Disney Wishes

     It's been about five days since we began our vacation travels.  I have learned much in this short period of time, whether or not they are things that I wanted or needed to learn is another matter.  Learned...? No... remembered, reminded... reobserved the unchanging belly that is the beast of an America.

     Allow me to begin by saying that I understand, perhaps better than you do, how hypocritical my recent journal entries seem after you hear that I spent this past weekend at both Disney World and Universal Studios.  The best I can do is to say that I have attempted to view this entire experience from hungry eyes.  Back home, from the comforts of my cemented basement walls, it's dangerously easy to presume that the world in which I live is similar to that of the rest of the world.  This vacation has reminded me the folly and danger of that thinking.  Some lessons can only be learned from travel and experience, I'll do my best to share with you the most recent of what has come unto me.

     From the very beginning, the planning of this vacation had me feeling very apprehenive.  The core of planned vacation activities were things that I absolutely wanted to partake in, seeing my old friends and their family, hiking in Tennessee, and spending some quality time with Brianna.  What bothered me about this vacation were the amusement park plans.  Yes, of course I wanted to see and experience Harry Potter World, but the bigger picture is a difficult reality for my changing core values to properly handle.  Imagine my changing core values as a no nonsense Monk with a very balanced view of the modern world (let's call him Gary). Now imagine that Disney World is a Titty bar and that Gary has been forced to spend several days in the dirty little stripe club and it's variety of patrons.  Gary is a very level headed, he realizes that good can be found in the oddest of places, but there are many places he would rather be practicing his meditations.

     Before we left on the trip, I felt like enduring the amusement parks would be a struggle for me because their existence is an affront to so many of my beliefs and feelings.  How much more wrong could I have been?  The amusement parks are not a personal affront at all, the world is, as a whole,  in stark contrast and disagreement with my beliefs, if not in thought, then certainly in practice. Yes, I am also an affront to myself, I'm working on it.

     I know what you might be thinking, "If you don't like how things are in this country, feel free to leave." Unfortunately, this is a world problem that cannot be run or moved away from.  When fight or flight takes over and flight is no longer an option, we fight.  We fight apathy, we fight hate, we fight gluttony, we fight selfishness, we fight consumerism, we fight people.  

     I realize that this blog has been a lot of words without really saying much.  My emotions have been hard for me to process and put into words, like eating ice cream when you're still full from dinner, it tastes great, and makes you feel like a fat wasteful fuck.  Well, it should make you feel all of those things, some people just feel fat and happy.  Finally, a paragraph with some meaning behind the words.  Let's talk again soon.