One of the little innocent joys in my life is to walk to the mailbox a block away, listening to the radio on my headphones. I usually go sometime after Judge Judy is over. There is some really good music on the radio at that time of day and later. Sometimes I'm walking in the dark, listening to some Pink Floyd or Bob Seegar, looking at the moon and clouds, if there are any, feeling the warm air. Ah. Very nice.
We went to Walmart today, and before we left, I checked the battery in my radio and it was charged. Tonight, when I got ready for my walk to the mailbox, I plugged in my earphones, turned on my radio and it turned off. I checked the battery and it was dead. Why? I dunno.
I was going to wait until the battery charged to go to the mailbox, but then I decided, "what the hell." I decided to go anyhow, see what that was like - going without my music.
What happened was that I began thinking about things. It took me back to a time when one of my greatest joys was not listening to music, but just walking and thinking on my way to Weatherstones or downtown, or just sitting on my front porch, thinking. I had forgotten how much fun that was.
I was also reminded of the time I was with the Moonies for the weekend. They didn't like to be called that, they wanted to be called, the "Unification Church." But everybody except them called them, "Moonies," after their leader, Reverend Moon.
I really liked being there. It was fun. However, it was one of those cults that don't like you to ever be by yourself. I had two young cuties assigned to me so that I would never be alone. Even when I had to go to the bathroom, they waited outside for me.
They were very attentive to me, but when I no longer hung out with the Moonies, they cut me cold. They called what they had been doing, "love bombing." Females of course, got male attendants.
I wanted to come back the next weekend, but I had a reservation I tried to resolve by talking to the guy that was in charge of our group. I told him I would really like to come back another day, but I needed some time alone to think every once in awhile while I was there - that I could not stand not having some "me" time now and then. He said that wasn't possible, so that was that. Too bad. Ah, well.
I understood from this that all those people there - two or three hundred? never had time alone to think. Busy, busy busy.
It didn't seem to bother them, that they had no time to just think about things. Of course if they ever did, they wouldn't stay with the Moonies very long and that was the whole point of the exercise of never being alone or not busy. Too easy to lose followers if they started thinking about what they were doing. That's true also of any group that relies upon desciples for its existence - not just religious groups like the Moonies, but also political parties, and of course, my biggest bone of contention, people who are unconsciously under the sway of cultural conditioning.
No comments:
Post a Comment