -- especially my older colleagues -- so appreciate about me, right now...is my undaunted positive attitude...in the face of so many reasons...so many excuses...to be uninspired...

Somehow I still find inspiration...

What I want is someone to offer that kind of inspiration to me, as well...

Have a good week, everyone:):):)...

Love,
Ben