Go back to sleep

I found it difficult to sleep last night; so much going on in my mind that I kept wondering what more could I have done to express those thoughts. I would venture a guess that quite a few of you may have the same issues invading your sleep.

On the lighter side; there was an added factor that caused some tossing and turning all on its own; that is if you believe that one thought is totally removed from another. From a grammatical standpoint, is tossing and turning redundant; not that it will alter anything, it's just that you never hear about tossing all night with out the turning too?

I had a portion of a tune running in the background of my dream, the dream's setting I have no conscious memory of; however, that little bit of the tune bothered me. I remember listening, in my dream that is, to the notes up until it became obvious that I had forgotten the rest of the tune. I kept going back to get one more group of notes, add that one extra line that would identify the tune. It went on and on, here an extra set of notes and then; bang, I finally figured out that I had been listening to Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto, played by Van Cliburn as opposed to some of the other versions I have enjoyed. I even recall the feeling of relief that I had been able to figure it out, even to the point of telling my self that I could now go back to sleep; in my dream I was telling myself it was okay to go back to sleep.

We are a fascinating species, mankind as a whole. We worry about how life, with all its variables, will turn out for us while at the same time our awareness of the plight of others enters our thoughts. I read a blog Fearless Philosohpy For Free Minds, about the "Virtue of Selfishness" ( link via title bar) where he came to the conclusion "There are no selfless acts". I don't want to get into a word semantics debate, which is basically how he came to such a conclusion; but I think there is a piece to his puzzle of words missing. Other than a few minor sticking points I would agree with a good deal of how he approached the topic.

Without beating the Terri Shiavo issue to death, pardon the poor choice of words, it would be safe to say that most of us have been troubled by our thoughts whether or not we agree or disagree on how it is being presented as an issue, those thoughts are present in our minds. How could we better explain our reasons, our justifications, the laws involved and every other translucent "fact" in such a way as to be assured that we have done everything we can before going off for our own rest each night? These unfinished thoughts are what dreams and nightmares area made of.

In the movie, "The Green Mile", there is a scene where the Tom Hank's character is troubled by his responsibilities as the prison guard on death row; a man who knows in his heart and mind that the State is about to execute one of "God's Miracles". While he is explaining those feelings to his wife he realizes that on the day of his own judgment he will be brought before the bar of God and have to explain his actions. I wish I could recall the exact line, "I have done many things over the course of my life, some of which I am not too proud; but this, this is the first time I have felt that my eternal soul was at risk." A tip of the hat to Stephen King for being sensitive to such deep human qualities and the ability to express them; I was not that big a fan of his until he evolved from raw shock value writing and evolved into "Shawshank Redemption" and "Green Mile" writing abilities. I had not intended to turn this into a book review column, my apologies.

In my previous posting I shared "Happy Little Mountains", an oil on canvass that I painted. This newer posting is an acrylic on canvass (untitled), painted back before we had children ( BC ). I have included it with this particular blog for a reason. The picture started out as a vision in my dreams; the kind where you want to wake up, turn on the light and jot the thought down so you don't forget it and then go back to sleep. The interesting part was that the vision was similar to what you see when you turn on a light after having been asleep; that blinding light with the fog of sleep around the edges. I sketched the vision, pencil on a piece of typing paper, and in the morning I was happily surprised to find that I really had drawn what I had wanted, rather than a few scribbles falling off a piece of paper. I then transferred that, along with my memory of the colors, to canvass. (circa 1975)

If I start having dreams on where to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow I'll be sure to write that down and share it in another blog. Until then, may our hearts and minds find peace in the knowledge that we are not a selfish people, not by my definition of selfish.